Yesterday night, I sat down and flipped the channel to Sportsnet One to get ready to watch Toronto FC play Real Esteli in the CONCACAF Champions League preliminary round. The only thing preventing me from doing that was that the baseball game was also on the same channel and it was going on. The baseball game had a rain delay, so it was certain that the baseball game would finish later than 10pm, which was the start time of the TFC match. Sportsnet would air the TFC match on tape delay right after the baseball game ended.
I went on Twitter to see the reaction from TFC fans on what was happening, and the reaction was pretty vitriolic and hateful towards Sportsnet on their decision. I’ve seen “I’m never watching Sportsnet again” as well as “Fuck you Sportsnet” and I thought that was a bit excessive. The reaction of TFC fans was more emotional, rather than logical. My opinion on this whole Sportsnet thing is that I think they made the right decision in airing the baseball game in its entirety, and after the game was finished, they aired the TFC match in its entirety, even though it was on tape delay. My reasoning is this:
TFC fans, believe it or not, baseball has fans too. If I was a Detroit Tigers fan, watching the Tigers game on Sportsnet One and the game I was watching got cut off in the bottom of the 7th inning to make way for soccer, I would be very angry, and I would be calling Sportsnet to let them know how I feel. If it was the other way around, meaning, a soccer game had to go into extra time and therefore cut into the start time of a baseball game on the same channel, then I’m 99.9% sure that channel would air the soccer game in its entirety. It doesn’t matter that the baseball game was considered “meaningless” by TFC fans and that the TFC match was considered important, or that Sportsnet was apparently being “anti-Canadian” by airing a baseball match featuring two American teams and not the Canadian soccer team. The fact is, there was a compromise, and unfortunately, some TFC fans took the decision the wrong way.
Another argument I want to address is this, “Sportsnet have 5 channels, Sportsnet Ontario, East, West, Pacific, and One. Why couldn’t they simply move the soccer game from Sportsnet One to one of the other Sportsnet channels?” By making this argument, people are making the assumption that everyone in Canada has access to all five of these channels, which simply isn’t true. Not all people in Canada have a digital box, and a majority of people only have access to one Sportsnet channel, depending on where they live in Canada. I don’t think most people from British Colombia who only have access to Sportsnet Pacific would be happy if they were forced to watch a soccer match featuring an Ontario team. An alternative for Sportsnet would be to air the TFC game live on Sportsnet Ontario, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea (or a good look) to replace the programming that was already slated to air on that channel.
For the most part, I was pretty disgusted with the reaction of TFC fans on Twitter, and I thought some people would be a little more understanding of the situation, instead of acting like spoiled children. Sportsnet is a channel for the sports consumer, not just the soccer consumer, and I think Sportsnet was just trying to satisfy both sets of fans. Most people found an online stream of the match, as did I. But if people didn’t have access to an online stream, they could have simply waited 30-45 minutes for the baseball game to end. TFC fans, it could have been much worse, the game could have been aired on Setanta, so be glad that you got to see the match, whether it was on an online stream, or on tape delay on Sportsnet One.
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