Close Grey Cup again suggests the game's the thing
Published 8 days agoย โขย 5 min read
Welcome back to Bucholtz Sports Media! This post is free for everyone thanks to our premium subscribers; you can join them here to read new and archived premium-only posts (including yesterday's on the CFL context ahead of this year's Grey Cup). Now, on to the news...
Roughriders' thrilling Grey Cup win should pay TV dividends
Saskatchewan players celebrate winning the 112th Grey Cup.
A point we've made here before, but one worth returning to, is how important the quality of any given game is to TV ratings (and thus, to business implications, although even individual championship game ratings matter only somewhat to networks and only somewhat less to leagues; the key is their performance in aggregate). Game quality often receives less discussion than the markets involved, the game's start time, the broadcasting arrangements and so on, but that's only because those other factors can be talked about in advance. How close a game actually will be is tough to predict (the best way to do that is probably looking at the consensus spreads, but they're often quite wrong), but it might be the most important factor. And that's the case for Sunday's 112th Grey Cup, which wound up as a 25-17 win for the Saskatchewan Roughriders that went down to the final play (a failed Hail Mary from Montreal Alouettes' quarterback Davis Alexander that fell incomplete).
The big reason why game quality matters so much is that TV audience numbers are typically relayed (in both Canada and the U.S.) in terms of average minute audience, or the amount of people watching a broadcast at any given minute. These numbers are much more important as currency than the "peak" (the most people watching at any one point) ones also sometimes given, as they're more reflective of who might check out a given commercial at any point in the broadcast (and thus, they impact the ad sales prices and also the "makegoods," generally free future ads, that arise if a broadcast dramatically underperforms in terms of viewers). But average minute audience numbers hit huge declines if a game's essentially decided partway through, with many choosing to go watch something else. Thus, a back-and-forth close-throughout contest like this Grey Cup wound up being is the best possible outcome for broadcasters and leagues.
And this 112th Grey Cup certainly was that. Indeed, the final eight-point difference was perhaps larger than you'd expect given how the game went. The Alouettes had a great opportunity to tie the score (or at least get within a field goal) late in the fourth quarter, but backup quarterback Shea Patterson (yes, the ex-Michigan and Ole Miss QB, adding to the lists of notable CFB players in the CFL) fumbled on a sneak near the goal line, producing a touchback that gave Saskatchewan the ball at their 25. The Roughriders eventually had to punt it back to Montreal for a final drive attempt, but if Patterson had scored there, the Alouettes could have tied the game with a successful two-point conversion, or needed just a field goal to win even if they failed.
This game saw many notable moments even before those closing dramatics. One thing that really stood out was the performance of 39-year-old Saskatchewan quarterback Trevor Harris, who set an all-time completion percentage record for a Grey Cup, besting some famous names along the way:
It's worth talking about Harris (selected as the game MVP after completing 23 of 27 passes for 302 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions) a bit more here. The product of Division II Edinboro University (now Pennsylvania Western University, Edinboro, and not the similarly-named school in Scotland) has been in the CFL since 2012 with five different teams. But that actually marked notable stability for him, as following the end of his college career in 2009, he had stints with the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars (undrafted free agent, cut before camp), the Arena Football League's Arizona Rattlers, the United Football League's Hartford Colonials, the NFL's Buffalo Bills (deal fell apart due to labor strife), the UFL's Sacramento Mountain Lions, and the AFL's Orlando Predators, not even getting into a game for most of those teams. But he headed north in 2012, excelled in some early backup opportunities with the Toronto Argonauts, and has made a great career as first a backup and then a starter. And even at 39, he's better than ever in terms of accuracy (perhaps the most important thing in the three-down game), setting a franchise record for season-long completion percentage this season:
One of the best parts of this broadcast came from a story told by TSN sideline reporter Claire Hanna. She spoke about talking with Harris' mother, who said he initially wanted to quit football growing up (in Marion, Ohio), but opted to stick with it for another year after she promised him $50 (which he figured could buy him seven meals at his favorite Chinese restaurant). Well, Harris stuck with it indeed, went on to notable high school and college success, and has now managed to turn what was already an impressive CFL career into one that's now etched into the record books. And that helps speak to the value of this league in providing a place to shine for amazing athletes who were overlooked by the NFL for one reason or another.
Back on the business front, there was a lot to like about this matchup from a TV perspective even before it wound up being as close and dramatic throughout as it was. The Roughriders tend to be the CFL's most popular team, with a huge following throughout the province of Saskatchewan and beyond. The Alouettes bring their own massive French-language audience, only a limited percentage of which tunes in for games not involving them. That's a big part of what led to the famed back-to-back Grey Cup duels between these two teams in 2009 and 2010 both averaging more than 6 million Canadian viewers (across both languages). A much lower total's likely in this case given shifts in the TV landscape and dropping CFL numbers (discussed in more detail in that previous premium post on the league's context), but it's quite possible this could pass 4 million with both languages considered.
Four million or more would be a big win for the CFL, as they got just 3.39 million English-language viewers across TSN and broadcast CTV for last year's Grey Cup, and 2.82 million on TSN alone (3.59 million with the French audience added) in 2023 when the Alouettes won. That isn't going to solve all the league's problems, of course; debate over the rule changes set to kick in in 2026 and 2027 remains heated. But a strong audience here certainly would help the tenor of offseason conversations about the league. And the way the game went makes it seem likely it drew quite well, so the CFL has the Riders and Alouettes to thank for delivering an entertaining and close game.
โ
Bucholtz Sports Media 4123 S Prieur St, New Orleans, LA 70125 โUnsubscribe ยท Preferencesโ
โ