TORONTO – Rogers Sportsnet has invited journalists to the Real Sports Bar & Grill at Maple Leaf Square Thursday morning at 11 a.m. for a “major announcement.”
While company officials were tight-lipped on what that might be, a Twitter search revealed a couple of blogs which seem to have spilled the beans – that the sports channel will team up with the CBC to televise curling’s Grand Slam event series.
However, a well-placed source with direct knowledge of the negotiations has confirmed to Cartt.ca that Sportsnet has acquired the Grand Slam of Curling from former owner iSport Media and Management, a company run by former Insight Sports CEO Kevin Albrecht.
Sportsnet and CBC will together broadcast the Grand Slam of Curling, which lost CBC as a sponsor and broadcaster in the middle of last season as reports were that the tour faced severe financial problems and was basically bankrupt last winter. CBC walked away saying it was owed a significant amount of money by iSport, which is now reportedly in receivership.
We at Cartt.ca don't have a ton of curling knowledge, but the Grand Slam tour has been around since 2001, features many of Canada's curling stars (some of whom will be at the event Thursday) and boasted Capital One as its title sponsor last year. Plus, curling is a premium winter sports TV property in Canada and this move positions Sportsnet as a significant curling TV competitor to TSN which owns the Briar and other Canadian Curling Association TV rights.
We’ll be at the event and if you want to know right away what the big revelation is, we’ll be tweeting it (@gregobr) quicker than we can post it here.
– Greg O’Brien
