Canadian Broadcasting

[buckzxl]

All I ever see on TSN and Sportsnet is hockey, curling, and poker. Now I know that Toronto is a hockey city but c'mon!! How come they are broadcasting curling over the NBA!? How come everytime there's a good game on, it's on TSN2 or Sportsnet1? In the mean time, TSN and Sportsnet is broadcasting hockey documentaries or other nonsense like horse racing while big games like Heat vs Lakers is on. I find it irritating because I feel as though the number of NBA fans is equivalent if not more than NHL fans in Toronto in the present day. I also find that a lot of fans are streaming the games online because of TSN2 & Sportsnet1, and even then the games still start trending on Twitter. This is nonsense. No disrespect to the NHL but c'mon bell/rogers!! They need to admit that NHL is not the only existing sport in Toronto and start broadcasting NBA games.

[KnickerBonkerz]

They do it to try and force people to buy tsn2. Pretty ridiculous considering they bought exclusive rights to games and took them away from thescore, which is a station that obviously has people who know what they're talking about when it comes to basketball and don't have to strictly read off a teleprompter and have the ability to give opinions.

It's pretty obvious the focus of the station is hockey, they should just rename themselves the hockey network. TSN2 might as well be The Other Sports. Even if you do get TSN 2 expect to miss a lot of games for Hockey updates, curling or high school football running late, etc. Anything else is more important than Basketball.

I suspect the owner/director couldn't give two craps about Basketball.

People complain on twitter every time a game is only on TSN 2 and tsn just ignores them.

[Oakville_Raptor]

This just says it all

[Waylon Mercy]

Thank goodness for certain Internet streams out there I can watch ESPN now on a daily basis
and not have to be a prisoner to out dated out of touch Canadian sports executives tastes
in sports programming.

Free at last oh free at last!

[Zebsterama]

My understanding is that it's ratings ... sad as it is ... it's ratings driven.

If more people watched, you'd see more B-Ball over poker and curling.

[Inevitable]

Yeah, we are being robbed cold by Telecommunications companies in Canada.

[DDP]

You think there is the same number of fans of Hockey and Basketball?

[Randle McMurphy]

It might have something to do with the fact that hockey and curling are way more popular in Canada than basketball and receive much more viewers than basketball as a result.

[Oakville_Raptor]

It's very concerning that the majority of people in Canada can actually sit down and watch Curling in it's entirety.

[Brinbe]

hate all you want but they prioritize what gets ratings and people like those things more than all-star weekend in this country.

Curling is awesome anyway, so dealwithit.

[orangutooth]

if national basketball ratings are so bad then why not just buy 100% hockey games and leave the basketball to other stations that air games in the gta only?

anyone remember when basketball was on local tv (the new vr, ctv)?

for some reason i don't even get tsn2 on high def

[basketball420]

You are preaching to the choir here, I got into broadcasting for my love of sports with basketball being my favourite. I quickly learned when I started where basketball was in the big picture and it wasn't as high as I had hoped, But back then we had the NCAA tournament Grizzlies then in Van and Raps games as well as a national basketball package where we would play Western conf teams out west etc. I eventually went on to produce NBA XL which was an amazing experience but only lasted 2 years before it moved over to Raptors TV.

The problem is bottom line and ratings, the Poker you watch are paid advertisements, curling ratings are huge, hockey ratings obviously are as well. I will post some numbers here one day just so you guys can see a comparison of ratings and you will be very shokced. I think it will change in the future because as they say content is King and it is still a growing sport here in Canada, having more prominent Canadians ( ie Wiggins ) will go a long way in getting more games as well.

[yvehs]

What's even worse is that you need to buy the HD version of TSN and TSN2 separately if you want HD. **** scumbags...

[Scorpion King]

TSN and Sportsnet broadcast nationally.

GTA might have basketball fans outside of its probably non existent so ratings take a dive and there are Canadians who think its patriotic to like Hockey and Curling

CRTC should give people options want instead of force feeding junior hockey, curling and NHL

[KnickerBonkerz]

Yea... I'm not buying that more people watch Curling than Basketball... There's gotta be plenty of Basketball fans in all the major cities that would add up to more than the few old people in the countryside that like curling.

I don't see how they can say "It's cuz of ratings" if they've NEVER had basketball on TSN1. If they just put it on there where more people would be able to watch it then I'm sure they would.

[Mad Prophet]

if national basketball ratings are so bad then why not just buy 100% hockey games and leave the basketball to other stations that air games in the gta only?

anyone remember when basketball was on local tv (the new vr, ctv)?

for some reason i don't even get tsn2 on high def

I'm sure having games on broadcast TV back in the 90's helped grow the sport, but these days the cable networks want all the rights to everything. When they grab enough Canadian content to fulfill the minimum requirements for another channel, they go crying to the CRTC for more. Then TSN2 and Sportsnet 1 are born, subscribers are suckered into paying for yet another channel, and they throw in more filler like poker, movies, and endless repeats of That's Hockey. Rinse and repeat.

[TripleMKE]

I've given up on canadian television years ago with the exception of TheScore (courtsurfing & they show non-raptor nba games). I use online streams for pretty much everything now, nbatv, espn, nba games, etc..

[orangutooth]

i would go the online streaming route but bad quality, endless buffering and the fact games are blacked out even if you want to pay money for the league pass kills it for me.

at this point the only reason i have tv is for sports. if i could get all my sports through the internet in a way that streams reliably, i'd cancel tv altogether.

[sanity]

I'm unsure if its to gain more TSN2/SN1 subscribers. Basketball just isn't popular in Canada if Curling/Poker still get better TV Ratings.

As far as quality goes, ESPN just kills all of our sports networks and it ain't even close. We have to sit and sift through 2938127398 non-highlights/filler (reporter shtick) in order to get to the actual goals/runs/etc. The timesink of our sports channels is what gets me most. I want the damn highlights and game coverage, not blogs and crap which I can just surf for online. Its to the point now where you get better info. just going to websites (including realgm) than sitting through sportscentre for an hour.

[knickerbocker2k2]

The thinking is that they can make more money putting niche sports with dedicated fan base on premium subscription channel (tsn2) as opposed to getting higher ratings / higher ad revenue

This IMO will backfire b/c I have not watched TV in 5 years and get high quality content through the internet / paid / VPN / torrents where paid is not an option

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