There’s an unwritten rule in sports that you should refrain from saying anything to the media about a rival team that can subsequently be affixed to a bulletin board and used as motivation. This rule is regularly broken. Even normally cagey sports executives, when presented with a microphone, sometimes can’t resist going for it when they probably should punt. Case in point: CTV president Phil King. Last month, Toronto Star sports reporter Chris Zelkovich asked King if he foresaw any potential employee defections from his company’s sports channel, TSN, to cross-town rival Rogers Sportsnet in the midst of an increasingly heated battle between the two channels.
King’s response: “Not many people want to leave the [NHL’s three-time Stanley Cup champion] Pittsburgh Penguins to go play for Nashville.” Even if it hasn’t been posted on cubicle walls and bulletin boards at Sportsnet’s headquarters, rest assured it won’t be forgotten by the team resident within, eager to dethrone the champions. While executives on both sides downplay the notion of an escalating rivalry between the two services, the past six months have produced a highlight reel of big plays: high-profile personnel hires (both
on-air and in the C-suite); Rogers rechristening its Fan-branded radio stations in Toronto and Calgary as Sportsnet Radio Fan 590 and Sportsnet Radio Fan 960 respectively; TSN’s still-unconfirmed manoeuvering to launch a national radio network of its own, and a flurry of rights acquisitions (UEFA Euro 2012 and 2016, Major League Soccer and a multi-year deal for The Tour de France for TSN; Rogers Cup Tennis through 2015 for Sportsnet).
The two channels were just six months removed from a hugely successful partnership around the Vancouver Olympics when Sportsnet’s corporate parent Rogers Communications lured away longtime CTV executive Keith Pelley to replace outgoing Rogers Media president Tony Viner. To many, hiring an accomplished sports broadcast executive like Pelley—who helmed Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium and served as president of TSN from 2000 to 2004—signaled that Rogers was no longer content with Sportsnet being a challenger brand to its older rival.
In November, when Rogers hired former CBC Sports executive director Scott Moore as president of its broadcast division—including Sportsnet and the radio network—its erstwhile partner was in their bombsites. Moore’s introductory address to Sportsnet staff shortly after his arrival was that he wants it to be “ultra-competitive” with TSN over the next three to five years. “Can we be number one in the sports game? I don’t know,” he says. “But you don’t want to do anything but set your sights on being number one, that’s for sure.”
Does Moore consider last month’s hire of Toronto Star columnist Damien Cox as co-host of flagship radio property Prime Time Sports and hockey commentator on its Hockeycentral TV show an example of this increased competitiveness, particularly after media reports that Cox had verbally agreed to join TSN full-time? “It strengthens us and adds to our credibility, and that’s our goal for Sportsnet for the next little while,” he says. “Him coming
to Sportsnet we felt was a validation of where we think we’re going.” Moore says the competition for viewers and dollars between TSN and Sportsnet has existed ever since the latter’s 1998 debut, but acknowledges that his and Pelley’s arrival has “ratcheted up” an already fierce rivalry.
From both a ratings and revenue perspective, it would appear that TSN— which has long billed itself as “Canada’s sports leader”—has a sizeable lead. According to BBM Canada data, its average minute audience of 189,000 (people 2+) for the broadcast year-to-date is more than twice that of Sportsnet’s 90,000.
It also boasts some of the highest-rated shows of the season for any broadcaster, specialty or conventional, including a record 6.23 million viewers for the final of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships and more than 6 million viewers for the 2010 Grey Cup.
“The gap has grown,” says Stewart Johnston, who succeeded King as TSN president in August. “Our audiences have reached the point where we’re more than double our closest all-sports competitor. We’re at all-time highs across a number of different properties, we feel our production values are at an all-time high, and we’re constantly looking for ways to improve the value we deliver to our audience and the value we deliver to our customers.” Financially, too, there is a large gulf between the two. According to CRTC figures for 2009 (the most recent year for which figures are available), TSN boasted 11 million subscribers and $220.5 million in revenues, compared with 8.8 million subscribers and $186 million in revenues for Sportsnet.
However, one veteran industry observer believes Sportsnet’s regional approach to programming—with channels for the East, Ontario, West and Pacific—has a greater upside than TSN’s national approach in the long run. “TSN’s brand is bigger and better than ever before, but I’m not sure how much more room there is for growth,” says the insider, who spoke with Marketing on condition of anonymity. “The question is, how does Sportsnet take a hack at that without compromising its regional strength? “There’s no question that TSN is the Goliath,” he adds. “I wouldn’t suggest that Sportsnet is David, but I would suggest there’s a lot more room for growth in the Sportsnet world.”
Asked if he considers Sportsnet a challenger brand, Moore pauses for some time before answering with a hesitant yes, but quickly notes the fundamental difference in the channels’ programming philosophy. “TSN will always be a strong national brand with some very, very strong products,” he says. “We want to be the home of the passionate, regional fan. We’re the home of the Vancouver Canucks in the Pacific, the [Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers] in Alberta, the Leafs and Raptors here in Toronto, and we need to do a better job of igniting the passion of those regional fans.”
According to the insider, there is a growing awareness among media conglomerates such as Rogers and TSN corporate parent Bell of the immense value of sports properties. Consumers increasingly want content in ways other than TV, he notes, and both companies possess the technological capabilities to deliver (and monetize) content via a variety of media platforms.
“This is a battle of the heavyweights,” says the insider. “[They’re saying] we want to own content and want to be able to use that content on many different platforms. That really is where the whole world is going.” The next great showdown on that field could well be a bidding war for a controlling interest in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE). In December, it was reported that Rogers was in serious discussions to purchase the 66% share of MLSE owned by the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan for a rumoured $1.3 billion.
“The Teachers have been wanting to sell for over a year, so they’re going to sell this organization,” says the insider. The rumour almost certainly raised red flags for Bell, he says. As for the Olympic partnership, he also warns that the ongoing battle has the potential to derail future bids between the two entities. The Vancouver partnership was so effective, he says, because former Sportsnet president Doug Beeforth was content to let marquee events like hockey go to TSN and show other Olympic sports like figure skating on Sportsnet (where, he noted, the ratings were “phenomenal”). “It can only continue if both sides want it to continue,” says the insider. “At a certain point, someone is going to say ‘Hold on here, why don’t I have the 100-metre dash?’ When the division of content becomes an issue, that’s when the partnership will disappear.”
Not surprisingly, Moore says the TSN/Sportsnet relationship around the 2012 London Olympics—as well as a potential joint bid for the 2014 and 2016 Games—won’t be adversely affected by the escalating battle for ratings and programming. “We have a contracted partnership for London and worked very well together in Vancouver,” says Moore. “We can come together where necessary, so I don’t think it will have an impact on bidding or on the London Games.” But while it’s easy to view the powerful CTV/Rogers alliance as the presumptive rights holders for the 2014 and 2016 Games in Sochi and Rio de Janiero respectively, the insider predicts that the CBC will also be a factor in the bidding.
Another wildcard is Shaw Media, which recently hired Christos Nikitopoulos, formerly vice-president, programming and revenue planning for the Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, as its first vice-president of sports and has formally applied to the CRTC for a sports specialty service of its own. “There’s been a paradigm shift towards the sports philosophy with the Shaw family taking over [the former Canwest assets],” says the insider, who suggested that Shaw and CBC could potentially partner on a bid. “The Shaws are almost as rich as the Rogers.”
