Jump to content
  • MLS and TSN: a match-day made in heaven?


    Guest

    Love it or loathe it, Canada’s venerable ESPN-look-alike The Sports Network is now the new official “national” home of Major League Soccer in Canada. While the news is old hat to CSN, it officially broke yesterday with a full schedule of broadcast games released to the public. So we now know that all matches will be broadcast in HD (yay!), that TSN will show both matches of Canada’s newest footballing derby between Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps (double yay!), and that TSN2 will pick up a few of the Whitecaps games (umm). Meanwhile the “local market” matches still have to be sorted out among Gol TV/Sportsnet/CBC whatever.

    [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

    So what should we expect from TSN in the years ahead with regard to MLS? There are several schools of thought on this issue. For some, presentation is everything, down to the half-time panelists TSN chooses, the play-by-play analysis, and when in the Sportscentre line-up TSN will choose to show MLS highlight reels. The thinking here is that TSN will have to find the perfect presentational alchemy to convince viewers outside the Vancouver/TFC markets about the quality of MLS, and thereby magically build a solid, loyal viewership among the coveted 18-35 year-old demographic nationwide.

    For others (and I’m in this camp), simply showing the games when they say they will with no pre-emption or interruption is enough. I’ve seen Premier League matches on ESPN, Sky Sports, ITV, BBC, and Fox Soccer Channel; after a while, it doesn’t make a difference who the talking heads are, what the intro music is and how many ad graphics the network feels they can get away with showing. At the end of the day, if I want to see Fulham v. Chelsea, I’m going to see it. And if Joe Blow in Saskatoon doesn’t care a fig about Vancouver Whitecaps versus the Houston Dynamo, no measure of highlight reels or Sportscentre promos is going to change his mind.

    Still, there are some significant “atmospheric” advantages with TSN taking the MLS baton from the CBC. For one, TSN is a dedicated sports network, which accounts for some of the success of the Canadian Football League broadcasts since TSN acquired the rights to show all the games back in 2008. CFL-lovers know they have a friend in TSN because it’s in the network’s best interests to feature as much tertiary information as possible on the league during the lengthy Sportscentre repeats to help build an audience for game-day. Meanwhile Canada’s CFL fence-sitters, exposed to highlights and features alongside NHL and NBA roundups, take the league a little more seriously if only because they’re exposed to it by a kind of “Sportscentre osmosis.”

    You can imagine the same thing happening as TSN decides to comingle its European soccer coverage with MLS news, table info, and upcoming fixtures along with reminders that “you can watch that game live in HD this afternoon, right here on TSN.” As we move into the 2012, 2013, 2014 seasons, with Montreal and Vancouver firmly established in the mix alongside Toronto, TSN’s dedication to MLS will start to give the league a “mainstream” veneer. While MLS-haters won’t ever watch no matter what sort of bells and whistles TSN adds to the games, more middle-ground MLS skeptics, plied with regular updates on TFC’s or TVW’s table position, might decide to stick around for an afternoon game or two. That’s a sustainable model for audience growth, and it seems to have worked once for the CFL.

    Still, some TSN's CFL success might have just come down to the fact they show all CFL games exclusively, an advantage they don't yet have with MLS. And as I wrote last week, TSN still has to play catch-up with regard to its online soccer presence, which is integral in a country where soccer fans heavily rely on the web for much of their information on the Beautiful Game. Success is not guaranteed but, if only by default, MLS’ decision to go with TSN means professional soccer is now firmly entrenched in the sporting landscape in Canada in a way it hasn't been in years, whether you like it or not.

    CSN media columnist Richard Whittall writes A More Splendid Life, one of the Guardian’s 100 blogs to look for in 2011. He’s written for Tom Dunmore’s Pitch Invasion, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, among others, and has appeared on BBC World Service, TSN, and the Guardian’s Football Weekly podcast.



×
×
  • Create New...