Home NASL & USL More NASL & USL NASL “investigating” ways to make more games available to Canadian viewers

NASL “investigating” ways to make more games available to Canadian viewers

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Canadian NASL followers who are frustrated by the state of the league’s current broadcasting deal will have to be patient.

The current deal, introduced at the start of the 2015 season gives Canadian fans free access to all streams involving the Ottawa Fury and FC Edmonton, home or away —either through the Fury’s official website, TSN GO or Citytv’s website (depending on who’s doing the broadcasts).

But, while American viewers can watch all of the streams for free through ESPN3, Canadian viewers can’t access the majority of American-team vs. American-team games. ESPN3 is not available to Canadians. For a “North American” league, there’s a real disparity between the access Canadian and American supporters have to the broadcasts.

I have received a few tweets and LOT of e-mail about this. Fans were frustrated that they couldn’t watch any of the games this past weekend outside of the Fury/Strikers match. No Cosmos. No Rowdies. None of the remaining games that have bearing on the NASL spring-season race.

NASL released this following statement to us on Monday.

“Under our current arrangement with TSN GO, the only U.S.-based games that are currently available for Canadian viewers are as follows:
• Games involving FC Edmonton or Ottawa Fury FC
• Select marquee matchups involving two U.S. clubs (Example: Week 1 FTLvNYC)
We’re investigating the possibility of offering additional games via TSN GO, but at this point it is unclear which ones or how many.”

So, for Canadian viewers, the NASL broadcast picture remains unclear.But, for now, Canadians remain shut out of the majority of the NASL broadcast schedule. The broadcast quality of games has greatly improved under the new ESPN3 pact. But, in terms of coverage, the old NASLLive service, discontinued after the 2014 season, served Canadians far better – simply because all of the games were available.

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5 Comments

  1. Clayton

    July 8, 2015 at 4:35 pm

    This is totally unacceptable, and at a time when they (the NASL), needs a strong fan base. I watch because I love the game. The nearest NASL team to me is Edmonton; I subscribed last year and had a lot of fun watching all the teams play. Leaving us out like this hurts!!!!
    MLS did well when they kept their App and streaming capabilities for Canadian fans. If you have TSN1 and TSN2 and a subscription to MLS Online you can watch all the games.
    The NASL has lost my patience…. I’m tired of having to search for ways to watch the game and come up flat.
    I’ll go watch the other 3 Canadian teams then… ?

  2. smrtass

    April 29, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    NASLLive was better than nothing…. when it worked… which wasn’t always the case.

  3. nickp91

    April 28, 2015 at 1:48 pm

    So it basically seems like TSN and ESPN need to play nice, and the NASL has to broker a deal to be an intermediary for them. Even if the league has to pay for coverage

  4. formercampaignexpert

    April 28, 2015 at 9:09 am

    I feel for you. Do we know why ESPN3 is not available in canada?

    • Steven Sandor

      April 28, 2015 at 9:18 am

      You need to be subscribed to a U.S. cable or satellite provider to have access to ESPN3. Those companies do not do business in Canada. ESPN is also not available on Canadian television services because government rules are in place that an American specialty programmer can’t be allowed to compete with a Canadian service. So, because we have TSN and Sportsnet in Canada, it prevents American all-sports networks from being made available on our cable and satellite packages.

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