Carney’s Sports Strategy Needs The CBC For Success

With the World Cup just having wrapped up, two interesting things at the intersection of this site’s interest have happened. First, the Carney government has announced $1B in funding to rebuild stadiums, fields, lower barriers to the cost of sport, and to finish the National Training Centre in Brampton for Canada Soccer. It’s a great announcement, and one that I’m genuinely thrilled by, especially after a somewhat lacklustre Olympic performance as well. The second is new polling by Abacus showing soccer is the most popular sport amongst young Canadians, and now the second most popular sport amongst Canadians overall.

Jesse Marsch’s run as Canada manager this year has been fabulous, and as much as the Davies Saga dragged people away from remembering that at the end, Canada got ridiculously unlucky with pre-tournament injuries, lost our best midfielder to a mid-game broken leg against Qatar, and still played pretty well for much of the rest of the tournament. Was it a perfect performance? No, and the 10 minutes against Switzerland where we entirely forgot how to play still haunts me, but it’s not Marsch’s fault we missed half a dozen clear cut chances across the Bosnia, Switzerland, and Morocco games. If anything, his system gets the credit for creating the chances in the first place.

The last five years haven’t exactly been great for sport in Canada. Between the Hockey Canada of it all, a couple of underwhelming Olympics, the Canadian women’s national soccer team being accused of cheating, and the general clusterfuck that Canada Soccer put itself in financially, it’s not been a good run. Losing Hockey Night In Canada on free to air CBC is another blow, and it all adds up to a situation where we are killing some of our golden geese. The $1B investment in sport is fantastic, but if the Carney government wants to build on the momentum of the World Cup, strengthen sport in this country (which would have many positive health consequences), and solve the crisis of what a modern public broadcaster looks like, he has his chance to do all three. More bluntly, without putting significantly more sports on the CBC, the billion dollars won’t have the impacts we want it to. It’s time to give the CBC a mandate to strengthen Canadian sport.

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When the Canadian men’s national team started their qualifying campaign for Qatar 2022, the games weren’t going to be aired on TV. The rights were held by OneSoccer, a niche streaming service that almost no Canadians had. Before the first game, Sportsnet struck a deal to air the 14 games thankfully, and despite the choppy and occasional nature of international soccer during the club season, momentum built because people could watch the games.

The snow game against Mexico or going to the Azteca and getting a draw or even getting a draw in the US in that first window were huge moments that built on the success of the women’s team in Tokyo earlier that year. And there was a world where all of those moments were behind a paywall, because Canada Soccer was so broke they gave the rights away for pennies on the dollar just to keep the lights on.

In the aftermath of some incredibly insane commentary from the usual suspects about how Davies shouldn’t play for Canada again because he doesn’t care, there was a lot of talk about how Davies’ decision to commit to Canada when we were dogshit was a turning point for the program, and for soccer in Canada. It’s true, and everybody since who has had dual citizenship, multiple option, and chose Canada speaks to the act of love for Canada Davies’ choice represents. Even if he doesn’t play another meaningful game for Canada - and barring injuries he will lead us out for the next Copa and the next World Cup - Davies is a legend of Canadian soccer forever, and the skeleton key who opened the door for everything that’s come since.

The thing is, the decision by Sportsnet to get simulcast rights for the 2022 Qualifiers is another such moment. But we shouldn’t have had to rely on the smarts of whatever talent and executives figured out that this would be a smart investment for Sportsnet. This Sunday, Canada’s U20 men’s team starts their bid to qualify for the 2028 Olympics in LA. You want to watch? $12.99, plus tax, for one month. We wonder why the Canadian Premier League’s gained very little traction? Behind a paywall. Want to watch the WNT before the 2027 World Cup? Put your credit card down first. It’s simply not fucking acceptable. Canada Soccer has been blessed with a great advocate for soccer in this country in Jesse Marsch, who went from World Cup defeat straight into building up the entire program. He’s kissing the badge and defending his players and advocating for this country, and it is high time his advocacy is met with the proper response.

The CBC should be the ones who have the OneSoccer suite of rights. If they’d like to sell TSN simulcast rights to some friendlies and to the 2030 Qualifiers, great - the CBC should be the ones gaining the profits, not a private entity. I know Canada Soccer is thrilled with the terms of the new deal they did with OneSoccer’s parent company earlier this year - and it is far better than the old one - but the lack of clear role for the CBC is a failure of vision.

It’s also a failure of vision from our politicians that the CBC is losing NHL rights. In Britain, there are Listed Events - games and events deemed so important that they are legislatively required to air free to air. Right now, if the Oilers or Habs or Sens make a Stanley Cup Final next year - which, given the Oilers made it two straight years, the Habs made the third round and are getting better every year, and the Sens were Top 5 in most advanced metrics last year, isn’t insane to consider - Canadians will not be able to watch it for free. How’s that going to help grow the sport in Canada?

It’s also worth noting that at a time when the government is weakest amongst young men, a sports strategy could be immensely useful. Young men tend to be some of the biggest sports fans, and showing them that we care about an issue they care about would be quite good. It’s also worth saying that time spent watching Oilers-Canucks or whatever is time not being spent falling down certain internet rabbit holes.

There are tons of things we need to do to help sport in this country. We need to take advantage of the rising tide of women’s sports in this country, and continue to put PWHL games on CBC in good timeslots. Friday nights are usually a shit NHL slate, as the NHL overloads Saturday with games - work with the PWHL to carve out a Hockey Night In Canada-style national game of the week on a night without any real NHL competition. Strike a deal with Rogers/ Cogeco to air the local OHL or WHL or QMJHL team on CBC Gem, to allow people who don’t have access to their local cable access channel to still watch their local major junior team.

A significant reason why the CBC is so hard to defend is because it is adrift. It is purposeless, it is meandering, and it is inessential to the lives of Canadians outside of the 2 weeks every two years we need Gem for Olympic rights. It can be so much more. The World Cup, and Jesse Marsch’s commitment to building Soccer Canada up, is something we can and should be so proud of. We have a government stepping up to help keep that momentum up, and for that I’m very, very happy. But let’s not rest on our laurels. This country needs a holistic sports strategy that builds up the grassroots, lowers barriers to access, and ensures that sports can be something that unifies communities, and the country, not just the parts of communities that are willing to fork over outrageous sums to Rogers.