MMA on Canadian TV (a brief history)

By Jane W.
– Canadian Correspondent

Finding top mma on television in Canada has been a more or less hit-and-miss process. Sure, there’s pay-per-view, but what about us poor schmucks who can’t afford that? If you subscribe to “extended” cable, you probably get Spike TV. Here you can watch many UFC events, as well as The Ultimate Fighter reality gameshow. And every once in a while, CBS will throw some mma event on in primetime. Most cable companies in Canada carry CBS affiliated channels on their basic service. (Unlike the United States, most homes in Canada have some sort of cable service.)

But where can I find a Canadian channel that carries mma? As you may know, if you read my previous post, mma is technically illegal in Canada. And while it is not illegal to show the sport on television, it sometimes feels like some channels are afraid of being prosecuted for it. I first saw mma while flipping the channels about five years ago. It was something from the UFC, but it was over too fast. And it was on TSN (The Sports Network).

TSN is the reigning king of sports channels in Canada, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2009. Most in Canada joke that the ‘T’ stands for Toronto, since most of its coverage is centred there. Their headquarters are in Toronto. And Ontario is notorious for enforcing the anti-mma law. After seeing this fight on TSN, I continued to look for more, but there was none to be had.

The Ultimate Fighter began in January 2005 on Spike TV. At the time, Spike was a haven for Star Trek reruns … and that’s about it. So this show was kept off my radar until I happened across an ad for the live finale. Ooh, I thought, mma on TV! So I watched Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar beat the shit out of each other. How could one not be hooked after that? I watched a lot of mma on Spike after that!

A couple of years ago, Rogers Sportsnet in Canada started airing The Ultimate Fighter. The problem is that they tend to air it later than Spike, due to Canadian laws regarding content. Spike airs it at 10PM, however cable companies in Canada tend to carry only the eastern feed of US cable channels, so it airs in Vancouver at 7PM. In Canada, it is ill-advised to air violent programming before 9PM, even if it is a sport. Which, I guess – by law – it isn’t. Sportsnet also often carries Spike‘s Fight Night events, though not always live. (Once they aired a British event live at Noon, while Spike aired it on tape delay at 6PM, but that was the exception, not the rule.)

The Score is a relatively new sports channel in Canada, which started off as Headline Sports. The original aim of the channel was to provide scores and highlights. Obviously that wasn’t paying off, so they began adding live coverage of marginal sporting events, such as baseball and basketball. (I say “marginal” because these are not top sports in Canada outside of Toronto, and the games they covered were games not covered by the big two.) They have been big supporters of mma in the past few years. They regularly show BoDog fights and Hardcore Championship Fighting. They recently aired the first season of Bellator Fighting Championships after it had finished in the US and will air the second season concurrently with the US broadcast in 2010.

TSN has been carrying WEC events for the past year or two. In 2008 they launched TSN2, which was helpful in finding more WEC events. They also sporadically aired Versus‘ WEC WrekCage – a compilation of fights similar to Spike‘s UFC Unleashed – for a time, but that seemed to disappear. The last few WEC events have been delayed by hours and even days on TSN, despite having a second channel to put it on. TSN‘s website has an mma section, but it is buried under a subheading. They clearly are not all that interested in the fastest growing sport in the world.

Sportsnet has Joe Ferraro as their mma expert. He hosts a nightly show about mma that I have never seen. Sportsnet‘s website has an mma section that is quite prominent. Over at The Score they have a weekly update show called, not surprisingly, The MMA Show. It is hosted by well-known mma commentator (and fellow Canadian) Mauro Ranallo. He runs through the week’s news at a lightning pace, but it’s so much more refreshing than watching those snails ramble along on HDNet‘s Inside MMA.

Late last year, Strikeforce announced an agreement with Canadian pay-tv outlet Super Channel to carry its events in Canada. Showtime had them in the USA. The first of these events to be televised here was on January 30, unbeknownst to many. Super Channel is a fairly new channel and does not get coverage in listings magazines or the newspaper. The only way to find out what’s on is to check their website or use the digital guide on your TV. But the digital guide for that day was wrong! They had the even scheduled for 11PM, but not at the live starting time of 7PM. Instead, Boxing was scheduled. The digital guide is based on information provided by the broadcaster, so I don’t understand why Super Channel didn’t promote the hell out of this event. The recent event, on February 26, was listed correctly, but again, not promoted at all.

In December 2009 it was announced that The Score had snagged the Canadian rights to WEC events. The announcement, made by Ranallo on his show, was that all WEC events in 2010 would be televised live on The Score. The WEC is currently considering doing some pay-per-view events in 2010, but I am unclear on whether these would also be PPV in Canada, or if they would fall under the term “all events” and be televised on The Score. Time will tell, but I can tell you that this mma fan is one step closer to being perfectly happy with the television coverage of mma in Canada.

My only complaint about The Score‘s coverage is that, due to their licence, they keep the update ticker going 24/7 (even through commercials, if you can believe it!) at the bottom of the screen. Because of this, they have to scrunch up the picture in order to show the clock, so you get a slightly distorted view. It’s not terrible, but I would rather see them just shrink the picture to fit in the smaller window, even if it means narrow black bars on the sides. This weekend the WEC holds its second event of the year. Maybe The Score will have worked this out by then.

I have one conditional wish for the new year: either Sportsnet needs to start airing The Ultimate Fighter on the same day or my cable company needs to add Spike HD. Then I will be a happy girl!

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