Канаданың TSN спорт арнасы: тарихы мен дамуы

Canadian English language regional sports networks owned by Bell Media and ESPN
the Canadian television network

The Sports Network (TSN) is a Canadian English language discretionary sports specialty channel owned by CTV Specialty Television, owned jointly by Bell Media (70%) and ESPN Inc. (30%), itself a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. TSN was established by the Labatt Brewing Company in 1984 as part of the first group of Canadian specialty cable channels. TSN is the largest specialty channel in Canada in terms of gross revenue, with a total of in revenue in 2013. the channel was launched by the Labatt Brewing Company on September 1 of the same year as The Sports Network, or TSN. The network was founded under the leadership of Gordon Craig, a former employee of CBC Sports; alongside coverage of the then co owned

By December 1987, TSN had reached one million subscribers, but the network's staff sought wider distribution for the channel as part of basic cable service; the CRTC approved the network's request for permission to allow TSN to be carried as part of a basic cable lineup. Mike Day, producer of TSN's daily sports news program SportsDesk lamented about the shift to basic cable and the larger audience it would bring, commenting that "one night you're doing a news show that potentially has an audience of one million people, and the next day the potential is five million people." In 1991, TSN acquired rights to the IIHF World Junior Championship, otherwise known as the "World Juniors", which were previously broadcast by CBC. TSN's coverage, along with the recent "Punch up in Piestany" incident and a strong performance by Canada at the tournament in the mid 1990s, helped to significantly heighten the profile of the tournament in the country (even more so than in other participating countries), to the point that it is, alongside U. S. college football bowl games, regarded as a traditional sporting event of the holiday season in Canada. Due to CRTC regulations on the foreign ownership of broadcasters, Labatt was forced to sell TSN and RDS upon its acquisition by Interbrew in 1995. 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 Inc., which held an interest of about 30 percent. The same CRTC regulations prevented ESPN from establishing its own separate Canadian sports network outright, so acquiring a minority stake in TSN became ESPN's alternative plan to get into the Canadian market. The Sports Network launched its website TSN. ca on October 1, 1995. In 1997, the CRTC began permitting TSN to offer an "alternate feed", which could be used to provide a regional opt out of the main TSN service for programming that must be blacked out in the rest of the country. Alternate programming could make up a maximum of 10% of the TSN schedule—an average of 2.4 hours a day.

In 2000, after ESPN blocked two attempts by the Canadian partners to sell NetStar to Canwest, CTV Inc. acquired the Canadian partners' shares. CTV Inc. was acquired by Bell Canada and The Woodbridge Company (publisher of The Globe and Mail newspaper) as part of the joint venture Bell Globemedia in 2001. As a result of its purchase of TSN, CTV would be forced to sell its regional sports network CTV Sportsnet, eventually selling it to minority shareholder Rogers Media. Following the acquisition, TSN would move its operations to CTV's Agincourt complex in the Toronto district of Scarborough. This oddity would become an inside joke between personalities on both networks, who commonly referred to jumping between the two networks as "crossing the parking lot." Following the sale, TSN began to closer align its on air imaging with that of ESPN; the most prominent effect of these changes came with the introduction of a new logo similar to that of ESPN, and the re branding of TSN's flagship sports news program SportsDesk as SportsCentre—a Canadian version (in both format and spelling) of ESPN's SportsCenter. TSN also launched a number of digital specialty channels in 2001; including a local version of ESPN Classic, the NHL Network— a network devoted to ice hockey and the National Hockey League, and WTSN—a channel dedicated to women's sports On August 15, 2003, TSN became one of the first two specialty television services in Canada (the other being fellow Bell property Discovery Channel) to be available in high definition. Following this development, TSN began to use such a feed to broadcast additional programming that could not be aired on TSN due to scheduling conflicts or other events. On August 29, 2008, the feed evolved into a new 24 hour channel, similar to ESPN2, known as TSN2. Upon its launch, TSN2 was legally considered a west coast timeshift feed of TSN, although soon after TSN2 was launched, the CRTC announced a proposal to remove genre exclusivity protections for "mainstream sports" and "national news" channels in the near future. As a byproduct of the decision, TSN would be allowed to use streamlined conditions of licence (legally referred to as a Category C license as of September 2011), which state that the service may offer "multiple feeds" consistent with their licensed programming format, without any restrictions on alternate programming. TSN was officially permitted to use these streamlined conditions of licence on February 1, 2010.

On September 10, 2010, Bell Canada announced plans to re acquire 100% of CTVglobemedia's broadcasting arm, including its majority control of TSN. Under the deal, Woodbridge Company Limited, Torstar, and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan would together receive $1.3 billion in either cash or equity in BCE, while BCE would also assume $1.7 billion in debt (BCE's existing equity interest is $200 million, for a total transaction value of $3.2 billion). Woodbridge has since simultaneously regained majority control of The Globe and Mail, with Bell retaining a 15% interest in December 2010. The deal closed on April 1, 2011, after the CRTC approved the sale on March 7, 2011 – the new company became known as Bell Media. After a longstanding speculation about TSN's interest in launching its own TSN branded radio network (similarly to its U. S. counterpart), TSN entered radio broadcasting with the launch of the first TSN Radio station, a relaunch of AM station CHUM in Toronto on April 13, 2011. Bell Media's Bell Media Radio division already operated several sports radio stations elsewhere in Canada (most of which were branded as The Team, a name introduced by previous owner CHUM Limited in its own failed attempt at establishing a national sports radio network), it was reported that Bell could theoretically relaunch these other stations under the TSN Radio brand in the future. Also in 2011, TSN acquired broadcast rights to the new Winnipeg Jets. TSN would establish another part time feed, TSN Jets, to broadcast the games. Additionally, co owned CFRW would also gain radio rights to the new Jets. CFRW, along with Montreal station CKGM, also migrated to the TSN Radio brand on October 5, 2011. Additionally, Bell would also launch TSN Mobile TV, streaming versions of TSN and TSN2 offered through Bell Mobility's Mobile TV services. The deal was completed in summer 2012, following the approval of Canada's Competition Bureau, the Canadian Radio television and Telecommunications Commission (with regards to MLSE's television channels), as well as the leagues for each of MLSE's main sports franchises. The deal was expected to have a major impact on future broadcast rights for MLSE's teams, including the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors, as their ownership of the teams will offer enhanced coverage for the team through new platforms such as mobile television. In March 2014, TSN launched its TV Everywhere service TSN Go, allowing subscribers to TSN on participating service providers to stream TSN networks online or through a mobile app. On launch, TSN Go was available exclusively to Bell Satellite TV and Rogers Cable subscribers. It has since been expanded to other providers, such as Shaw.

Following the announcement of Bell and Rogers' acquisition of MLSE, concerns were again raised by critics, speculating that Bell Media could attempt to acquire full rights to the NHL after CBC's current contract with the league expires following the 2013–14 season – using their ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the NHL's highest valued franchise, as an impetus for such a coup. Concerns were also raised that such an arrangement could prevent wireless service providers other than Bell and Rogers from accessing its content; the CRTC had ruled in favour of Telus in a decision requiring Bell and other media companies to allow other competing wireless providers access to its content, and not exclusively tie it to their own service (as they had attempted to do with TSN Mobile TV). On May 6, 2014, TSN announced that it would launch three new channels—TSN3, TSN4, and TSN5, in September 2014 to coincide with the network's 30th anniversary. TSN president Stewart Johnston described the expansion as an "important evolution" for the network, as it would allow TSN to make more efficient use of its portfolio of sports properties: the network promoted that these new channels would allow TSN to broadcast a larger amount of ESPN content and live events, particularly including expanded coverage of major events (such as Grand Slam tennis, curling tournaments, and the NCAA basketball tournament) with multiple games occurring simultaneously. Although the expansion was discussed by TSN staff as early as 2012, critics considered the loss of NHL rights to Rogers (which had recently launched its seventh Sportsnet branded television service with its acquisition of The Score, now Sportsnet 360) to be a catalyst for the move, as TSN attempts to defend its position as the largest specialty television service in Canada in terms of total revenue. At the same time, Dave Krikst created BarDown, a segment on TSN's YouTube page focused on attracting a younger audience. Made up of TSN producers Jesse Pollock, Corwin McCallum, Daniel Zakrzewski, Luca Celebre, and others, they post hockey focused quizzes and beer league content. On January 13, 2016, TSN announced that it would present its first telecast in 4K ultra high definition—a Toronto Raptors basketball game—on January 20, 2016. It was followed by a slate of regional NHL games and other Raptors games in the format. On June 7, 2018, TSN announced that it would offer its channels as part of an over the top subscription service branded as "TSN Direct". By late 2022, this service had been rebranded to simply TSN. On January 12, 2023, TSN announced a separate direct to consumer service called "TSN+", which launched the same day with a limited time free preview. The service, which is comparable but not entirely equivalent to ESPN+, initially includes Canadian rights to PGA Tour Live (acquired after Warner Bros. Discovery's GolfTV ceased operations), the NTT IndyCar Series (previously on Sportsnet), the relaunching XFL, as well as various other properties such as La Liga and AEW Rampage which were previously available as bonus streams to subscribers of the regular TSN service.

As is permitted for all Category C sports services, the TSN licence is permitted to have multiple channels, and currently encompasses all of the channels listed in the table below. However, unlike premium services like Crave, subscribers receiving one TSN channel are not necessarily automatically entitled to receive all additional channels, and in many cases they are (or previously were) only available by paying a separate charge to a service provider. For example, until 2013, Rogers Cable customers were required to subscribe to the HD Specialty Pack add on in order to receive TSN HD (whereas most other HD simulcast channels were provided at no additional charge). On many providers including Rogers, TSN1, 3, 4 and 5 were included in a single package when those feeds launched, but TSN2 was provided only as part of a separate higher tier package. On May 6, 2014, TSN announced plans to launch three additional multiplex channels, for a total of five 24 hour national channels. The existing "TSN" service was replaced by four regionally focused channels (referred to as "feeds")—TSN1, 3, 4, and 5—similar to the Sportsnet regional channels. All five channels are available nationally, but on most local providers, the channel location previously occupied by TSN's primary service was filled by the appropriate regional feed. While major sports telecasts are simulcast across TSN1, 3, 4, and 5 to ensure national coverage, alternative studio shows and live events can also be split across the channels. Their launch date was originally announced as September 1, 2014, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of TSN's launch, but was moved up to August 25 in order to accommodate multiple court coverage throughout the 2014 US Open. Prior to the launch of the additional feeds, Bell executives stated that the expanded five channel service would be offered for the same rate as was charged at the time for TSN and TSN2 together. Notwithstanding this claim, some providers, including Shaw Cable, have elected to charge extra for some of the new feeds. Most major Canadian television providers carried the new channels upon their launch, including Bell, Cogeco, Eastlink, MTS, SaskTel, Shaw, Source Cable, Rogers, and Telus. Videotron, a cable provider which primarily serves the province of Quebec, was a notable hold out for the new feeds. On October 13, a Monday Night Football game was left unavailable in English (due to a rained out MLB playoff game, RDS2 was able to carry the game in French) to Videotron subscribers because TSN5—the only feed it carried—was airing a regional Ottawa Senators/Florida Panthers NHL game (a game which also attracted infamy for having the lowest attendance of any Panthers game in team history). On October 16, 2014, Videotron president Manon Brouillette responded to complaints by subscribers surrounding the incident, and confirmed that it had reached a deal in September to carry the new feeds; the addition of TSN1 to the lineup was accelerated to October 20, 2014, to ensure the availability of that week's Monday Night Football game, with the remainder added on October 29, 2014. On November 27, 2016, a one time overflow channel was used to broadcast a regional Ottawa Senators game due to conflicts with the 104th Grey Cup (which featured the Ottawa RedBlacks, and was being simulcast across all TSN regional feeds). The current TSN feeds, and any programming unique to each feed as per TSN's current TV schedules (subject to pre emption by either ESPN or TSN due to live events), is shown below. Channel Launch date Description and programming TSN1 September 1, 1984 August 15, 2003 (HD) Originally established as the primary, national TSN service since its launch, on August 25, 2014, this feed was renamed TSN1 and became the primary TSN feed for viewers in British Columbia, Alberta and Yukon. Frequently airs ESPN/ESPN2 talk programming such as First Take on weekdays. Simulcasts CHUM's Overdrive. TSN3 August 25, 2014 The primary TSN feed for viewers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and northwestern Ontario. The French language Réseau des sports and related channels operate under a separate licence, as did TSN's other now defunct sports networks WTSN and the Canadian versions of ESPN Classic and NHL Network.

Channel First air date Last air date Description and programmingCanadiens on TSN(TSN Habs) October 25, 2010 April 10, 2014 A part time feed which carried English language regional broadcasts of Montreal Canadiens games from 2010 to 2014, in the eastern Canadian territory shared by Montreal and the Ottawa Senators. It was provided at no additional charge to customers in this region who subscribed to TSN through Bell Satellite TV, Bell Fibe TV, Bell Aliant FibreOP, and Shaw Direct. The rights expired before the 2014–15 season, and were acquired by Sportsnet East. TSN re gained the Canadiens' rights in 2017–18, with the games moving to TSN2. || align="center" width="180px" | April 11, 2014 || A premium channel which carried regional broadcasts of Winnipeg Jets games from 2011 to 2014, restricted to the Jets' NHL home territory of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and parts of northwestern Ontario. Jets games moved to TSN3 for the 2014–15 season.

TSN splits rights to the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Toronto Raptors with Sportsnet, by virtue of the league's Canadian media rights being managed by Raptors owner MLSE. TSN alternated broadcasting the 2019 NBA Finals with Sportsnet, which featured the Toronto Raptors winning their first ever NBA championship. TSN aired the series clinching Game 6, which saw an average of 7.7 million viewers as the most watched NBA telecast in Canadian history.

TSN acquired Canadian rights to Major League Soccer in 2011, airing 24 matches during the 2011 season that involved the league's Canadian clubs, Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC. Its slate expanded to 30 games in 2012 with the debut of the Montreal Impact in the league. TSN's channels broadcast a package of other regular season games, the MLS All Star Game, MLS Cup Playoffs and the MLS Cup. In January 2014, TSN announced that it would take over broadcast rights to Whitecaps games beginning in the 2014 Major League Soccer season, under a separate deal. These rights were renewed in 2017 as TSN reached a 5 year extension to its Major League Soccer broadcasting rights. However, these exclusive rights were not renewed further (TSN Would air non exclusive rights to select game's beginning in 2023), as all MLS programming moved to the new MLS Season Pass streaming service in 2023. On October 27, 2011, Bell Media and TSN announced that they had secured broadcast rights for FIFA soccer tournaments from 2015 to 2022. The rights include the 2018 FIFA World Cup, 2022 FIFA World Cup, the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup hosted by Canada and the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. In 2021, TSN acquired the rights to La Liga, as part of a sub licensing agreement with ESPN.

TSN holds exclusive rights to Curling Canada's Season of Champions series through 2029, which includes Canada's women's and men's national championships, the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and Montana's Brier, along with the World Curling Championships. It also organizes the Pinty's All Star Curling Skins Game, an annual skins curling tournament. TSN has hosted much of Canada's supplementary Olympic coverage, being the first pay television channel in the world to ever broadcast the Olympics with the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and having been part of the CBC's coverage from 1998 to 2008. In 2010, TSN began to participate in CTV and Rogers' joint broadcast rights to the Olympic Games for 2010 and 2012. TSN continued to be a part of CBC's coverage of the 2014 Winter Olympics, but also in conjunction with Sportsnet (who participated in the CTV/Rogers coverage). TSN has also historically been a broadcaster for Major League Baseball in Canada, as its former parent company, Labatt, was also the owner of the Toronto Blue Jays. Under Rogers ownership, TSN continued to sub license a package 25 of Blue Jays games per season, with the rest of the games televised by the co owned Sportsnet, who is also the primary rightsholder of Major League Baseball in Canada. In 2010, TSN traded its Blue Jays games to Sportsnet for rights to ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. In 2014, TSN reached a deal directly with MLB International for Canadian rights to all of ESPN's MLB coverage, adding Monday Night Baseball and Wednesday Night Baseball beginning in the 2014 season.

TSN previously aired WWE's flagship show, Raw, for over a decade. Though broadcast live, the show occasionally had been censored live for extremely violent scenes (such as when female wrestlers or characters were assaulted by male wrestlers) to meet Canadian broadcast standards, with repeat broadcasts often more heavily edited. The final episode of Raw on TSN aired on July 31, 2006, after which, rival network The Score (now known as Sportsnet 360) picked up the rights. In 2019, TSN acquired broadcast rights to All Elite Wrestling's flagship show, Dynamite, marking the return of professional wrestling to the network. The show is broadcast in simulcast with TNT in the United States (subject to pre emption in the event of conflicts with other programming). On August 9, 2021, PWInsider reported that TSN will stream AEW Rampage online in simulcast with the U. S through its website and TSN Direct.