Football: Radio-Canada adds QUFL package

(There was a thread about this on cisfootball.org, so it only seemed right to bump it back to the top of the queue.)

There is a school of thought that the country's public broadcaster should be giving more play to university sports, since they're not as beholden to the bottom line as TSN, Sportsnet, The Score, et al.

Societé Radio-Canada, the French CBC, is going to air QUFL games this fall on the network, online at radiocanada.ca/sports and also on Sports Extra, a Sirius Satellite Radio channel. (Cue the victory lap, since yours truly has been known to spout off that Canadian Interuniversity Sport should be kicking down doors to get on satellite radio; alas, I'm an XM subscriber.)

Anything which puts the product in front of more eyeballs is positive. One would only hope Radio-Canada's broadcasting brethren in the ROC would follow suit. Has anyone heard anything about CBC's proposed amateur sports channel, or did the recent cutbacks put that in mothballs?

An added bonus is that most people outside Quebec get SRC; not everyone gets RDS.

Here is Radio-Canada's broadcast schedule:
Sun., Sept. 6: Concordia at Laval, 2 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 12: Laval at Bishop's, 1 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 19: Montréal at Laval, 1 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 26: Acadia at Montréal, 1 p.m.
Sat., Oct. 3: Sherbrooke at Concordia, 1 p.m.
Sat., Oct. 17: Montréal at Sherbrooke, 1 p.m.
Sat., Oct. 24: McGill at Concordia, 1 p.m.
Sat., Oct. 31: Sherbrooke at Montréal, 1 p.m.
Sat., Nov. 7: QUFL semi-final, TBA
Sat., Nov. 14: Dunsmore Cup, TBA
Sat., Nov. 21: Mitchell Bowl & Uteck Bowl, TBA
Sat., Nov. 28: Vanier Cup , TBA
Montréal is on four times, Laval makes three appearances (pending the post-season), as will Concordia and Sherbrooke. Bishop's and McGill each appear once, as will Acadia.

All games will be simulcast on Sports Extra., the Sirius satellite radio network and webcast at Radio Canada.
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4 comments:

  1. Surely it's gonna put some pressure on the CBC. I hope they'll catch the ball...

    However they should concentrate the games per division: West, OUA, AUS, etc... to brew some kind of rivalry and interest...

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  2. A step in the right direction without doubt. This is something that should be pushed nation wide for some of the premier sports like hockey and basketball. Have a game of the week on CBC radio for hockey and basketball. Have a basketball game in the afternoon and a hockey game in the evening - would be cheap for the CBC and great for the CIS. Public broadcaster should be broadcasting university sport if anyone is going to.

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  3. The great thing about football on SRC is that they've also been promoting it. I live out west and I've seen ads for CIS football on SRC at least half a dozen times just flipping past the channel!

    As for CBC, I know people say they should put CIS games because they are the public broadcaster. But being owned by the taxpayer puts them in a totally "damned if you do, damned if you don't situation." In the end, few people actually watch CIS, so if CBC spends the money to broadcast these games (and to do them well), there are going to be people who scream about their taxpayer money being wasted on something no one watches. I'm pretty sure they call a lot of the skiing and other sports off a monitor or it's done in a packaged item unlike a live game production which would require lots of crew.

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  4. Also keep in mind that with the CBC, programming decisions basically come down to "stuff Conservatives like." The network's programming is pretty female-oriented and the politicians tend to be alpha males who aren't going to be much for Being Erica.

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