Gatekeepers Aren't Needed

With me promising to do less on this blog, I keep finding stories that I feel should have some greater attention. One of those articles came from Wray Morrison who works as the Senior Producer Host and Partnership Coordinator for the HuskieFAN app that broadcasts Saskatchewan Huskies games. I hold Morrison in high regard as he's seen and called a ton of key moments in Canada West dating back to the 1980s, and he certainly knows his stuff when it comes to broadcasting sports. He was one of the people I had hoped we would emulate with his analysis and insights when we were broadcasting Bisons women's hockey games on UMFM.

Wray's excellent article today, though, speaks to exactly what we knew was happening during our broadcasts. With the likes of the PWHL putting its footprints on the North American sports map along with the announcement of an upcoming women's professional soccer league in Canada, there is visible growth in the demand for women's sports at the University of Saskatchewan thanks to the successes seen by the women's hockey team, the women's basketball team, and the women's track-and-field teams who all had very successful runs at their respective national championships.

Making this claim should surprise no one, but what may shock people is the engagement that media saw with fans when it came to broadcasting the 2024 U SPORTS National Women's Hockey Championship. From Wray's article,

"Hockey fans from across the country heard and watched the championships with intense interest. The spike in listenership and sponsorship on Pattison Media's HuskieFAN app illustrated the excitement of the event. 'Having a team (the Huskies) compete in the national championships added another layer of excitement for us,' said HuskieFAN Project Manager, Tyler Kinash. 'It just shows that we (Pattison Media) were on to something in this partnership with the University of Saskatchewan, years prior. We were ahead of our time!'

CBC and Radio-Canada streaming numbers were up 81% over the previous season and TVA Sports reported that the 2024 event at the U of S campus recorded its highest ratings in the history of the championships."

I offer that segment from Wray's story above because I am still utterly baffled that an organization like Canada West and its member institutions are charging people to watch their broadcasts via a subscription package while virtually no other schools outside the University of Saskatchewan offers a radio broadcast of games. CBC, Radio-Canada, and TVA Sports all showed incredible spikes in viewership numbers while offering those games to the public for free while Pattison Media saw a spike in both listenership and sponsorship through its HuskieFAN offering via radio and streaming services.

You can't tell me that free access to games doesn't have its benefits based on those numbers. And Canada West seems very happy to not take advantage of the potential windfall in monies they could recoup simply by taking down the paywall and getting more schools doing radio broadcasts. Are there any business majors working there?

At some point, you'd have to expect the people running Canada West would wise up and follow the leads of every sports league on the planet by offering their games to fans for less cost and in easier places to find them, but they continue to stand firm with their archaic subscription model that does nothing to promote growth in viewership. Casual fans, interested parties, and general women's hockey fans aren't paying to watch those games, and those numbers lost to another broadcast can't be recovered.

With a potential boost in viewership for all of CBC, TVA Sports, and the HuskieFAN outlets, the opportunity to grow their revenue through advertising on those streams could be exponential to what was seen this year and in the past. And while no one is a fan of commercials, they are a reality in broadcasting to help pay for everything that goes into a broadcast - equipment, personnel, and travel as example.

This revenue-generating idea was something we stressed over and over again with Bisons Sports, but it was never anything they pursued. Time and time again, we offered to run ads for their sponsors and partners with the understanding that they were selling the ad space on our broadcasts for revenue to be split between Bisons Sports and UMFM, and they always opted for doing nothing. When Bisons Sports chose not to renew the contract with UMFM, I guess the benefit was that it relieved them of that annual conversation about generating revenue.

Fast forward to today where Wray's article shows the demand for women's sport at the University of Saskatchewan is growing, and it's easy to see why both the university and its corporate partners are willing to invest more into helping that growth continue. By having those numbers from CBC, TVA Sports, and HuskieFAN, the Huskies athletics department can approach businesses to generate new partnerships and relationships as well, but it's not hard to see the growth in interest and demand for women's sports and the broadcasts of women's sports across all of North America.

I feel like Paul Dano's character in Dumb Money where he tells Congress about his GameStop shorting, "The hedge funds are overlooking the value in the company just like they overlook the people who shop there." In this case, Canada West and its member institutions are the hedge funds, "the company" is women's sports, and "the people who shop there" are women's sports fans.

I'm no Roaring Kitty by any means, but the fact that we had identified this trend of investing in women's sports - specifically hockey - in 2018 before being unceremoniously dumped by Bisons Sports for their precious subscription crumbs tossed their way by Canada West makes it all the more maddening in seeing Wray Morrison's article and the impact that free broadcasts had on their businesses. I'm happy that the University of Saskatchewan and Huskies Athletics are going to milk this trend for all its worth, but it's mindblowing to know that Bisons Sports decided that extra revenue streams were something they simply didn't have the time or effort to pursue.

On a more macro scale, don't be surprised if your Canada West TV subscription rate goes up next year. The pay-to-watch model seems to be the hill they're willing to die on regardless of the costs in seeing their subscription numbers fall despite the data they have from one of their member schools.

"If she can see it, she can be it" is a mantra heard across many industries when it comes to gender. Women's hockey preached it for years, yet the barriers to watching women's sports in western Canada are still in place after decades of seeing and hearing that line. My hope is that the University of Saskatchewan sees a huge investment in women's sport at their institution so they become the example others will want to follow in developing that revenue stream to aid and improve women's sports. They deserve it for having invested in their female athletes.

It might be time for Canada West to pull its head out of the proverbial sand and start getting with times. For an organization that wishes it had one-tenth the revenue that the NCAA does, moving from being a barrier to being an access point for incredible women's university sports would be a good first step. No one likes a gatekeeper, and, frankly, the subscription tolls being charged to watch women's sports aren't helping anyone's cause in any way.

Until next time, keep you're sticks on the ice!