There Is Only One Sinnacle

For the people who read my website I hope you get my Specials reference as the title. If so that is a sign we’d get along smashing in real life. Also for the people who read this site outside of Canada sadly this post will mean little to you.

Now for the reason I’m writing this post. You see I work a block away from the Giant Rogers empire in Downtown Toronto and every once in a while I see Keith Pelley head of all this Rogers Media doing a power walk back to his office. On a side note I also see Hockey Central’s Doug MacLean walking he dog which I find likable. Ok, back on topic every once in a while I’ve been meaning to bump into Keith Pelley to say hey read my site to get an idea on how to make people stop hating Setanta Sports for hoarding most of the top football matches. Then I realize Keith Pelley has better things to do so I don’t bother. Today my friends, Rogers Sportsnet will be holding their upfront event to get those evil advertisers to buy their stuff this fall. Keith Pelley will be there but I’m too chicken again to bump into him but Scott Moore or “thing two” as Bob McCown would say will be. I briefly talked with Scott Moore last year when he was at CBC so today my goal is to get him to take 10 minutes at some point to read this. Keeping my fingers cross.

Maybe it’s just me but I see Setana Sports Canada has this own little island in the Rogers media empire left alone to drift without any direction and since I love soccer I figure it’s high time I give my ideas to bring Setana Sports and soccer in general closer to the Rogers empire. With that here we go.

First thing I’d do is change the actual name of the channel. When people think of Setana sports they think of that expensive channel that usually airs the best EPL game on the weekend. They may also think of Setana as the station which went broke trying to complete with Sky Sports over in England. Neither very positive. Mind you I’m sure the people at Rogers have heard this many times before.

The second thing I’d do is combine and expand Setana Sports within the framework of the Rogers Sports Pack. Last time I checked Soccer is a sport so it should be a part of the sports pack. I’d use this to expand Setana Sports by providing more content. For example MLS has been in Toronto for five years now. Why don’t any television providers offer MLS Direct Kick for all the out of market game? I’d combine MLS Direct Kick with the likes of NHL Central Ice, MLB Extra Innings, and NFL Sunday Ticket. Truthfully, I know being able to see Sporting Kansas City isn’t going to make a mad dash to order the Rogers Sports Pack but I’m all about increasing content to football fans.

With this in mind the same way NFL Sunday Ticket lines up all the NFL games on Sunday Rogers should do the same with EPL games. I know they sell the package online but bring that to my TV where if I’m a Tottenham fan and I wanted to watch Tottenham vs Sunderland I’m able to watch it much in the same fashion I could watch the Chicago Cubs vs St Louis Cardinals on MLB extra innings.

The Canadian Soccer rights landscape pretty much looks like this Rogers/Sportsnet has the rights to EPL, TheScore has rights to Serie A, TSN has MLS, Euro Sports World Lique 1 in France, GolTV/MLSE has the rights to La Liga, Some South American soccer and the Bundesliga. Teams like Boca Juniors, River Plate, Many Mexican teams, Porto, Benfica and Sporting in Portugal, Celtic and Rangers in Scotland, Ajax, PSV in Holland, Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, and AEK Athens in Greece are shut out. There is a lot of football from parts of the world with a large Canadian immigration base that isn’t covered. Show those games in a newly created “World Football Package” for a lack of a better term.

Now the pricing not that this is my specialty. I figure there should be three programming packages for the Rogers Sports Package. One would be $50 a month and that includes Setana Sports, the extra soccer I mentioned above, MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, OHL, and Nascar.

You can then keep the current setup for the people who don’t like soccer and don’t want to pay extra for it. Mind you these people should like soccer.

Then you can have a soccer only sports pack of $25 dollars a month which gets you Setana Sports, Goltv, Fox Soccer Channel, Euro Sports World, and to go along with my ideas for expanding football coverage. $25 is the bare minimum what I should spend going to the bar once to watch a match.

My last point is regarding the Sports Pack itself. While it’s marketed to the hard core sports fan let’s face it a great deal of people who are into sports to that degree also like to gamble of it. Let’s get a sponsorship package together with someone like Bodog. I saw them only yesterday sponsoring the TSN top 10 during Sportscentre. The Sports Pack would be an ideal fit for them to pour money into before the United States busts Calvin Ayre.

That’s it for now. I wouldn’t to keep this under 1000 words since it’s only a blog post ot a novel so things like digital integration shall wait. If Scott Moore ever does read it I’d be honoured. First and foremost I’m a fan who wants to see soccer keep growing in Canada but hey if Rogers ever creates a head of soccer programming they now know where to find me.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.