May 14 – A Canadian federal court has ruled in favour of Canadian Soccer Media & Entertainment (CSME) and its streaming channel OneSoccer against cable television and internet provider Rogers Communications.
The ruling is a game changer for OneSoccer and the profile of football in Canada as it means the channel will now go from being a streaming-platform-only service with a subscription base of just a few thousand, to being accessible to more than 10 million of Rogers’ cabled homes and bars.
The case against Rogers was brought four years ago by OneSoccer’s then owner Timeless, who claimed that Rogers’ refusal to carry the channel was a restrictive practice in favour of its own sports channel Sportsnet and independent sports channels BeIN Sports and EuroWorld Sport.
With a men’s World Cup coming, Canadian soccer had been growing its participation footprint and its new men’s and women’s professional leagues. It’s men’s and women’s teams were consistently performing at the top of the Concacaf ecosystem, and the women’s team was ranked in the top 10 in the world. However, the profile of the domestic game, its ability to showcase itself nationally, and the knock-on effect of building a commercial base that will sustain its ambition, was being capped by the country’s dominating media giant.
The Canadian broadcast and telecoms regulator CRTC, ruled in favour of OneSoccer in 2023, and on Monday Rogers’ appeal of the decision by was dismissed by a Toronto court.
It is a big win for CSME, that owns the commercial rights to Canada Soccer’s national teams and leagues as well as the men’s Canadian Premier League. It has been rapidly signing sponsorship and partnership deals with companies like EB Games, Volkswagen, Walmart and Telus. Now it has a bigger platform to integrate their sponsorships into.
In a hockey-mad country, and one that also hosts NBA and NFL franchises, breaking into that every day media space has been a big task. The ruling against Rogers suddenly makes it a lot easier.
“We want people to be able to watch soccer wherever they are in the country. We want to be on all the back pages. It doesn’t happen overnight, we know that, but we are putting a lot of pieces in place to make this our legacy,” said CSME CEO James Johnson on the sidelines of the FIFA Congress held in Vancouver earlier this month.
“We believe in importance of the broad visibility for our game and we know it will take time. Being able to watch the games wherever you are in Canada will have a direct impact on our growth.”
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