National Football League on Canadian television

As of the 2009 NFL season, CTV and TSN own most broadcast rights, with most Sunday games airing on CTV due to TSN holding rights to the Canadian Football League. Rogers Sportsnet and Citytv own rights to the Buffalo Bills, since those stations' parent company Rogers Communications leases the Bills for an annual game in Toronto. RDS carries games in the French language (RIS carries Monday night games). U.S. network television feeds may also be available, often from multiple markets, on cable and satellite (and via terrestrial broadcast in the border lands); all games are subject to simultaneous substitution.

Network overview

Citytv

Craig Media (including the now-Citytv stations in Winnipeg and Alberta) owned the rights to Monday Night Football in the early 2000s, and these rights moved to Citytv for MNF's final season on ABC in 2005, before being moving again to TSN in 2006.

With the sale to Rogers, Citytv Vancouver carried 4:00 p.m. ET games during the 2007 season (as did OMNI.2 in Toronto), under sublicence from Rogers Sportsnet. For the 2008 season, all Citytv stations now carry 4:00 games. Sportsnet carries a different game than the game broadcast by Citytv. Citytv Toronto also airs selected Buffalo Bills preseason games (including those held at the Rogers Centre).

CTV Television Network

On May 22, 2007, it was announced that CTV had acquired the broadcast rights to the National Football League early-afternoon Sunday games, the full NFL playoffs, and the Super Bowl, effective the 2007 NFL season.^[1] This ended a lengthy association between the NFL and Global Television Network. TSN, a sports channel which CTV owns, airs prime-time NFL games and produces the CTV broadcasts in tandem with CBS and Fox.

Global Television Network

Aside from its brief experiment with soccer, the Global network has never had an in-house sports production division as do CBC and CTV/TSN. Network sports broadcasts are either simulcast with American networks or outsourced to independent producers such as Molstar. Global was the longtime broadcaster of National Football League football games in Canada, an association that ended in 2007 when CTV outbid Global for the NFL broadcast package

The Sports Network

TSN airs ESPN original programming, including Sunday NFL Countdown and Monday Night Football. In addition to Monday Night Football, TSN broadcasts NBC Sunday Night Football and the NFL Network's package. Beginning in 2007, it produces a Sunday afternoon telecast for CTV, although the feed is taken from CBS or Fox.

2007 New England Patriots-New York Giants game

In Canada, the established sports channel TSN held the rights to the game, as it did for all NFL Network regular-season games. After the NBC / CBS simulcast was announced, TSN's parent broadcast network CTV announced it too would carry the game, allowing CTV simultaneous substitution rights over U.S. stations broadcasting the game.^[2] This meant that, in areas of eastern Canada receiving their "big three" network affiliates from Boston, the CTV signal was seen on four different basic-cable channels, in addition to TSN's broadcast (which only differed from CTV in terms of network identification and some commercials).

Réseau des sports

Because very few sporting events broadcast by RDS are carried by any other French language broadcaster, exact simulcasts of other broadcasters on RDS are extremely rare. However, for most events occurring either outside Quebec or not involving Quebec-based teams, RDS will rely on the applicable English-language broadcaster (Canadian or American) for the video feed, including any graphics or game updates in the original feed.

The visuals are then "dubbed" live-to-air with commentators in the RDS studios, who call the game off monitors instead of being on-site. The commentary is not a translation of the English language audio, although the background audio typically remains intact, and relevant information from the English commentary (e.g. injury reports, or explanations of onscreen graphics) may or may not be relayed by the RDS announcers. Interviews aired during the broadcast are undubbed, though announcers will translate what is said after the interview ends. Also, RDS will air Budweiser advertising in English during the Super Bowl before the Super Bowl halftime show

The video is usually delayed by several seconds from the originating feed, in order to ensure that irrelevant information (e.g. U.S. network promos) are deleted from the RDS broadcast.

Rogers Sportsnet

For the 2005 season, Rogers Sportsnet began airing NFL football, splitting late games across the Pacific and West feeds, and the East and Ontario feeds. The games not shown in the opposite regions are also carried by Rogers-owned Citytv stations in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

CHCH

(stub)

Over-the-air on French language

(stub)

NFL Sunday Ticket

In Canada, NFL Sunday Ticket has been made available on a non-exclusive basis to the following satellite and cable providers:

• Bell TV
• Shaw Direct
• Access Communications
• Cogeco
• EastLink
• Persona Inc.
• Rogers Cable
• Shaw Communications
• Vidéotron
• Westman Communications

The lack of exclusivity for any provider is due to Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulations.

See also

• Sports_broadcasting_contracts_in_Canada#National_Football_League
• List of Bills Toronto Series broadcasters

References

1. ^ CTV.ca | CTV News, Shows and Sports - Canadian Television
2. ^ Ratings Alert - Perfect Patriots Win Saturday Night for CTV/TSN, CTV press release, December 31, 2007

External links

• NFL Canadian TV Schedule 2009