On Wednesday and Thursday, the Vancouver Whitecaps and Toronto FC did not play the second leg of the Nutrilite Canadian Championship final. You've already heard that story. Heard it and heard it, from those who think things went well and those who think the events were a fiasco. That argument has been had and had, and going back over it would waste everybody's time.
But, while it didn't wind up mattering, the most important story might have been off the field. Rogers Sportsnet, the so-called national broadcaster of our national soccer championship, bumped the broadcast of the second-leg-that-wasn't to their digital-only channel Sportsnet One. In its place, they showed a round-robin game for a junior hockey tournament. Perhaps that's understandable; you may have heard that hockey is big in Canada. But after the game was canceled, Sportsnet announced that they didn't plan to broadcast a potential Thursday morning replay at all. Had they been showing it on Sportsnet One again, they would have just had to pump a Premier League review show and a repeat of Bob McCown's Prime Time Sports - not exactly marquee stuff.
At present, there's no word on whether Sportsnet will broadcast the hopefully-final leg of the Championship on July 2. They've said that there's no conflict with the Women's World Cup but that's all. The mere fact, though, that Sportsnet hasn't immediately risen to their feet and said "yes, we will show this game somewhere!" is discouraging. The problem is that Sportsnet has made some lovely investments in the game, have spent some effort to promote it, and then dump Canadian soccer as soon as they have the slightest excuse. It's odd. And it's bad for the game.
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When I say that Sportsnet has invested in the game, I mean in terms of snapping up many of the most important broadcast rights in this country. Sportsnet is the exclusive broadcaster of the Canadian men's national team, a co-broadcaster of the Women's World Cup, the "local" broadcaster of the Vancouver Whitecaps. These rights aren't free. Employees of the Score have said in the past that they would be interested in the Canadian national team rights but they just can't afford to pay what Sportsnet pays.
Moreover, they retain pretty useful broadcast talent. Gerry Dobson, whatever you may think of him, has been calling the game in this country for as long as anybody. And Craig Forrest might be the country's most accomplished colour man, although I'd hear an argument for Jason de Vos. These guys don't do much that isn't soccer-related, and again, that sort of talent isn't free. Their production values are pretty good, too.
So why have they been so reluctant to actually show some of the games they're spending so much money and effort on? The Canadian national team is assured a broadcast for home friendlies but on the road it's usually bad news. Six Whitecaps broadcasts for the rest of the season, including the last three, will be shown on the digital-only Sportsnet One presumably because they think Vancouver fans would rather watch things like Seattle Mariners games and Bob McCown rambling. They also did a lot of damage to FC Edmonton when they insisted that their Voyageurs Cup home game against Toronto FC kick off at the same time as the Montreal Impact - Vancouver Whitecaps game, meaning that no disinterested viewers were likely to stumble upon the match and Edmonton was forced to start the game so early that a strong home crowd was unlikely.
This is obviously an improvement over where Canadian soccer was ten years ago. But it's still not great. One could argue that the Whitecaps have worse broadcasting for their home games now than they did in USSF D2, when you could at least count on seeing your team on basic cable (SHAW TV broadcast Whitecaps home games). And Canadian soccer games getting bumped for nothing in particular, or our national team playing away friendlies in broadcastless obscurity, or our national championship possibly not being broadcast at all, just furthers the impression that soccer in this country is small-time and can be safely ignored by anybody except us diehards.