Well, we wondered how TSN would spin the TV numbers from its first-ever Grey Cup, and we have our answer.
The all-sports network yesterday released the ratings for Sunday's CFL championship, and at first glance it's sunshine and lollipops.
Grey Cup Audiences Grow 5%, the headline began. As 3.65 Million Canadians Watch.
TV viewership up from a year ago -- good news, right?
Trouble is, TSN was adding the numbers from RDS, its French-language affiliate. And with the Montreal Alouettes playing the game at home, French viewership went through a roof -- with a record 1.2 million RDS viewers.
Strip it down to the numbers on TSN alone, and you get a different picture.
Sunday's game drew an audience of just 2.4 million on TSN, down a whopping 27% from last year's Grey Cup between Winnipeg and Saskatchewan, on CBC. The '07 game drew 3.3 million.
The decrease has to be even greater than TSN could have predicted.
The drop, it says here, is the difference between having the game accessible through cable or satellite only, compared to a standard, over-the-air network, like the CBC.
Or CTV.
We throw that in because TSN could easily have placed the game on CTV -- they're owned by the same company.
That's what they'll do with the Super Bowl, you know. The idea being to maximize ratings.
So why didn't they do it with the Grey Cup?
That's our beef.
Occasionally, TSN still treats the CFL like a second-class citizen. Whether it's by putting a CFL game on something called TSN2 earlier this season, the bad decision to move the East and West Finals to Saturday or by choosing not to show the Grey Cup game on CTV.
Can you imagine the NFL allowing the Super Bowl to show on ESPN, only?
Didn't think so.
Even if you buy into TSN's combined audience figures, they fall well short of the last time Montreal played in the Grey Cup, which is the only meaningful comparison you can make, given the French viewership.
Two years ago, the Als played the Lions and the combined audience was 4.1 million. So even with a record number of Quebecers tuning in, Sunday's game fell half a million viewers short.
Anybody think that's a good deal for the CFL?
FROM MEDIA TO MOGUL: David Asper survived Grey Cup week, and it seems he's surviving the current economic crunch just fine, too.
The future owner of the Blue Bombers says the collapse of the stock markets hasn't put even a dent into his plan to spend $100 million on a new stadium at the University of Manitoba.
"People have to understand that CanWest is not the only business interest of me and my family," Asper said yesterday. "So, no, it doesn't affect us, at all. We're moving forward as fast as we can possibly move."
Asper's football interests have nothing to do with CanWest Global, the struggling family media conglomerate.
He says his real estate holdings and a private equity firm he founded along with his brother, Leonard, are doing just fine.
So it's full steam ahead.
At least, as fast as you can go when dealing with three levels of government.
Of course, if this was up to the Bomber fanatics Asper ran into at Touchdown Manitoba, the giant Winnipeg-style party at the Grey Cup, the stadium deal would be a slam dunk.
"At the end of the day, those are the people who are going to be paying for it and who are going to use it," Asper said. "People have really embraced the idea."
MEA CULPA: Time to backtrack on our choice as the CFL's top player.
After reviewing the play of Calgary's Henry Burris and Anthony Calvillo of the Als, it's clear who the best player was all year.
The one holding the Grey Cup, not the Most Outstanding Player Award.
