U.S. sports broadcaster ESPN will televise 20 CFL games this year – including the 103rd Grey Cup – as part of a new multi-year agreement with the league. An additional 69 games will be shown on the company’s live multi-screen sports network, ESPN3.
Regular season games begin June 25 on ESPN when the Montreal Alouettes host the Ottawa Redblacks. The complete schedule will be announced in coming weeks.
ESPN will use both production and commentator teams from TSN for the broadcasts.
“As a league, reaching new audiences is one of the main objectives, and today’s ESPN announcement will help us achieve that goal,” said Michael Copeland, CFL president and chief operating officer, in an email statement to Marketing.
“We know that Americans have an insatiable appetite for football, and we are happy that fans south of the border will have more opportunities to watch our version of the game we love.”
ESPN’s relationship with the CFL dates back to 1980, when the then nascent channel carried a game between the Toronto Argonauts and Montreal Alouettes. The channel had various deals in place with the league, including from 1980-84 and 1986-89 as well as 1994-97 (partly coinciding with the league’s ill-fated U.S. expansion) and again in 2013.
While traditional broadcast media remains a mainstay of the CFL’s go-to-market strategy, the league is also making a concerted effort to attract younger millennial viewers. Last month, it announced a new content partnership with YouTube multi-channel network Whistle Sports that will offer a combination of behind-the-scenes and sometimes off-the-wall content.
CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge told Marketing at the time that the goal is to reach a new generation of football fans “in innovative and exciting ways.”
