The CFL would love to take its new broadcasting agreement with ESPN and turn it into something even bigger down the road.
That is the reason why the league entered into an exclusive, multi-year deal with “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” late last month. One ESPN platform or another will carry every CFL game this season.
“What we are looking at is something that gives us great exposure, and what we hope for after a four- or five-year period is that we’ll be able to really build an audience with ESPN and build a U.S. audience,” CFL commissioner Mark Cohon said earlier this month.
Last year the network aired six games on ESPN2 and another package of contests on ESPN3, its digital network. Cohon said the ESPN2 matches drew approximately 300,000 viewers south of the border, and the network was happy with the results.
“The ESPN2 games did adequate in the spots we programmed them,” Gregg Morriss, ESPN’s manager of programming and acquisitions, told the Sun.
“It was more kind of an experiment to see how they would do, and they met those expectations. Now, with a little more consistency and having more ability to do more games, working directly with the league, we see some upside there.”
Cohon is shooting for the stars. ESPN was part of a new broadcasting deal with Major League Soccer in May. Three networks, including ESPN, are reportedly paying a combined $90 million per season for the MLS broadcasting rights.
“I’m not saying that we can get to an MLS-style deal, but if you look at Major League Soccer, they had similar sized audiences,” Cohon said.
“Over time, five years from now or six years from now, it would be great if this league was announcing a major deal in the U.S. with some revenues for the league.”
The current deal with ESPN is only just the beginning, as Cohon said it is netting the league only six figures. The fact every game can be seen on one network is likely the best news for the CFL, which ESPN aired often during its early days.
“We’ve had a fairly long history with the league, kind of stretching back to our inception in the early ’80s. There’s some familiarity there,” Morriss said. “And certainly the growth of the appetite for football in the U.S. is, as it’s stretched to a year-round proposition, this is really quality content for us to program in the off-season for the NFL — especially in the summer. But we also think there’s some appeal to it into the fall, and having digital networks now to be able to distribute all the games is certainly helpful in that regard.”
Morriss said the number of people watching the CFL on the digital platform of ESPN3 is not huge, but they are engaged.
“It’s not the largest audience, but they’re staying and they’re watching a lot,” Morriss said. “Now we’re just trying to find a way to get more people in that door. Once they’re in there, I think they’ll stay.”
OPPORTUNITY LOST
ESPN was going to show one CFL game on its main network this summer, but it has decided to push it back to ESPN3.
The contest was going to be Hamilton’s second home game at brand new Tim Hortons Field, on July 31 against Winnipeg, but the park isn’t ready yet, so the game is moving to McMaster’s Ron Joyce Stadium.
“Originally this game was scheduled to be on ESPN to showcase Hamilton’s new stadium,” ESPN said in a statement.
“But since the game has been moved to Ron Joyce Stadium, it will now be carried on ESPN’s live multi-screen sports network, ESPN3. ESPN will explore opportunities to feature Hamilton’s new stadium on one of its linear TV networks later on in the season.”
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