This is OneMess
OneSoccer and CSB split up. What now?
In one of those surprise-but-not-really announcements, Canadian Soccer Business announced tonight that it has “clawed back” media rights from Mediapro, the company that owns OneSoccer.
That leaves the CanPL, Canadian National Team and the Voyageurs Cup games currently without a broadcast partner. We are about a month away from the first games that we would have expected to be broadcast on OneSoccer.
There is no word on what this means for the journalists and broadcasters employed by OneSoccer, but one would assume that they will not be producing CanPL related content any longer. In turn, that would seemingly put those jobs at risk, especially those who primarily were broadcasting the league’s games.
For its part, Mediapro is claiming that CSB was the party not fulfilling its side of the agreement. It is worth pointing out that Mediapro has had well documented financial problems over the past few years.
CSB said in a statement that “by taking back full control of our rights we will immediately have the opportunity to (transfer those rights) to new partners…who can reach a bigger audience.”
Reporting done. Opinion to follow.
This is an evolving situation at the time of typing. I have reached out to my contacts to see if I can shake anything loose, but as of right now I am writing from old knowledge and informed speculation.
There has long been frustration with the reach that OneSoccer provided, particularly as it relates to the national team broadcasts. Although the channel did allow for sublicensing at times, there was a real sense that a huge opportunity was being missed (the men qualifying to the World Cup) with the team “stuck on a niche channel no one has heard of.”
There were also technical issues with many of the broadcasts, including feeds being dropped for significant periods of time. That particular problem seemed to plague the channel the most when the stakes were highest — it seemed like the streams could not handle a big viewership.
Toronto FC v (CF) Montreal (Impact) was a nightmare for them. There were problems whenever they had to show a Canadian Classique.
Luckily (?) for Mediapro they didn’t have big audiences very often. That was also an issue. In fact, it’s been a significant issue for some time.
When the initial deal was struck, Mediapro promised a much greater reach than they ever got close to delivering. The CanPL games were particularly disheartening — I was told that one game in 2019 (Halifax at Pacific, if memory serves) had a peak audience of 70 people.
That was an outlier, but they were low four figures for the most part. It never really got better.
If someone wants to disprove that claim I welcome it. In fact, I’d be overjoyed. Mediapro and the league have always been tightlipped about numbers, so I can only go off of what I’ve been told.
It’s hard to grow a league when few, if any, people outside of your true believers are watching the games. When you’ve also prohibited local broadcasts of your teams in the broadcast deal you have, it’s a disaster.
I won’t go so far as to say this is good news tonight — people have likely lost their jobs and CanPL fans* don’t know where they are going to be able to watch their teams three months out of the start of the season—but, there is an opportunity here to fix some things.
*The CanPL is what to worry about. The National Teams and the games involving MLS teams are going to be fine
I suspect that CSB doesn’t take this step tonight (and I do think the CanPL is the party seeking divorce, despite Mediapro’s statement otherwise), without a plan in place to get its league on TV.
As for where, I’d imagine they are looking at what the PWHL is doing right now with some interest. Yes, that’s hockey, but they are undeniably thriving and growing at a level few expected. A big part of that is getting their product out there for free. They are finding fans and those fans are buying tickets.
Sure, you’d love a rights fee, but you need a product that networks find value in to get that. A great way to create that is to have thriving home markets where the clubs matter and stadiums are packed. The live product, which is great, is what is going to drive growth in this league.
Speaking of local markets, this is also an opportunity to get these teams on local television. Yes, you that’s reading a Substack right now have cut the cord. Believe it or not, it’s still not the norm. That’s especially the case outside of the Big 3 cities.
Get Forge on CHCH, basically. And apologize to FC Edmonton, who had a good local deal they had to walk away from, after you do.
Finally, you’d have to imagine that this will spell the end of OneSoccer. I’m not sure how many people will stick with them for Chinese Super League or Eredivisie games.
I’ll update this if I get more information. This space is supported by paid subscriptions. Coming in February: paid subscribers will get access to the return of the It’s Called Football Podcast.
Indeed, this is a mess. But then it was always a mess. Pity, though, because the CanPL featured some very good soccer and, on that basis, looked to have a future. But it's hard to see how it can survive without major sponsorship and TV coverage.