CFL leads the way, edging out Sportsnet One

While only one of the Canadian Football League's Labour Day weekend ``classics" came close to matching the title, it was a pretty successful weekend for three-down football.

The high-water mark came Sunday when TSN set a regular-season ratings record for CFL games when an average of 1.34 million viewers watched Saskatchewan defeat Winnipeg. The rest of the games did pretty well, too, with one topping 1 million and the other two coming close.

The Blue Jays did well, too, with Rogers Sportsnet attracting more than 600,000 for each of its two weekend games. Friday's outing, we'll assume, didn't do as well.

Assumptions are necessary because the game was on Rogers Sportsnet One and Sportsnet isn't giving out those ratings. That's because it's still available only to Rogers digital customers and 4,000 people in Fenelon Falls. 

Judging by the flood of emails I've received from readers, the channel is rapidly becoming known as Sportsnet None. And it's not just angry Blue Jays fans who are airing their displeasure. A lot of soccer fans who bought Setanta Sports are more than a little peeved that some of their games have been siphoned off to Sportsnet One. Some are threatening to cancel Setanta, as well as their Rogers cable.

The most compelling come from Jays fans, though. If Rogers had had any idea who it was harming with this badly handled move, it might have reconsidered and maybe launched after the baseball season. Some of these stories are enough to melt hearts, though apparently not those at the cable companies.

 In addition to the dozens of seniors whose lives revolved around watching the Jays was one man who spent three evenings a week watching the Jays while undergoing dialysis. Because the hospital doesn't get Sportsnet One, he can't. How's that for shafting your loyal fans? 

This is a major fan uprising, dwarfing the revolt that surrounded the TSN2-Rogers battle. And the Jays revolution will seem like a mosquito on an elephant's butt in comparison to what will happen if this isn't settled before the first hockey games are scheduled to air on Sportsnet One.

Here the most-watched sports events on English-language Canadian TV over the weekend, according to BBM Canada overnight ratings:

1. CFL, Blue Bombers at Roughriders, Sunday, TSN: 1,340,000

2. CFL, Eskimos at Stampeders, Monday, TSN: 1,083,000

3. CFL, Lions at Alouettes, Friday, TSN: 914,000

4. CFL, Argonauts at Tiger-Cats, Monday, TSN: 879,000

5. MLB, Blue Jays at Yankees, Sunday, Sportsnet: 703,000

6. MLB, Blue Jays at Yankees, Saturday, Sportsnet: 631,000

7. Auto racing, NASCAR Sprint Cup, Sunday, TSN: 426,000

8. Tennis, U.S. Open, Saturday, TSN: 268,000

9. Tennis, U.S. Open, Friday, TSN: 153,000

10. Tennis, U.S. Open, Monday, TSN: 128,000

OTHER STUFF : TSN anchor Dan O'Toole is part of a group planning a 650-kilometre bicycle ride to raise money for charity. Among the group leaving from Long Island on Saturday are former NHLers Steve Webb and Rob Zamuner. They're headed for Peterborough, Ont. and aim to be coming through Toronto on Sept. 18. Funds raised will go to Alzheimer's research and Webb's scholarship foundation. For details on how to donate, go to www.w20foundation.org. ... NFL junkies will have more to cheer about this season, as TSN2 is now airing games. It will air an early Sunday game, giving viewers an alternative if they don't like what's on CTV or the American channels. ... They'll also be able to get 42 live NFL games and the Super Bowl on their mobile phones, assuming they have the appropriate Bell Mobility phone. The Bell package also includes highlights and NFL Network programming.

Comments

[Mullah_Kintyre]

Mr. Zelkovich, is it possible for BBM to provide you with Toronto ratings, instead of (or in addition to) national ratings?

Although I was unable to find more regionalized breakdowns of the national ratings for sports events, I was able to find lists of the top 30 TV shows of all types, not just sports, for Calgary and Toronto for weeks in 2006 through 2009.

Most illustrative of the CFL's comparative insignificance in Toronto were the lists of the top 30 TV shows for the weeks in November when the CFL has its division semi-finals and division finals. During those weeks in Toronto the CFL playoffs were never listed in the top 30 TV shows of the week, even in 2006 and 2007 when the Argos were in the East division final.

In Calgary the CFL playoffs were always on the list, often 1st or 2nd. For example in 2007 after the Stampeders had already been eliminated by losing the Western semi (1st on list, East 18th), the next week the West and East division final games were 2nd and 21st respectively on the list of Calgary's top 30 most-watched TV shows of the week.

While a random NFL regular season game would occasionally appear on Toronto's top 30 lists in autumn months, it looked like the Grey Cup was the only time the CFL would make it.

[Mike]

Wait a minute, the ratings are compiled and released by BBM. Why does it matter if Rogers doesn't want some of them released?

[tom]

what were the ratings for the monday CFL games?

[Ferd Buckles]

I think Rogers is willing to write off Jays ratings this rebuilding year, so disgruntled baseball fans will put pressure on their local cable company to carry the new channel. TSN did this 2 yrs ago by putting one CFL game on TSN2. This created so much hew and cry against the cable outlets, they relented and started carrying TSN2.

I guess now the NFL has started up, like last season this blog will expand to include Thursday night NFL games in the "weekend" sports ratings, but ignore other weekday sports?

[D M]

CFL Monday games were No 2 and 4 for the weekend.

1. CFL, Blue Bombers at Roughriders, Sunday, TSN: 1,340,000

2. CFL, Eskimos at Stampeders, Monday, TSN: 1,083,000

3. CFL, Lions at Alouettes, Friday, TSN: 914,000

4. CFL, Argonauts at Tiger-Cats, Monday, TSN: 879,000

[Rick Grace]

Rogers is dreaming if they think there's gonna be a national outcry because people can't watch the Toronto Blue Jays?
I mean come on.
Outside of Toronto the Jays are a non entity.
Rogers thinking they can sell a channel nationally because they're gonna carry the Blue Jays and Raptors explains why they thought they could sell Buffalo Bills tickets for 500 bucks a pop.
They just don't understand sports in Canada.

[DLind]

Rick ...

I'm no fan of Rogers, but I'm not sure we can say they don't understand sports in Canada (Bills thing notwithstanding).

Sportsnet made $40 million last year. More than TSN.

Non Torontonians may not care about the Raptors and Jays - but don't forget there are 8 million people within two hours of Toronto. That's 1/4 of the country. That's a pretty important market to cater to.

[Brett S]

It's always great to see sports ratings increase, and it's obvious that the Riders are Canada's team when it comes to the CFL. Mullah, I wouldn't be surprised that the West Final in '07 was #2 TV show in Calgary that week, I honestly think there are as many Rider fans in that city as Stamp fans. And Rick, saying that no one outside the GTA cares about the Blue Jays is extremely innacurate. I mean look at the ratings, it's obvious those numbers aren't all from the GTA. It's like saying all the people watching the Riders-Bombers game were from the West. Give me a break

[Rick Grace]

40 million? Was that gross or net?
And sure there may be 8 million people in southern Ontario.
But not for baseball. And especially basketball.
The jays played tonight in front of a handful of people and the game couldn't be seen on Tv.
If you ask me this won't create any great demand for the Blue Jays.
In fact it may even marginalize them further.
Becuase the old motto "out of sight, out of mind" definitely applies here.

[CanadianSportsFan]

Sportsnet also spends a great deal less than TSN. TSN spends a lot on NHL, CFL, NFL, NBA Finals, golf majors and others things of that sort. Sportsnet has two major properties (MLB playoffs and NFL) along with regional NHL rights.

Ferd Buckles, the CFL game was on TSN2 because TSN had to carry the Ryder Cup (or whatever event it was) on the main network, it would be part of their broadcast contfact. That game was probably always going to end up on TSN Alternate.

[Mike]

Last year Sportsnet had $40,666,682 EBIT on total revenue of $186,010,744.
TSN had 40,263,902 EBIT on total revenue of $220,517,591. Almost all of the difference between the two can be attributed to higher advertising revenue and higher programing costs for TSN which offset each other.
Also, that was Sportsnet's highest EBIT for the last 5 years and TSN's lowest.

[Mike]

Also, there are no separate numbers for TSN2. Presumably whatever revenue/costs that channel has is embedded in the TSN finances (Sportsnet One will probably be the same way next year).

[dennis]

Sad but I have to agree with Rick Grace. Rogers keeps shooting itself in the foot when it comes to sports. They need to get out of the business if they can't do it properly.

However Rick, we are not all anglo-white, we do not all like hockey, so please show some respect to those.

[dennis]

Also, I would like to see some ratings for just the Toronto Area not the whole country.

[Fred]

According to BBM breakdown the GTA ratings for the Argo game was just over 405,000, not bad for a T.O. teams that no one cares about eh> thats beats the rest of any T.O teams other then the Leafs

[Fred]

Oh, and the GTA ratings are taking from downtown T.O. for 120 KM

[mike]

some people just can't take the fact that the CFL does so well on TV. There is no way the CFL would get the rating they get if people did not watch in T.O and southern ONT, I mean we got 8 million people in that region

[Mike]

Fred, where do you find the BBM breakdowns?

[Rick Grace]

Great numbers there Fred.
Another misguided theory shot down.
Guess people in Tranna do watch the Argos eh?
But I wonder what they'll think of next to try to prove the CFL is not that popular?
Should be a doozy.
Stay tuned people

[Mike]

That number would include both home markets watching for the Argos and watching for the Tigercats. I guess there is no way to breakdown it further is there?

[Peter Brown]

Rich & others, I don't recall anyone trying to argue that the CFL is not popular. That's an argument one would lose very quickly. I and others have argued that you can't use the high CFL ratings to prove that the NFL is *not* popular. Main reasons: First, viewers of U.S.-only programs are not measured by BBM since they don't watch Canadian commercials and are therefore not relevant to Canadian advertisers, who pay BBM. Second, most NFL games are competing with each other for viewership, while all CFL games are not. If you could find a way to measure the total number of people who watched NFL football on a Sunday afternoon, I think the number would rival CFL viewership. But, of course, I can't say that because I have no data. Third, you can't make conclusions about NFL fanship based upon the disastrous Bills in Toronto series. Why would anyone pay four times the Bills average ticket price just to see a game at Rogers Centre? For a really bad team? That most of us aren't fans of?

Finally, CFL fans, do you really need to be so negative and defensive? In Canada, the CFL is the big leagues. You could carry yourself with the maturity and class befitting a major league.

[Brad]

Peter Brown
Good post, and i agree with you for the most part, but you see as CFL fans, even when the data prove's otherwise, you always hear the loudmouth NFL fans dismissing the data, because him and his "friend" don;t watch the CFL and only watch the NFL. Me, I'm a football fan, i love both leagues, i prefer CFL, but it's great watching football for 8 month, when you enjoy both league. Most NFL can't really give you a solid reason why they hate the CFL, but boy do they fall for the shinny helmets and all the lights of the NFL. When you get older you reliaze that it just hype and sometime NFL games just don;t live up to the hype. I have found that lot's of so called NFL in T.O put there 5 bucks down in there office pool and really have no ideal about how the sport works, cause if they did, they would respect both leagues for there value

[Julian]

If what Fred is saying is true then the "local" rating also includes Hamilton as well as it is closer then 120km from downtown Toronto. So the ratings are still good but not as impressive as they appear to be because a significant portion of the audience that were watching were doing so because of the Ti-Cats.

[JGH]

Peter, extremely well said. Cheers.

[D Mitchell]

Peter the reason CFL fans are so defensive is because all we hear from so called experts is that nobody watches our games, nobody cares about the CFL and everyone (Toronto Media and business leaders) wants the NFL over the CFL. So when we see the data that proves the sport we love is more popular than what we were lead to believe from the elites we want to yell from the roof tops.