Details of New CFL on TSN Deal

Was so busy last week I barely even had time to look at the press release for TSN’s new CFL deal. So, here are some of the details. And while you read, here is music history from Saturday night. Blur’s Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon played their song “Tender” with Noel Gallagher of Oasis, officially ending of of music’s biggest rivalries, I guess. It was either great, or worse than sipping champagne at 10 Downing, depending on who you are.

• It’s a 8-year deal that runs through the end of the 2018 season and includes every regular season and playoff game for TSN, RDS (Alouettes and playoffs) and RDS2.
• Also includes radio rights for the Grey Cup for TSN Radio and TEAM radio stations.
• Otherwise it seems everything is basically the same as before. The schedule will expand to 81 games next season when Ottawa rejoins the league, an increase from 73 this season.
• The CFL’s exclusive negotiating window with TSN ended at the end of January. The CFL wanted an exclusive deal with Bell.
• The guarantee of Canadian markets facing Canadian markets in every game was important for TSN.
• Cohon thinks it gives the CFL the dollar guarantee that allows it to invest in new infrastructural and ideas.
• TSN’s Stewart Johnston on the prospect of moving the Grey Cup to CTV, “Well we love our parent network at CTV, but I can tell you honestly, it wasn’t once discussed. We love what the Grey Cup has done for the TSN brand in the past five years.” It’s not a problem for the CFL, as I’ve mentioned before.
• You can listen to Johnston and Cohon on TSN Drive with Dave Naylor from last week here. I wish I had more to say about it, but it’s really more of the same.

March Madness… TSN’s March Madness coverage continues to have both bright spots and some real annoyances for viewers. The features on Canadian players are great. Dan Shulman and Sam Mitchell are great on the studio panel. Host Kate Beirness is really growing into the job. And best of all TSN barely showed any of the games that were on CBS over the weekend. Not only that, but Beirness and the bottomline directed viewers to watch CBS. Meanwhile TSN and TSN2 focused on games that were broadcast on cable channels TBS, TNT and TruTV in the States. The only thing I found poor about TSN’s coverage was the constant flipping of games from TSN to TSN2. It got confusing. And while the bottomline said which game was on CBS, it never mentioned what games were broadcast on the other network. At the opening of each broadcast it was never really revealed which games TSN would show and which ones would air mainly on TSN or TSN2. A little more consistency in leaving one game on the same network would be nice, instead of constantly switching at halftime.

Soccer… 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifying continues tomorrow. Before getting to what’s on tomorrow, GolTV deserves credit for using the RTE Irish domestic commentary of the Sweden v. Ireland game on Friday evening. Despite audio troubles in the first five minutes, it was a lot better than their usual annoying American commentators calling the match off a screen from Florida.

But on to the more interesting matter. England travels to Podgoric to face Group H leaders Montenegro in a key qualifying match tomorrow night. International broadcasts of the match, originally marketed for by Kentaro, have taken an interesting turn. GolTV shows Kentaro matches in North America. This game was one of the biggest in the package of qualifiers that GolTV purchased from Kentaro last year. However, the Montenegro FA recently pulled out of their contract with Kentaro. With that GolTV lost rights to the match and it will now air on Sportsnet.

A similar situation occurred in England where ITV nearly lost rights to the match after paying Kentaro an upfront fee for it. Kentaro still claims (or at least claimed as of last week) to hold international rights to Montenegro home matches internationally. GolTV in the US included it on their broadcast schedule as recently as the weekend. GolTV in Canada still does. The Guardian has an interesting article on the situation. It also explains why Brazil’s World Tour matches have disappeared from GolTV this season, as Kentaro has lost rights to those as well. No word yet on how this affects GolTV’s coverage of Ireland v. Austria tomorrow evening. The match was originally scheduled for tape-delay at 6pm ET; however, with this development it could air live at 4:45pm ET. In other action tomorrow evening France and Spain battle for the top spot in Group I on Sportsnet ONE.

MLB… The 2013 Jays broadcast schedule is out. 20 games will air exclusively on Sportsnet ONE. Most of those are due to NFL or Memorial Cup conflicts. Because of regional hockey conflicts another ten games in April will air on different combinations of the Sportsnet channels (six of those are also on ONE). The other 132 games will air on all four regional channels. I also have Sportsnet’s MLB schedule (I’ll post it later this weekend when I get the chance). Sportsnet ONE has close to 90 other MLB games, while the regional channels will combine for around 175 games. TSN2 has Sunday Night Baseball again. By my count there are over 450 games on Canadian TV this season, not including American networks like FOX or WGN.

Canadian Sports Ratings Update: November 9

Here are the latest ratings. Thanks to Whitey Fisk for publicizing many of these.

CFL
HAM-TOR, Nov 1, TSN: 769, 000
CGY-EDM, Nov 2, TSN: 725, 000
MTL-WPG, Nov 2, TSN: 642, 000
SSK-BC, Nov 3, TSN: 828, 000

NFL
KC-SD, Nov 1, SN: 213, 000
DAL-ATL, Nov 4, TSN: 577, 000
PHI-NO, Nov 5, TSN: 580, 000

NBA
TOR-BRK, Nov 3 SN: 185, 000
TOR-OKC, Nov 6, TSN: 91, 000

All numbers BBM Canada 2+

A few notes…

• The three CFL games this week averaged 741, 000 viewers. That is fairly consistent with last week’s average.
• With no baseball or hurricane competition, Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football were well up over last week. The average rating for the two games was up 37% over last week.
• After a great start, Raptors ratings have fallen back to the usual. Even on Tuesday night with no competition from original programming (except on CBC), the game couldn’t muster 100, 000 viewers.
• The CFL playoffs begin this weekend. Chris Cuthbert and Glen Suitor will call the East Semi Final between the Argonauts and Eskimos, while Rod Black and Duane Forde will call the West Semi Final as the Roughriders face the Stampeders. I think both games will see ratings increases over last season. Last year the CFL’s two smallest markets, Hamilton and Winnipeg, both made the playoffs at the expense of large markets in Toronto and Saskatchewan. With the Riders and Argos both playing on Sunday, it will only help ratings in English Canada. Since the Alouettes played in the East Semi last season, RDS will likely see a large drop off compared to last year.

Canadian Sports Ratings Update: November 1

Here are the latest ratings. Thanks to Whitey Fisk and Bill Brioux for publicizing many of these.

CFL
BC-CGY, Oct 26, TSN: 701, 000
WPG-HAM, Oct 28, TSN: 672, 000
TOR-SSK, Oct 27, TSN: 1.026 million
EDM-MTL, Oct 28, TSN: 546, 000
HAM-TOR, Nov 1, TSN: 769, 000

MLB
DET-SF (g1), Oct 24, SN: 801, 000
DET-SF (g2), Oct 25, SN: 729, 000
SF-DET (g3), Oct 27, SN: 779, 000
SF-DET (g4), Oct 28, SN: 792, 000

NFL
NYG-DAL, Oct 28, Citytv: 508, 000
NO-DEN, Oct 28, TSN: 339, 000
SF-ARZ, Oct 29, TSN: 396, 000

Skate Canada
Men’s Free, Oct 27, CTV: 679, 000

NBA
IND-TOR, Oct 31, TSN: 346, 000

NASCAR
Martinsville 500, Oct 28, TSN2: 336, 000

Old Hockey
HNIC Your Pick, Oct 27, CBC: 181, 000

 

All numbers are BBM Canada 2+

 

 

A few notes…

• The World Series averaged 775, 000 viewers over four games on Sportsnet. That is slightly up from the 7 game series betwen Texan and St. Louis last season ;however, the first four games only averaged 567, 000 viewers. The hockey lockout obviously helps a bit, but it I think it is fair to say the popularity of baseball is slightly on the rise in Canada as well. This was the lowest rated World Series in history on FOX in America.
• The Pacers-Raptors game on Wednesday night was the highest rated Raptors game since the 2009-10 season. It was lower than most NBA Finals games from June, but higher than just about every other basketball game from last season. Yet again, a product of the NHL lockout. Usually TSN’s Wednesday Night Hockey is king on Wednesdays, while hoops is shuffled to TSN2. Basketball took centre-stage on Wednesday, and with no competition, brought in as many viewers as some nationally broadcast NHL games do. Now, can the Raps keep it up?
• Skate Canada Saturday night ratings were actually slightly down from a year ago, when CTV’s coverage when head-to-head with a Leafs-Penguins game that averaged over 2 million viewers.
• The three main NFL games (Sunday 4pm, Sunday 8pm, Monday) were down slightly from last week. The World Series (Sunday) and Hurricane Sandy (Monday) probably played a role in this.
• The CFL averaged 736, 000 viewers this week, buyoyed by over a million for the playoff bound Riders and Argonauts. I credited the lack of sucess of these two teams as a major factor in the drop in CFL ratings last year. Seems like their good seasons will help raise CFL ratings this year. As a whole, the ratings are slightly down over week 17 though.

Canadian Sports Ratings Update: October 27

Here are the latest ratings as the CFL and Baseball postseason continue to benefit from the lack of hockey. And hockey from 20 years ago benefits from no hockey this year. Thanks to Whitey Fisk and Bill Brioux for publicizing many of these.

CFL
WPG-TOR, Oct 19, TSN: 688, 000
EDM-BC, Oct 19, TSN: 729, 000
MTL-SSK, Oct 20, TSN: 720, 000
HAM-CGY, Oct 20, TSN: 929, 000

MLB
NYY-DET (g3), Oct 16, SN: 799, 000
SF-STL (g4), Oct 18, SN: 398, 000
SF-STL (g5), Oct 19, SN: 487, 000
STL-SF (g6), Oct 21, SN: 497, 000
STL-SF (g7), Oct 22, SN: 645, 000

NFL
NYJ-NE, Oct 21, Citytv: 487, 000
PIT-CIN, Oct 21, TSN: 448, 000
DET-CHI,Oct 22, TSN: 560, 000

NHL
CGY-VAN (’94), Oct 20, CBC: 217, 000

All numbers are BBM Canada AMA 2+

First off, anyone who says the NFL is way more popular than the CFL needs to look at these numbers. Yes, many watch the NFL on Sunday afternoon on American nets or Sunday Ticket, but the three big nationally televised games were all well below the CFL standard.

I’m not sure of the exact percentage change, but Sportsnet’s LCS ratings were up over last year. Games 1 and 3 of the Yankees series was far and away better than thar 528, 000 high mark from last season. Giants-Cardinals averaged 477, 000 viewers for the six games that weren’t affected by rain.

MLB Wins Friday Night, but CFL Wins Weekend Ratings Battle

In a rare occurance, a baseball game beat CFL Friday Night Football this past weekend; however, the 110-yard game stormed back to take the highest sports rating of the weekend. Thanks to Whitey Fisk and Bill Brioux for publicizing many of these.

CFL
BC-HAM, Oct 12, TSN: 571, 000
SSK-EDM, Oct 13, TSN: 888, 000
MTL-TOR, Oct 14, TSN/RDS: 842, 000

MLB
STL-WSH (g5), Oct 12, SN: 610, 000
DET-NYY (g1), Oct 13, SN: 730, 000
STL-SF (g1), Oct 14, SN: 389, 000
STL-SF (g2), Oct 15, SN: 448, 000

NFL
GB-HOU, Oct 14, TSN: 398, 000
DEN-SD, Oct 15, TSN: 563, 000

All numbers are BBM Canada AMA 2+

So, as you can see, baseball won head-to-head on Friday, but football (CFL and NFL) won head-to-head on Saturday and Sunday.

Not really any big surprises, but I did think STL-SF would slightly edge out GB-HOU on Sunday night. The difference was only a few percentage points and considering viewers could have watched FOX and NBC (respectively), the margin of error is probably close enough that neither truly won. Regardless, TSN’s football beat Sportsnet’s baseball two out of three nights.

The small percentage difference between the NLCS and Sunday Night Football is a completely different story than in America where the Packers-Texans game on NBC had almost triple the number of viewers as baseball on FOX.

Also of note, Felix Baumgartner’s thrilling jump to earth from over 125, 000 feet in the air attracted an averaged audience of 435, 000 on Sportsnet Sunday morning over 3 hours. That’s impressive considering the first two and a half hours were spent watching him slowly go up into the atmosphere. The audience peaked at 1.25 million as he was falling. Nearly 1.9 million viewers watched at least some of the broadcast, which shows there were a few who got bored with the long wait and gave never came back.

Canadian Sports Ratings Update: July 13, 2012

Here are some more Canadian sports ratings. Lots of Jays and CFL games to report on. I will likely post two more sports ratings updates, then it will be three weeks of special Olympic editions of this feature. Thanks to TVFeedsMyFamily for postings many of these.

MLB
TOR-KC, July 2, SN: 662, 000
TOR-KC, July 3, SN: 791, 000
TOR-KC, July 4, SN: 769, 000
TOR-KC, July 5, SN: 801, 000
TOR-CWS, July 6, SN: 727, 000
TOR-CWS, July 7, SN: 582, 000
TOR-CWS, July 8, SN: 573, 000
Home Run Derby, July 9, SN: 1.15 million

CFL
WPG-MTL, July 6, TSN: 591, 000
HAM-BC, July 6, TSN: 729, 000
CGY-TOR, July 7, TSN: 434, 000
EDM-SSK, July 8, TSN: 624, 000

Wimbledon
Men’s Final, July 8, TSN: 538, 000

NASCAR
Coke Zero 400, July 7, TSN: 476, 000

Calgary Stampede
Rangeland Derby/Rodeo, July 7, CBC: 270, 000

IndyCar
Toronto Indy, July 8, TSN2: 236, 000

Should Grey Cup Ratings Concern CFL Fans?

The 99th Grey Cup game between the Blue Bombers and Lions averaged 4.6 million viewers on TSN Sunday evening, down from 4.94 million in 2010. RDS saw its rating drop by 900, 000 without the French-market Alouettes. CFL ratings have trended downwards all season. Of course TSN trumpeted out its press release on Tuesday morning spinning that everything was great. Even by comparing this year’s press release to last year’s, one can tell that things may not be so well. Here is one quote from the TSN press release that creates a bit of an allusion if not read carefully.

“It was the… most-watched sports program of the broadcast year.” – This is true, but if you leave out one word when reading it, broadcast, it can become confusing. While the calendar year is 11 months old, the broadcast year began in September. The Super Bowl and all 7 games of the Stanley Cup Final brought in more viewers than the Grey Cup in 2011. As did the final of the World Junior Hockey Championship.

One consideration in comparing the past two Grey Cups is the market size of the teams involved. The Alouettes and Roughriders are probably the two most popular CFL teams nationally. The Lions aren’t far behind; however, the Blue Bombers are in a small market. This year is the first Grey Cup contested between any teams other than Saskatchewan and Montreal since BBM introduced portable-people-meters in 2009. So, it is even hard to compare to the past. The 2008 Grey Cup on TSN only averaged 2.44 million viewers. Roughriders vs. Blue Bombers in 2007 did 3.3 million on CBC.

One can attribute a number of reasons to the decrease in CFL viewership this year. The struggles of the Roughriders, who carry a large amount of bandwagon fans from across the country, is a popular – and most likely correct – reason. Some have also pointed to a poor season for the Argonauts, but that’s nothing new. Besides, many in Ontario don’t even notice the CFL. The general consensus from that area of the country is that there are no CFL fans. A lack of interesting storylines may have also contributed. Sure there was Anthony Cavillo breaking the all-time pro football passing record, but what else – I’m sorry, “Swaggerville” is not a storyline. Everyone outside of Manitoba was sick of it by the end of July.

While the ratings prove that many CFL fans have found their way to TSN, I think the CFL needs an over-the-air presence. I suggest they sell two packages in the off-season (the next contract will kick in for 2013), one over-the-air and one cable. It will probably be a given that TSN will get CFL rights back in some form or another, while CBC will have limited funds to spend to compete for the entire package. If there is any interest from the CBC, which I believe there is, selling two packages may get the CFL top dollar.

In the end, I think the CFL will be fine. Gate revenue is as high as ever, ratings are still better than they were ten years ago and the CFL is still the second most watched league in Canada, behind the NHL (some would dispute that the NFL gets more viewers than the CFL). Except for 2009 and 2010, CFL ratings have remained fairly consistent over the past ten years.

Vanier Cup… TSN’s move to put the Vanier Cup in primetime this season paid off. The overtime thriller attracted an average of 372, 000 on TSN and 288, 000 on RDS. CIS football is more popular in Quebec than the rest of Canada, so the RDS rating isn’t surprising at all. In fact, more people watched the Vanier Cup on RDS than the Grey Cup. TSN’s numbers aren’t overly impressive – the 2010 Rose Bowl averaged 613, 000 viewers on TSN – but they are up 17% from last season.

EURO 2012… I really enjoyed TSN’s coverage of the EURO 2012 draw on Friday afternoon. Noel Butler has greatly improved as a TV analyst since making his TV debut last fall. Luke Wileman and Jason deVos are both great as well. TSN would be wise to use all three as part of the EURO 2012 studio crew. I’d also add in former Toronto FC player Rohan Ricketts. One other EURO 2012 suggestion for TSN, use ESPN’s commentary. Ian Darke is better than John Helm.

Sportsnet World… is on free preview from now until January 2nd. Great news for Canadians who want to watch all the Premier League action over Christmas and the Old Firm match on December 28.

Canada Cup… Curling returns on TSN this afternoon with the Canada Cup. Vic Rauter, Linda Moore and Russ Howard return as the main commentary team. TSN will show women’s and men’s semifinals today (3pm and 8pm ET) and finals tomorrow (11am and 3:30pm).

Blacked Out… Tomorrow’s Buffalo Bills game against Tennessee is now blacked out in Buffalo’s primary and secondary markets because tickets for the game are not sold out. Viewers in southern Ontario will also be shutout as CTV isn’t allowed to show the game on its Toronto and Kitchener stations because Toronto is a secondary market. Both stations will show Jets @ Redskins.

Unprecedented move… Fox will finally get to show Tim Tebow when the Broncos visit the Vikings tomorrow afternoon. This is an unprecedented move because inter-conference games are usually broadcast on the network that is affiliated with the conference of the road team (in this case CBS/Broncos). The game was moved to Fox a couple of weeks ago when the NFL flexed Lions @ Saints (a Fox game) to Sunday Night Football in exchange for Colts @ Patriots (a CBS game). This left CBS with eight games, while Fox only had six. The NFL awarded Fox a CBS game to even things out. The last time it happened was in the early 70s.

More than a game… Many Canadians would agree that hockey is more than a game in this country, it is a cultural institution. PBS, led by affiliate WNED in Buffalo, has produced a new documentary titled “Hockey: More than a Game”. Some have seen it all before, but it looks interesting regardless. The trailer even includes Canadian sports media writer Bruce Dowbiggin; check it out. Hockey: More than a Game will air at various times on local PBS stations, so check your TV listings.

Cross-platform promotion… Sportsnet won Playback Magazine’s award for 2011 cross-platform media brand of the year. If there was an award for over-the-top, almost annoying, cross-platform media brand of the year, I’d give that to Sportsnet too.

99th Grey Cup a huge draw for TSN and RDS

The Grey Cup was a huge draw for TSN on Sunday night, as the BC Lions victory pulled in an average of 4.6 million viewers and a peak of 5.8 million. For those scoring at home, that makes it the most-watched sports program of this broadcast year and the fourth-highest rated Grey Cup ever. However, it’s also a slight drop from last year’s totals.

On other fronts, TSN’s broadcast was an online success, with 118,000 watching TSN.ca’s live streams and 925,000 unique visitors to the website on Sunday. Ratings for TSN radio were not included in the release.

TSN’s full media release follows, after the jump:

99th Grey Cup Programming on TSN

The 99th Grey Cup is this Sunday in Vancouver. TSN has coverage all week leading up to the game, including Grey Cup Saturday and Grey Cup Sunday pregame shows. Here is everything you need to know about TSN’s broadcast. Note, all times in this post are Pacific Standard Time.

Grey Cup Saturday (hosted by Rod Smith and Darren Dutchyshen)

TSN delivers nine hours of all-encompassing coverage of Canada’s game on GREY CUP SATURDAY featuring SPORTSCENTRE hosts Rod Smith and Darren Dutchyshen live from the Scotiabank Football Experience in Vancouver. Throughout the day, the CFL ON TSN panel, along with TSN Football Insider Dave Naylor and CFL analysts Glen Suitor and Duane Forde, check in from BC Place with Grey Cup news and analysis while TSN’s reporters at the East and West practices file reports from the sidelines.

Joining Smith and Dutchyshen with additional insight on the big game are Dave Hodge and his panel of reporters from his weekly show, TSN THE REPORTERS WITH DAVE HODGE. TSN’s special correspondent Cabral ‘Cabbie’ Richards also delivers Grey Cup news and notes from the streets of Vancouver.

Grey Cup Saturday broadcast schedule:
10:00am – Grey Cup Saturday sign-on
10:15am – John Candy: True Double Blue
10:45am – Grey Cup Saturday
12:00pm – CFL Player Awards 2011
12:30pm – Grey Cup Saturday
12:45pm – Top 10 CFL Characters
1:15pm – Grey Cup Saturday
2:30pm – Top 10 CFL Plays of the Year

Here are descriptions of TSN’s programs on Saturday

JOHN CANDY: TRUE DOUBLE BLUE
Marking the 20th anniversary of the “Hollywood Argonauts” and their Grey Cup victory, TSN presents a 30-minute documentary on John Candy, former movie star and part-owner of the Toronto Argonauts, whose life-long passion for the CFL and the Argos is chronicled by his family and friends, including Wayne Gretzky and Martin Short.

GIBSON’S FINEST CFL PLAYER AWARDS
The CFL honours this season’s top players in an awards ceremony hosted by Dave Randorf and featuring awards presented by Jock Climie and Milt Stegall.

SPORTSCENTRE TOP 10 PRESENTS: GREATEST CFL CHARACTERS
Some of the most colourful characters in league history are showcased in this 30-minute special, as the program looks at the top 10 CFL players and coaches who are best known for their performances both on – and off – the field.

SPORTSCENTRE TOP 10 PRESENTS: CFL PLAYS OF THE YEAR
Complementing TSN.ca’s CFL PLAY OF THE YEAR SHOWDOWN, the 30-minute special counts down the 10 best plays from this past CFL season and reveals Canada’s pick for top play of the year following four rounds of online voting on TSN.ca.

Grey Cup Sunday

TSN’s pre-game coverage kicks off with SPORTSCENTRE hosts Rod Smith and Darren Dutchyshen live from the Scotiabank Football Experience alongside analyst Duane Forde, and then moves to BC Place, where hosts Dave Randorf and Brian Williams continue to tee up the championship game with in-depth analysis from the CFL ON TSN panel, special features, interviews and reports from TSN Football Insider Dave Naylor.

Grey Cup Sunday broadcast schedule:
7:00am – TSN the Reporters (live from Vancouver)
10:00am – 99th Grey Cup Pregame Show
3:00pm – Grey Cup Countdown to Kickoff
3:30pm – 99th Grey Cup: Winnipeg Blue Bombers vs. B.C. Lions
7:00pm – 99th Grey Cup Postgame Show
7:30pm – SportsCentre

The 99th Grey Cup on TSN

Lastly, here is some information on TSN’s broadcast of the game itself.

TSN’s acclaimed broadcast team of Chris Cuthbert and Glen Suitor are in the broadcast booth at BC Place, providing play-by-play commentary and game analysis during the 99th GREY CUP. Veteran broadcaster Cuthbert has called the action in 13 previous championship games, while Suitor – a Grey Cup champion with the Saskatchewan Roughriders – makes his fourth appearance in the booth for the big game.

Hosts Dave Randorf and Brian Williams are inside BC Place during the game, alongside the popular CFL ON TSN panel featuring Grey Cup champion Chris Schultz, two-time Grey Cup champion and Canadian Football Hall of Famer Matt Dunigan, Jock Climie and Milt Stegall, plus TSN’s Sara Orlesky and Farhan Lalji reporting from the sidelines and TSN Football Insider Dave Naylor providing additional analysis.

CFL ON TSN analyst and two-time Grey Cup champion Duane Forde also joins the broadcast, breaking down key plays with in-depth video analysis using TSN’s advanced “Libero” telestrator system.

At halftime, TSN has live coverage of the Pepsi MAX Halftime Show headlined by Canada’s international multi-platinum selling rock band Nickelback. Randorf and the CFL ON TSN panel also return to break down all the action from the first half.

Following the game, TSN’s GREY CUP POST-GAME SHOW has CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon presenting the Grey Cup to the game’s winning team, as well as the awards for Most Valuable Player and Most Valuable Canadian.

The CFL ON TSN panel is also on hand to provide post-game analysis and conduct live interviews with coaches and players on the field leading up to SPORTSCENTRE after the game with hosts Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole and featuring highlights and more reaction from BC Place.

The 99th Grey Cup on RDS
RDS will broadcast the Grey Cup in French viewers. Denis Casavant and Pierre Vercheval will call the game. Marc Labrecque and Matthieu Proulx will host the broadcast. Coverage on RDS begins at 5pm ET with a 90 minute pregame show.

In the United States
America One and ESPN3.com will show the 99th Grey Cup in the United States. Check your local listings for more information.