CFL on NBC


CFL on NBC was a de facto branding for the Canadian Football League games that have been carried on American broadcaster NBC or its sports network, NBCSN.

Background

NBC's first attempt (1954)

NBC's first run broadcasting Canadian football involved coverage of a collection of Big Four/IRFU games and the Grey Cup in 1954. NBC's coverage during this period provided far more coverage than the NFL's existing contract with DuMont. NBC aired games on Saturday afternoons, competing against college football broadcasts on CBS and ABC. The revenue from the contract allowed the IRFU to directly compete against the NFL for players during the 1950s; the American viewership arguably prompted the league to finally raise the point value of touchdowns from 5 points to 6, as it has been in the American game since 1912, in 1956, and to play some exhibition and regular season games in the United States beginning in 1957. Interest in the CFL in the United States faded dramatically after the debut of the American Football League in 1960.
Between 1955 and 1980, only one game was televised on U.S. television, the 1962 Grey Cup.

1982 experimentation

NBC broadcast games in the CFL for three weeks during the 1982 NFL players' strike The first week of broadcasts featured the NFL on NBC broadcast teams, before a series of blowout games on the network and the resulting low ratings resulted in NBC cutting back and eventually cancelling its CFL coverage. The announcers who called the games for NBC are in parentheses.
There were blackouts of the CFL games. The blackouts weren't exactly because of not selling out the stadiums, but for being too close to Canada. For instance NBC's affiliate in Syracuse did not get these games. Their TV listings showed these CFL games on CKWS 11, while NBC listed “NFL Football New England at Buffalo or movie” for Sunday, October 3.
A game between featuring the Edmonton Eskimos at the Winnipeg Blue Bombers was tentatively scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday October 17, even making newspaper TV listings. At the last moment NBC cancelled the broadcast. The network was worried that the game would run over its allotted time and conflict with Game 5 of the 1982 World Series, which was supposed to begin at 4:30. NBC did not resume CFL broadcasts afterwards. As previously mentioned, the games it showed had mostly been blowouts and the network even ended its October 3, 1982 broadcast "Heidi Game" style before the game ended in order to not delay prime time programming.

Interim American coverage (1983-2011)

In 2008, when NBCSN was known as Versus and not yet under the same corporate umbrella as NBC, it aired the 96th Grey Cup.
The Canadian Football League entered into a much more generous contract with the America One television network that had run from 2001 through 2009. That contract allowed for the majority of CFL games to be televised in the United States, with America One syndicating the Canadian coverage primarily to regional sports networks. A number of factors led to America One not renewing their contract after the 2009 season. On July 1, 2010, NFL Network began airing live Canadian Football League games, again simulcasting TSN. This much more limited package did not include any games in August, any playoff games, the Labour Day Classic, Thanksgiving Day Classic, or the Grey Cup. NFL Network aired Thursday games, three Saturday games in July, and then Friday night games beginning again in September. NFL Network announced it would not renew its deal with the CFL on May 25, 2012.

NBCSN's coverage (2012-2013)

The package was picked up by NBCSN starting on Monday August 27, 2012 with 14 games total broadcast on NBC Sports Network including 9 regular season games and all of the playoffs and Grey Cup. NBC renewed its deal with the CFL shortly before the 2013 regular season, but the deal scaled back the network's playoff coverage. The 2013 U.S. TV schedule featured 11 regular season games live, three tape-delayed contests in October, and the Grey Cup live.
In an oddity, NBCSN only owned the traditional television rights to the league, while another network owned the Internet rights; ESPN3 has carried CFL games on the Internet since 2008. The CFL granted exclusive broadcast and Internet rights to ESPN in a multinational, five-year deal prior to the 2014 season, ending NBCSN's involvement with the league until at least 2019.