Wednesday 9 March 2011

Final 8 Television Coverage Update

See below for a note from long-time CIS and Carleton basketball supporter Dave Whitfield hopefully clarifying television and webcast coverage of CIS Final 8 this coming weekend in Halifax.  Thanks to Dave for passing this along.


After several emails to TSN and the CIS I now have the "definitive" answers on the CIS/TSN2 broadcast plans for the Nationals--but I'm not sure that you're going to be happy with all the answers.


1. According to Bill McLean in Halifax, SSN Canada will be allowed to stream the webcast for the first two games on Friday:
#1 UBC v. Acadia 2 PM Eastern
#2 Trinity Western v. Lakehead 4:15 PM Eastern

These games are NOT being televised by TSN2.


2. The Sunday Bronze Medal game between the Saturday night losers will be played at 2:15 PM. This game is not being televised on TSN2, but will be streamed to the internet by SSN Canada.


You can find the SSN webcasts at: http://www.ssncanada.ca/games/


This is the first time (at least in my memory) that they've had a "Bronze medal" game on the Sunday. Normally, only the "Consolation" (5th place) final game has been played.
These are the only games being streamed to the internet according to Peter Metuzals, the CIS Director of Marketing.


3. TSN2 will broadcast two games live on Friday night.


#3 Saskatchewan v. Dalhousie 7 PM Eastern will be broadcast live on TSN2.
#4 Carleton v. Concordia 9:15 PM Eastern will be broadcast live on TSN2


Both these games will be broadcast live, but there will not be any streaming to the internet. The only source of live scoring for these games, other than the TSN2 broadcast, is "Live Stats" which you can access by going to:  http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/mbkb/2010-11/postseason,

and clicking on "Live Stats" which is located beside each game. "Live Stats" is a bit like the old fashioned ticker tape broadcast of baseball games--it's text only, no commentary. You'll normally see a graphic of a basketball court with the names of the players currently playing, a game clock and scoreboard, along with a streaming text description of what is happening on the floor. It's not quite "live" and it certainly is minimalist, but it's better than nothing.


4. TSN2 will broadcast the two semifinal games on Saturday night both on a tape-delayed basis.

Semi-final #1 will feature the winners of UBC v. Acadia, against the winners of Trinity Western v. Lakehead, and TSN2 will broadcast the game tape-delayed starting at 7 PM Eastern. The actual game starts at 4 PM Eastern, so it should be completed well before it's broadcast by TSN2.


Semifinal #2 will feature the winners of Saskatchewan v. Dalhousie, against the winners of Carleton v. Concordia and TSN2 will broadcast the game tape-delayed starting immediately following the completion of Semi-final #1 (probably at 9 PM Eastern). The actual game starts at 7 PM Eastern

Please note: Until this evening the CIS webpage for the Final 8, contained a great deal of wrong information abut the broadcast schedule. The information I set out above has been confirmed by Peter Metuzals, the CIS Director of Marketing in emails I received from him today. The CIS website has now been corrected.


There will not be any streaming webcast of games which TSN2 is televising. You're only source of "live" scoring information on the internet is the "Live Stats" facility available at: http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/mbkb/2010-11/postseason.


5. On Sunday, the Championship game will be broadcast on a tape-delayed basis on TSN2 starting at 6 PM Eastern. The game will actually start at 4 PM Eastern. Once again, there will not be any webcast of this game which TSN2 is broadcasting, just the "Live Stats".


For those of you who are not sure where to find TSN2 on your cable or satellite service, here's where you'll find it for most viewers in Ontario:


Rogers Cable 98 or 507 (HD)
Cogeco Cable 156 or 792 (HD)
Bell TV 401 or 851 (HD)
Shaw/Star Choice 401 or 269 (HD)


9 comments:

Bill McLean said...

Just a note on those broadcast times. The games on friday begin at Noon eastern, not 2:00. Check the times below, all times are atlantic.

CHAMPIONSHIP SCHEDULE (all times ATLANTIC TIME)


Friday, March 11

13:00 Quarter-final #1: No. 8 Acadia vs. No. 1 UBC (SSN Canada webcast)
15:15 Quarter-final #2: No. 5 Trinity Western vs. No. 4 Lakehead (SSN Canada webcast)
18:00 Quarter-final #3: No. 6 Dalhousie vs. No. 3 Saskatchewan (Live on TSN2)
20:15 Quarter-final #4: No. 7 Concordia vs. No. 2 Carleton (Live on TSN2)

Saturday, March 12

17:00 Semifinal #1: Winner QF #1 vs. Winner QF #2 (TSN2 – tape delayed to 20:00 AST)
20:00 Semifinal #2: Winner QF #3 vs. Winner QF #4 (TSN2 – tape delayed to 22:00 AST)

Sunday, March 13

13:15 Bronze medal game (SSN Canada webcast)
17:00 Championship final (TSN2 – tape delayed to 19:00 AST)

prizby said...

So are none of the consolation games on TSN2 or SSN Canada?

As well, why don't they just play semi-final 2 live and have semi-final 1 on tape-delay instead of having both tape-delayed.

It is a disgrace that the national championship should be tape-delayed.

TSN needs to get with the program like their sisters in the United States ESPN. ESPN has the rights to way more than they can broadcast on all their networks. So they stream all the rest of the stuff they cannot show:

http://espn.go.com/espn3/index

Time for TSN to step up or get out

Adam Connolly said...

what a joke.. an absolute disgrace that these games are being shown tape delayed.. thank goodness i will be in Halifax watching the games live and not cursing on the phone to TSN like I was last year..

Anonymous said...

How can pepole be interested in CIS athletics? Got 6 season tix to my 2 universities, keep dailly track of the CIS' 3 'major' sports (SSN is pretty cool), and then this: TSN2! and extremely limited live streaming ... Gimme a break here. I don't have TSN2 and don't want it - I won't want TSN3, 4 , 5 either. I guess we'll have to make do with the ncaa's conference tourneys. Thks CIS.

Anonymous said...

This is extremely unfortunate for people living 'abroad' like myself. I know from watching the AUS Championship coverage with Bill that he had quite a large portion of his viewers/people writing in from outside the TSN2 broadcast zone. It would be great if TSN2 had an option to watch online, even if they charged a fee for each event you wanted to watch.

My last ditched attempt will be someone pointing a webcam at their tv set as I watch via Skype from accross the pond...unless anyone has any better ideas (along the lines of atdhe.me?)

Jason Cormier said...

I understand that both curling and golf get higher ratings and thus the CIS Final 8 take a back seat. That's bad enough but why are the Saturday semi-finals delayed a further hour so TSN can air another ESPN documentary? (To make matters worse, it's a repeat; the original airing was almost a month ago.)

prizby said...

here is another kick to the can...TSN is making the NCAA play in games available for viewing on tsn.ca while they are LIVE, but cannot do the same for the CIS National Championship

sager said...

Brutal. Time for Peter Metuszals ask for other duties in CIS HQ. Very weak leadership.

Anonymous said...

Ok, long season, watch games galore, time for the big finale, TWU vs Carleton. Oh not really, not on the tube live. We're talking the FINAL here. Yes indeed, a joke!