, referred to ubitiquously as '''TSN''', is a
Canadian Cable Television Specialty Channel and is
Canada 's leading
English Language Sports Television Channel . TSN premiered in
1984 , in the second group of
Canadian specialty cable channels. Essentially designed as a Canadian version of
ESPN , the extremely successful American all-sports cable channel, TSN remains the top-rated service on Canadian
Cable and
Satellite Television .
TSN (Which originally stood for "" but later was revised to simply "The Sports Network") was originally the property of
Labatt Brewing Company , partly to help market the company's flagship products but also to act as a vehicle for the
Toronto Blue Jays baseball team, also a Labatt property at that time. Labatt was forced to spin off TSN once it was acquired by
Interbrew to satisfy foreign ownership rules. Ironically, as of
2005 most Blue Jays games are again on a service affiliated with the owner of the team, but that service is now TSN's chief rival,
Rogers Sportsnet .
Labatt's broadcasting assets were sold to a privately-held consortium named NetStar Communications, the investors of which included a number of Canadian firms as well as
ESPN , which held about 30%. After ESPN blocked two attempts by the Canadian partners to sell NetStar to
CanWest Global ,
CTV acquired the Canadian partners' shares instead in
2000 , with ESPN's approval.
Today the majority owner of TSN is
Bell Globemedia , which became CTV's parent in early
2001 . ESPN retains a minority share, and at one point got CTV to agree to change the name to ESPN Canada. That change never went through, although since fall 2001 TSN's logo and much of its on-air look has been patterned after the ESPN identity.
ESPN also firmly denied occasional rumors that it would consider outsourcing production of "SportsCenter" or other studio shows to TSN, the way
FOX Soccer Channel 's FOX Sports World Report is produced by
Global TV in Winnipeg.
TSN's flagship program is ''
SportsCentre '' (prior to 2001, ''SportsDesk''), a highlights and sports news show that airs several times a day. Like the
American version of the program, which is known as
SportsCenter , it is broadcast in high definition. TSN also airs ESPN original programming, including ''
Sunday NFL Countdown '' and ''
Pardon The Interruption '', as well as a number of events for which ESPN owns the worldwide or
North America n rights. Most major U.S.-based leagues sell Canadian broadcasting rights separately, hence ESPN-branded coverage is sometimes seen on
Sportsnet or
The Score .
The network covers most major national and international sports, such as
National Hockey League ,
National Football League ,
UEFA Champions League and
Canadian Football League games, and
Formula One auto racing. Formula One racing broadcasts are usually produced by TSN using the
ITV1 commentary team. TSN once experimented with using SPEED's Charlotte-based American broadcast, but switched after a couple of races due to viewer complaints. It also shares the Canadian broadcast rights to the
PGA Tour - for which it airs virtually all early-round coverage - as well as
NASCAR , the
Toronto Blue Jays , and the
National Basketball Association (most games featuring the
Toronto Raptors ).
Coverage of many of these events, especially for the NFL, UEFA Champions League, Indy Racing League, and NASCAR (starting in 2007) are simulcast with ESPN. Any ESPN programming available in high definition is usually also available on TSN's HD feed.
TSN often picks up American feeds of NHL games involving American teams if
OLN or
NBC is televising the game in the U.S. TSN also features extensive Tennis coverage including Live coverage of all 4
Grand Slams as well as the
Tennis Masters Series and the Men's and Women's Canadian Open. TSN almost always picks up the American feed of tennis and golf.
TSN bills itself as the 'home for Hockey' in Canada. TSN usually covers high-profile matchups between American teams, while also featuring some games involving Canadian clubs.
Hockey Canada and TSN recently signed a 7 year contract extension that gives TSN the rights to broadcast the
IIHF World Junior Championships ,
Men's and
Women's World Hockey Championship , Men's Under-18 World Championships,
World Cup Of Hockey ,
Allen Cup ,
Royal Bank Cup ,
Spengler Cup ,
Telus Cup and ESSO Women's Nationals.
TSN has frequently produced its own coverage of events based in Canada, including NHL, CFL and
Curling games. The TSN Skins game was an invitational curling tournament sponsored and operated by the network. Canadian University sports events are also sometimes featured, as well as coverage of both womens international hockey and
NWHL games.
TSN features
Professional Wrestling in the form of
WWE 's flagship show, ''
Monday Night RAW ''. However, the program has occasionally been censored live for extremely violent scenes, or when female wrestlers or characters are assaulted by male wrestlers. These actions are supposed to be in order to meet Canadian broadcast standards, with repeat broadcasts often more heavily edited. This has disappointed many fans over the years, and is unusual since the violence of wrestling scenes are not significantly different from other television programs aired on regular Canadian networks. In fall
2006 , when TSN starts airing the ESPN iteration of Monday Night Football (as well as the NBC Sunday night Football games), wrestling is expected to air on tape delay during the NFL season. In
2004 , both TSN and
TNA Wrestling, (known then as NWA-TNA), erroneously announced that
IMPACT! would air on the network, however the deal was never completed and the article on the TSN Wrestling page was taken down shortly after. However, TSN's french-language sister network
RDS airs the program.
Outside
Ontario , critics jokingly call TSN the ''Toronto'' Sports Network, and charge it with a bias towards
Toronto teams. This perception has been taken advantage of by the network's main rival
Rogers Sportsnet , which operates four different regional feeds, all of which to air regional coverage of local teams. The lack of coverage of many events covered by American services, and in some cases redundant coverage of events already covered by the American services that are allowed in Canada, is also a frequent bone of contention.
TSN's sister
French Language sports service is ''Le
Réseau Des Sports '' (RDS). Other services managed by TSN include
ESPN Classic Canada and
NHL Network .
TSN also hosts much of Canada's supplementary Olympic coverage, being the first pay-TV station in the world to ever broadcast the Olympics with the
1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary, and having been part of the CBC's coverage from
1996 to
2008 . The station will be part of
CTV 's coverage from
2010 to
2012 . TSN has a similar agreement with Rogers Sportsnet to share coverage of soccer's World Cup.
Sports news segments on
CTV owned-and-operated stations and on
CTV Newsnet are co-branded with TSN.
- '' TSN Profile ''- Biographical portrait of various sports personalities
is a
High Definition simulcast of TSN. ''TSN HD'' offers more hours of HD coverage than any other sports service in Canada, including over 900 hours from more than 300 national and international events. Some of the events covered include: MLB, NHL, NFL and NBA games, CFL, Nascar, World Junior Hockey Championships and more.
NetStar plot thickens , Allison Vale, ''Playback'',
February 22 ,
1999 . URL accessed
November 27 ,
2005 (Note: limited number of non-subscription article views).
