TSN and RDS have furthered their partnership with Rugby Canada, signing a multi-year rights agreement which will see the two networks broadcast several international matches/events each year. TSN and RDS are also the exclusive Canadian broadcasters of the 2015 Rugby World Cup from England, as well as the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens tournament from June 28–30 from Moscow, Russia.
The first match as part of the new deal is an international friendly against Ireland this Saturday at 8pm ET (TSN) from BMO Field in Toronto. Luke Wileman will provide play-by-play, with former Canadian national team player Brian Spanton providing analysis.
Canada’s two upcoming World Cup qualifying matches against the USA follow shortly after. The first qualifier takes place on August 17 at 6:30pm ET (TSN2) as the US hosts Canada, and the return leg at BMO Field one week later, August 24 at 4pm ET (TSN2). Canada will host also the New Zealand Maori All Blacks in an international friendly on November 3 at 1pm ET (TSN).
If Canada wins the home and away series in August against the US, they will automatically qualify from the 2015 World Cup. Should they lose, they will place another home and away series against Uruguay, which will also hopefully be broadcast.
If you’re looking for more rugby union action, Sportsnet World has you covered as they regularly show the Super 15 competition (Australia/New Zealand/South African domestic competition, currently on a mid-season break), IRB Pacific Nations Cup (finishes June 23, Canada currently 3-0), as well as an assortment of international friendly matches and international test matches.
A Rouge Point 
It’s a shame TSN doesn’t try to go after some of the other international rugby. Too much of Sportsnet World is soccer and their rugby coverage often tape delays games or makes it impossible to find some big matches. (e.g. Six Nations, Tri Nations, most of the international friendlies, etc.)
I don’t think you would notice much of a difference with Tsn if they had the big games you would see them on Tsn 2 and or on tale delay.
TSN2 is part of all but the most limited of cable packages whereas Sportsnet World is a premium channel that cost about $20 a month on top of cable fees. There’s a big difference.
Also, TSN tape delays a lot less than Rogers Sportsnet World when it comes to rugby. Most of the games would be early morning or overnight here and that is an easy decision to broadcast over a rerun of a TSN show from the previous day.
However, Sportsnet World chooses to broadcast soccer in the mornings. That’s fine but they should stop trying to market the channel to rugby fans and instead put those broadcasts on a different channel they own where they don’t fall below any number of soccer leagues in broadcast priority. This will only get worse as Sportsnet locks up more and more professional soccer broadcast rights.
Not everyone gets Tsn 2 and massive amounts of people get upset when they do put games on Tsn 2 as for it will get worse maybe it well but Bell won’t be any better.
I think the reason they put the rugby games on Sportsnet World is so that $20 per month that I and others pay is to offset the cost of obtaining the rights, as I doubt they are getting enough viewers to be charging enough for advertising dollars to cover it.
I would consider the $20 fair value if they actually showed important games live. Almost none of the Six Nations was shown live and some games weren’t shown at all because SPL and other second tier leagues were more important. Fine but don’t market yourself to rugby fans in that case.
The worst was when the Channel was still called Setanta and about half of the 2003 & 2007 RWC games, including all the playoff games and better round robin matches were $20 a shot on PPV and only shown on their main channel 24 hours later. Thanks God TSN got their hands on the RWC broadcast rights,
Guess I spoke too soon. TSN isn’t broadcasting any of the event live. Instead it will be a two hour highlight package 2 days after the tournament is over. Apparently tape-delayed Aussie rules matches and Sportscentre broadcasts are more important.
As a rugby fan in Canada, I no longer feel any qualms about finding pirated streams of international broadcasts on-line.
Bell cancelled the six nations rugby coverage without warning. It feels like the Eighties again. Is there any reasonably priced legal way to see British and Irish rugby online?