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Rogers Sportsnet has given up the ball in the new NBA agreements negotiated with Canadian television networks.
Beginning next season, Sportsnet will be out as an NBA rights-holder. It will carry neither Toronto Raptors nor any other NBA games.
TSN and the CBC are expected to share the 12 Raptors games Sportsnet will lose.
The CBC will air between 15 and 20 games on Sunday afternoons, up from seven this season. TSN will increase its schedule to about 25 from 21.
Related Information
The Score will continue to air a large number of Raptors games, about 30, and is expected to increase its non-Raptors game content.
Over the past two seasons, Sportsnet's Raptors schedule has contracted, because the team's owner, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, has insisted the club receive national distribution.
TSN, CBC, the Score and club-owned Raptors NBA TV are national networks. But Sportsnet, a regional service, had difficulty finding a window for the NBA team because of a commitment to NHL regional telecasts.
MLSE, which owns NBA rights in Canada as well as Raptors' rights, packaged the Raptors and non-Raptors games together.
Since Sportsnet couldn't fit a significant number of Raptors games into a national schedule, it also lost non-Raptors games, which, in the past, had been useful as prime-time content in the various regions.
It's a setback for other reasons.
Sportsnet has regional TV deals with five of the six Canadian NHL teams, excluding the Montreal Canadiens.
But without NBA games, Sportsnet will have little to offer, except hockey, during the winter months in terms of major-league programming.
In Ontario, Sportsnet airs 30 Toronto Maple Leafs games, but without the NBA games to supplement the Leafs, the winter programming in that region will be particularly thin.
The new NBA deals are expected to be announced in the next week or two.
Million-dollar button
Canadian networks are jumping on the curling reality bandwagon.
The CBC is expected to announce shortly a $1-million fans' contest as part of its Grand Slam schedule in 2008-09. And TSN is planning a $1-million contest for its first year of Canadian Curling Association tournament coverage in 2008-09.
The contests will be organized in a manner similar to the TSN field-goal kicking and puck-shooting contests. TSN's million-dollar toss will likely take place during the 2009 Tim Hortons Brier.
Both competitions will involve sliding a rock onto or close to the button, although specifics have not been worked out. It's important, of course, for these things to be difficult, but not impossible.
- CBC's telecast of the Tim Hortons Brier semi-final on Saturday (Saskatchewan-Ontario) drew 812,000 viewers, up 24 per cent from last year's semi-final. The final on Sunday (Ontario-Alberta) was watched by 1.171 million, down 2 per cent from 2007.
TSN averaged 399,000 viewers for its Brier telecasts during the week, down 14 per cent from 2007. The most watched draw was Alberta-Saskatchewan on Friday (618,000). Online, traffic to TSN.ca's streams increased 38 per cent. - It was a 7-1 blowout by the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby didn't play, but NBC earned its highest overnight rating of the season for the Sunday afternoon Philadelphia Flyers-Penguins telecast: a 1.1 (percentage of potential households tuned in). Regionally, NBC earned a 9.7 rating in Pittsburgh, which is huge, and a 1.5 in Philadelphia.
- Good for the Score to provide full coverage of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport men's basketball tournament last weekend. A year ago, the CIS games conflicted with the Score's coverage of the U.S. college men's basketball tournament and ended up streamed on the Internet. The Score's tournament average audience of 77,000 is a record.
- NHL Network yesterday began simulcasting XM Satellite Radio's noon-hour (EDT) show, NHL Live, with co-hosts Don La Greca, a New York radio personality, and E.J. Hradek, a former NHL scout. The commentary seemed tame, but the show gives NHL Network a window of live programming during the day.
- Sports Illustrated on Thursday will unveil a free online service called the SI Vault, a database consisting of all SI articles and pictures. The traffic and advertising money spent on the new website is expected to produce 5 per cent of SI's online revenue.
Rating the weekend
| EVENT | NETWORK | VIEWERS | SKINNY |
| Friday | |||
| Curling. Alta.-Sask. | TSN | 618,000 | TSN's largest Brier audience of the week |
| Basketball. Laval-Acadia CIS quarter-final | Score | 41,000 | Good start to CIS tournament |
| Basketball. Raptors-Nuggets | Sportsnet | 93,000 | Later start than usual (9 p.m. EDT) |
| Basketball. Carleton-Alberta | Score | 84, 000 | CIS audience close to Raptors |
| Saturday | |||
| Soccer. Liverpool-Reading | Sportsnet | 98,000 | Liverpool fans tune in |
| Skiing. World Cup finals | CBC | 101,000 | The usual for skiing |
| Curling. Ont.-Sask. Brier semi-final | CBC | 812,000 | Well up from 655,000 in 2007 |
| Hockey. Women's final, Man.-PEI | TSN | 44,000 | Not bad |
| Basketball. Western-Brock CIS semi-final | Score | 73,000 | Excellent number |
| Hockey. NHL regionals | CBC | 1.227 mil. | Up from 1.176 million average |
| Hockey. Isles-Habs | RDS | 851,000 | Well up from RDS 698,000 average |
| Hockey. Oilers-Coyotes | CBC | 603,000 | Down from 702,000 average |
| Basketball. Acadia-Carleton CIS semi -final | Score | 118,000 | Largest CIS audience of weekend |
| Sunday | |||
| Auto racing. Australian Grand Prix | TSN | 123,000 | Good F-1 audience |
| Soccer. Manchester City-Tottenham | Score | 50,000 | Below average |
| Auto racing. Food City 500 | TSN | 244,000 | NASCAR's core audience |
| Skiing. World Cup finals | CBC | 102,000 | The usual |
| Basketball. Brock-Acadia CIS final | Score | 58,000 | Up 53 per cent from 2007 |
| Curling. Ont.-Alta. Brier final | CBC | 1.171 mil. | Down 2 per cent from 2007 |
| Basketball. Raptors-Kings | TSN | 143,000 | About right for Raptors on TSN |
