Buy a chunk of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment? Check. Acquire the Score Television Network? Yup. Pick up the Grand Slam of Curling? Done. Rogers has just announced another sports play to boost its Sportsnet brand.
After televising curling to Canadians for more than 20 years, Sportsnet has purchased elite curling competition series the Grand Slam of Curling from Insight Sports Ltd. The annual series features men’s and women’s curling and showcases both Canadian and international teams.
In addition to buying the curling series—which Sportsnet will wholly own and operate—the brand is also starting a new events division. The division will help round out the other platforms—TV, print, radio, online and mobile—through which the brand distributes content.
Rogers Media president of broadcasting Scott Moore said in a release that the purchase “furthers Sportsnet’s commitment to producing world-class content, anyplace, anyhow and anywhere and allows us to integrate and engage the sports fan in new and innovative ways.”
Speaking with Marketing, he said the new events division will provide a minimum of four days of television coverage of each Grand Slam event between Sportsnet and CBC (as part of a sub-licensing agreement). “When you have an interest in a sport or league it’s in your financial and partnership best interest to give it the widest possible exposure,” said Moore.
He added that curling will be available on cable, conventional, online and wireless, along with news coverage on Rogers’ news shows, radio channels and magazines. The Grand Slam will also get exposure on CBC assets. “You’ll see both organizations look to grow [the Grand Slam of Curling] over the next little while,” he said.
The Masters will start the 2012/13 Grand Slam of Curling series on Nov. 14, which will air on Sportsnet and CBC. Moore said while Sportsnet was only able to commit to three of this year’s Grand Slam events since the rights were acquired so recently, he expects that over the course of the next five years the coverage will grow to between six and 10 events and “become a true World Cup of curling.”
Asked why Sportsnet chose curling as the sport to focus on with this expanded multiplatform approach, Moore pointed to the passion of curling fans and the way they love to watch and debate the sport. “The success of any sport depends on having that passionate fan base and we’ve got it with curling,” he said.
Does Rogers have another sport in mind to which it can apply a similar events model? While he couldn’t reveal details, Moore said “The beauty of being in a position of having a strong backer in Rogers is that we can invest in sports that we believe will grow over time… you want to look for sports that have strong grassroots bases, passionate communities and maybe at the beginning of their growth curve.
“I would say over the next two years you’ll see a few announcements from us as to operations like that.”
For now, Sportsnet is focused on this new deal. The network has a past relationship with the curling events: it originally aired them from 2001 to 2006. Established in 2001/02, the Grand Slam of Curling events are part of the World Curling Tour, and are linked to the qualifying process of the Canadian Curling Association for the Olympic Winter Games.
Other sports included in Sportsnet’s lineup include Rogers Cup tennis, the NFL, MLB, UEFA Champions League, Barclays Premier League soccer and the Memorial Cup. Its other properties include Sportsnet.ca, Sportsnet magazine, Sportsnet Mobile, the Hockey Central app, Sportsnet 590 The Fan and Sportsnet 960 The Fan.
