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Originally Posted by Acajack
This is only partly true. The CHL is the most attended sports league in Canada by a longshot, and how much coverage do they get in the national media? Do they even post CHL scores on the ticker on TSN SportsCentre? I don't believe so.
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They do, occasionally, IIRC. SN does obviously because they have CHL rights. What does TSN gain by promoting a lower-level product owned and broadcast by SN, outside of maybe contributing to their own NHL/World Juniors coverage?
They might be the most attended but only because there's 50+ teams of varying size split amongst three leagues. All other leagues are operating below ten Canadian teams. Obviously this is a caveat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
And they never get a mention during the sportscast unless it's the Memorial Cup. I may be mistaken but even the Memorial Cup national media coverage seems to have slipped a bit in recent years.
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SN shows occasional CHL highlights, not the mention the games on Saturdays that they broadcast. As a Francophile you should also be aware of the Q's TV coverage in Quebec.
If you aren't paying full attention the CHL Top Prospects game is on SN tonight, broadcasting from Red Deer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Your average kid in Corner Brook, Nfld. who's never played basketball except in phys ed class doesn't have an intergenerational family history with NCAA March Madness. It's clearly been *sold* to him and millions of other Canadians as a sports property they should absolutely be paying attention to.
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That's the business of sport in a nutshell, though. He's only even aware of March Madness because of media forces discussing it or showing it. You can make this argument pro or con just about anything if you wanted to, but at the end of the day something online/TSN sold him March Madness, just like how I learned cricket through watching a week's worth of IPL when I was sick via (new, at the time) SportsnetWorld.
I can watch just about any sport imaginable through the internet if I want to and that's something that SN/TSN can't control and something that people forty years ago couldn't do.
I agree that the CHL should have way more coverage than it otherwise gets in Canada but if you're looking for SN/TSN to be the leaders in developing sports in Canada you're looking in the wrong direction. Their motives are strictly financial, and there's more to be made off of NCAA/NFL/whatever. This isn't
just a TV avenue like it was forty years ago - SN/TSN can't control trends on Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat but they can control how their viewers view them through a Canadian/broadcasting lens. They show what they think is popular to maximize viewership. That's it. If that means it's football then it's football, if that means it's Mexican bull dancing then it's that. If they want to stay relevant then eventually it'll be eSports or whatever other trend arrives in the next decade.