More Eyes For National Championships

It's virtually a known fact that CBC Sports is the home for amateur sports in Canada when it comes to seeing sports on TV that the other major sports networks simply can't or won't cover. We know they air things like alpine skiing, swimming, and beach volleyball, but their announcement in getting back into showing Canadian Hockey League games seems to have prompted CBC Sports to do more for more amateur athletes in this country. Today's announcement is a huge boost for those athletes who have chosen to pursue their education as well, and we should celebrate that the national public broadcaster is once again throwing itself into a segment of amateur sports largely ignored by the major sports networks and the Canadian public in general.

CBC Sports announced today that they and U SPORTS had come to an agreement to have every U SPORTS National Championship broadcast on CBC's various digital options including both the Men's and Women's National Hockey Championships! The four-year deal will see CBC air these championships across the CBC streaming services and the CBC Gem app as the English option for viewers while the French option will be made available through usports.live (currently inaccessible) as CBC covers the best university athletes Canada has to offer!

Before we get too excited about this, you may recall that CBC covered six championships in their first attempt to cover U SPORTS action in 2020, and the streaming coverage for the women's hockey tournament in PEI was rather abysmal. Between choppy video and a rather poor video quality, the hope is that this commitment to U SPORTS will drive CBC's efforts behind the scenes to new heights so that the video quality is exceptional. While I'm sure this is something that U SPORTS and CBC discussed, we'll see how things look during the U SPORTS Women's Rugby National Championship from November 10-14 as that's the first tournament on the schedule.

Assuming that's all fixed, this is a huge moment for U SPORTS to gain some meaningful traction on the sports landscape through a network that seems committed to amateur sports and gender-equality in its sports broadcasting as part of its mandate.

"These U SPORTS championship events offer the opportunity for audiences to see some of the top high-performance athletes in the country in action on a national stage," said Chris Wilson, Executive Director of Sports and Olympics at CBC. "We're proud to further enhance our commitment to gender-balanced sports coverage with this equal slate of men's and women's championship events, and we look forward to sharing the athletes' stories across our digital platforms over the next four years."

CBC's commitment to amateur athletes on its network wasn't lost on U SPORTS either.

"CBC Sports is Canada's Olympic Network and has an impressive repertoire of high-performance sport coverage on its digital platforms," said John Bower, U Sports' director of marketing and communications. "U SPORTS look forward to growing our audience with CBC so that the performances and stories of our student-athletes reach the widest possible audience."

One of the things that wasn't discussed in any of the press releases, though, was who was going to do the broadcasts with respect to play-by-play and colour commentary. One of the things that was agreed to in 2020 was that "English-language play-by-play and commentary for the live events will be provided by local voices and students", so it will be interesting to see if CBC opts to bring in their own broadcasters for the events who may not have that intimate knowledge of the schools and players versus using the schools' broadcasting teams who have a much deeper relationship with those teams.

Personally, having worked beside hired voices who were broadcasting national championships, I can tell you that they used my notes for games that the Bisons played in more than their own notes. There were also off-air conversations during breaks about how to pronounce player names, who may play larger roles in games for the Bisons, and some background info about players who were being featured as the hired team came out of breaks.

I'm not saying they should have hired us to call the game, but the homework that the broadcasters had done was simply not at the same level as the knowledge we possessed about the teams. I worry that this may happen with the CBC broadcasters who would be assigned to call these championships whereas there are a number of exceptional and talented broadcasters working at the university level already who could used. And, if CBC was so inclined, could scout for potential CBC Sports broadcasting positions as well.

What is certain, though, is that for the next four years U SPORTS national championships can be seen on CBC's streaming services, and that's exciting news when it comes to seeing a vast number of talented, exceptional athletes compete at th highest level for Canadian university sport's highest honours. CBC deserves a tip of the cap for this effort because there are a ton of sports that will require coverage, so here's hoping the technology holds up with clear streams, the broadcasters are well-informed and well-prepared, and the athletes put on a helluva show for all to see.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!