TORONTO – The move won’t help Canadian subscriptions to the NFL Network for the next few years, but TSN’s latest programming addition will make more NFL games widely available in Canada.
Today, TSN and the National Football League announced the network has secured exclusive Canadian rights to the NFL’s Thursday/Saturday eight-game regular season broadcast package, beginning this season and continuing through 2008 (which means the games on the NFL Network will be blacked out in Canada).
Stateside, the league has kept these games for itself, and will be airing them on its own NFL Network, which is available in Canada from providers including Rogers Cable, Bell ExpressVu, Shaw Cable, Star Choice and Videotron.
Financial terms of the three-season agreement were not released but it will be a good way for the NFL to get fans used to the Thursday-Saturday, late-season (i.e. playoff implications) package, perhaps paving the way for those games to be switched to the NFL Network for airing in Canada after the 2008-’09 season.
This acquisition provides TSN with all of the league’s Thursday and Saturday prime time match-ups and boosts the network’s 2006-’07 NFL schedule to 42 regular season games, a big jump over the 25 games the network televised last season.
All games will be in prime time and in HD.
The announcement is the third broadcast deal TSN has signed with the NFL, following earlier news that TSN solidified a long-term deal for exclusive Canadian rights to Monday Night Football – and the extension of its long-standing Sunday Night Football broadcast package. However, the Sunday night games will be available on NBC.
TSN recorded an average audience of 340,000 viewers during the 2005-’06 season, marking a 34% increase over the season average in 2000 (254,000). TSN has been televising NFL games since 1987.
The NFL on TSN gets underway August 6 with the first of six pre-season match-ups featuring the Hall of Fame Game with Oakland vs. Philadelphia from Canton, Ohio. TSN’s 42-game regular season campaign kicks off with the first game of the season on September 7, featuring the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers playing host to the Miami Dolphins.
TSN’s 2006-’07 NFL Thursday/Saturday broadcast schedule is as follows:
* Thursday, Nov. 23 – Denver @ Kansas City at 8 p.m. ET
* Thursday, Nov. 30 – Baltimore @ Cincinnati at 8 p.m. ET
* Thursday, Dec. 7 – Cleveland @ Pittsburgh at 8 p.m. ET
* Thursday, Dec. 14 – San Francisco @ Seattle at 8 p.m. ET
* Saturday, Dec. 16 – Dallas @ Atlanta at 8 p.m. ET
* Thursday, Dec. 21 – Minnesota @ Green Bay at 8 p.m. ET
* Saturday, Dec. 23 – Kansas City @ Oakland at 8 p.m. ET
* Saturday, Dec. 30 – NY Giants @ Washington at 8 p.m. ET
