By Todd Ash-Duah
As bright fluorescent lights lit up Halifax’s Scotiabank Centre on March 11, 2018, thousands packed inside to watch the 2018 U Sports men’s basketball championship final between the Ryerson Rams—now Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold—and Calgary Dinos. With the score tied at 77-77 and 9.5 seconds remaining, Dinos guard Mambi Diawara sprinted across the court to receive a David Kapinga pass, drove to the hoop and finished a slick reverse layup. The Rams had no timeouts left and couldn’t convert on the final possession, giving the Dinos their first W.P. McGee Trophy.
A frenzy ensued in the Maritimes. The champions and their fans flooded the court, while cameras for the TV broadcast crowded their faces in a storybook ending that Diawara and the Dinos will never forget.
With this being the championship game, plenty of eyes were on the court that night as the game aired live on Sportsnet 360, meaning millions across Canada had easy access to see what U Sports is all about: quality play, intense competition and theatre-esque drama.
While the essence and quality of U Sports hasn’t gone anywhere, much has changed since that 2018 title game. One year later, after the conclusion of the 2019 national championships, U Sports’ broadcast deal with Sportsnet expired, meaning the league had to find a new broadcasting partner. After some U Sports national championships in 2020 and the entire 2020-21 season were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U Sports struck a new broadcast rights deal with CBC Sports in 2021. This resulted in a four-year contract that expires at the end of the 2024-25 season. Although U Sports championship’s viewership numbers reached an all-time high during the 2023-24 season, there has been no news of a potential contract extension between the league and CBC, further putting the future of U Sports broadcasting in question.
Currently, provincial games are broadcast on OUA.tv, CanadaWest.tv and AUS.tv, while championships are broadcast on CBC Sports digital platforms such as CBCSports.ca, CBC Gem and CBC Sports’ YouTube channel. This year, the U Sports men’s and women’s basketball championships were simulcast on SN360, a sample of the league’s potential on national television. However, most games are not available on the air on a Canada-wide level, and the quality of the broadcast depends on the school’s facilities, equipment and programs.
Amidst the uncertainty in the future of televised U Sports, the path forward for Canadian university games to get back on the air and become an entertainment product people want to watch live, follow and invest in is up in the air. The question becomes: Can U Sports forge itself into a golden ticket once again?
“Everything has advanced so much further than when I was a student-athlete,” says Donnovan Bennett, who played U Sports football as a running back for the Western Mustangs from 2003 to 2007. “The one thing that has not advanced, but has regressed, has been the exposure on national TV outlets. So for that to be somewhat rectified would be validation to the student-athletes that what they’re doing matters.”
Bennett, who currently works as a feature host, producer and radio host at Sportsnet, sees U Sports as a niche, regional product instead of something that could become a mainstream media juggernaut in the Canadian sports media landscape. He notes that many fans who watch and consume U Sports content mainly support teams near them instead of the entire league, which affects the amount of viewership needed to sustain a national broadcast.
“If you are from London, Ont. and you consider yourself a U Sports football fan…it probably means that you are a fan of the Western Mustangs,” says Bennett. “And your level of engagement with what’s going on with the Saskatchewan Huskies or the Saint Mary’s Huskies is low until potentially those teams face the Western Mustangs in a national semi-final.”
Canadian university sports leagues, such as U Sports, have struggled to carve out a spot in a crowded Canadian sports media landscape, Bennett adds, especially with the recent rise of professional women’s sports in Canada.
“With the success of [Professional Women’s Hockey League] in year two, with the [Northern Super League] coming this spring and with the Toronto Tempo coming in May of 2026, there’s lots to cover,” says Bennett. “There’s only so many hours in a given highlight show or in a given day.”
Bennett’s potential solution to this dilemma includes U Sports partnering with any of Canada’s professional sports leagues to have university and professional teams based in the same city host a double-header rivalry event. The University of Toronto (U of T) Varsity Blues and Hamilton’s McMaster Marauders, for example, could play an afternoon football game ahead of a matchup between the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats. These partnerships and events might help the U Sports brand grow by attracting new and younger fans.
“You’re building into a pre-existing storyline of the rivalry [between] the two cities,” says Bennett. “You are going to a place where there’s going to be an audience.”
The idea of a cross-town or regional rivalry is well-established in U Sports. Games where the TMU Bold, U of T Varsity Blues or York Lions play against one another are commonly referred to as the “subway series,”—due to the schools being connected by the Toronto Transit Commission—and this season, TMU and U of T decided to brand their doubleheader basketball matchups as the Metro Hoops Classic.
Joel Darling, a TMU alumnus who currently works as the executive producer of NHL Special Events at Sportsnet, says U Sports needs to show it belongs to professional teams and the big leagues in sports broadcasting.
The cost of technological equipment has significantly decreased over the years, Darling says—adding that U Sports and other Canadian university leagues should make their product less expensive to produce to help their growth. This could make it more likely for major sports broadcasting networks such as TSN and Sportsnet to collaborate and work together again.
“That’s the key,” says Darling. “Anything [U Sports] can do to help make it cheaper or easier is important.”
U Sports is sometimes seen as the Canadian equivalent of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which has increased in popularity alongside the announcement of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals for athletes in 2021 as well as the overall commercialization of collegiate sports in the United States (U.S.).
However, because U Sports isn’t a multi-billion dollar industry—and doesn’t have an equivalent of NIL deals—like the NCAA, Darling recognizes the league hasn’t been able to generate as much revenue and, therefore, not as much national acclaim in Canada.
“When you look at university games and how many people are attending, the numbers aren’t that big,” he says. “So, in direct line with that, the money is not going to be spent in the same way based on the fact that the interest is not the same.”
Darling believes achieving such national recognition ultimately comes down to the technology and resources U Sports has to grow its product and get back on the air.
He says, “If you’re trying to mount a broadcast that looks good, sounds good, has commentators, many cameras, replayability…it’s going to cost some money.”
“There’s only so many hours in a given highlight show or in a given day”
Throughout the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) season, many TMU students from the RTA School of Media, consisting of sport media and media production programs, volunteer and work to broadcast games for TMU’s Bold Broadcast Group in collaboration with the university’s athletic department. The school’s access to state-of-the-art broadcasting equipment and technology has allowed the school to produce high-level broadcasts from the Mattamy Athletic Centre akin to professional broadcasts on major Canadian networks such as Sportsnet, TSN and CBC.
However, Ryan Sykes, a contract lecturer and technical producer for RTA’s Bold Live broadcasts, acknowledges not all universities have the same access to produce high-quality broadcasts as TMU.
“I think the biggest challenge for U Sports is the fact that not every school that participates in it has a media arm or media school that has the facilities and infrastructure that we have,” he says. “So the playing field is not necessarily level.”
Sykes says he would love to see U Sports partner up with other schools to help improve the quality of national broadcasting, which could help its athletes garner more deserved exposure and recognition.
“To show off not only the athletes—because there are tremendous athletes in all of the sports that we cover—but also our ability to tell stories and let students drive what storytelling in these live event productions is going to look like moving forward,” he says.
With the NCAA’s announcement of eligibility rule changes in November 2024, highlighting and showcasing U Sports athletes on a larger scale is becoming a topic of interest in 2025. This update allows players who have played in the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) to enroll and play in the NCAA. While this rule change could lead to young Canadian hockey players heading down south to play in the U.S., it could also lead to young American hockey players from leagues such as the United States Hockey League move up to Canada as a result of increased competition for spots in the NCAA.
“A lot of the players who are U Sports athletes come from pro or semi-pro leagues,” he says. “So the quality of play is really high.”
On the U Sports website, a small blurb reads, “The brand is one title, instantly recognizable and identical in both French and English, with one goal; To give our student-athletes and national championships the visibility, appreciation, and reward they deserve.”
However, with games not being broadcasted as frequently as in the past, U Sports athletes haven’t received the esteem the league strives to give them.
Kelcey Wright Johnson played U Sports basketball for the then-Ryerson Rams from 2009 to 2013 and now works as an NBA reporter. To her, the opportunity for Canadian university athletes to be spotlighted regularly nationally—the way she did when she played—would serve as an outstanding accomplishment while also benefiting the next generation of sports fans and athletes in the country.
“It would feel great,” said Wright Johnson. “Being recognized in your home country would be so good.”
Julie Gordon is a former beach and indoor volleyball player for the Canadian national team who just completed her first season as the lead assistant coach for the TMU women’s volleyball team. Having also been a U Sports athlete and played in nationally and internationally televised games, Gordon recognizes what it means for young athletes to have national exposure.
“I think it would mean that [U Sports athletes are] able to relate to younger athletes a little bit better,” says Gordon. “I think it would humanize the athletes a little bit more and provide the opportunity for younger people, and frankly anyone in the world, to learn about their struggles because that’s how people connect.”
As the 2024-25 U Sports season wraps up, it’s unclear whether or not the league will return to live television networks consistently in the near future, especially since Sportsnet’s TV broadcast rights deal with the NHL is set to expire at the end of the 2024-25 season.
“I think it’s all going to depend on what happens with the NHL national rights in Canada,” says Sykes. “Obviously, with the popularity of the NHL in Canada, once the dust kind of settles on what the future is of that, I think that’ll really determine a path for U Sports.”
In Bennett’s eyes, CBC is the “most optimal” home for U Sports coverage because of its accessibility for most Canadians and its history of covering high-level amateur sports such as the Olympics.
“Our tax money goes towards it,” says Bennett. “So they should be trusted to tell stories at that level.”
According to a CBC research report in April 2024, linear TV viewing has declined by 41 per cent over the past decade. With the realization that Canadians are not necessarily going to consume traditional broadcasts, Bennett believes it would be wise for U Sports to continue to dive into the online sports streaming sector.
“I think if we’re being diligent and prudent, that energy and focus should be looking forward to what’s ahead and skating where the puck is going, not where it is, Gretzky-style,” says Bennett. “I think in terms of building this out over time, it could be a real spark play.”
Gordon echoes this sentiment, adding, “CBC does a good job of making things fairly accessible” for U Sports fans by broadcasting games on platforms and streaming services such as YouTube and the CBC Gem app.
A potential issue that could arise if companies like Sportsnet partnered up with U Sports, Wright Johnson says, is that it could strip away opportunities for students to showcase their reporting and broadcasting skills. While there are talented up-and-coming broadcasters and technical staff working for Bold Broadcast Group and other teams across the country, she says major networks would likely prefer to have their own on-air talent crew.
She says, “I think there’s good and bad to both because I think that experience is so important for the student journalists.”
“I think it would humanize the athletes a little bit more”
Before the start of the 2025 U Sports women’s and men’s basketball national championships, the host University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds received an acknowledgement from NBA Hall of Famer centre Shaquille O’Neal and the rest of the “Inside The NBA” crew. O’Neal and his colleague Charles Barkley, a fellow NBA Hall of Famer, attempt to mimic bird squawks in reference to UBC’s team name in a viral social media clip.
The diesel-sized shoutout showed Canadian university sports’ potential as a league and commodity. Having felt the pressure of a national audience as a player and broadcaster, Bennett says the opportunity for student-athletes to be spotlighted more widely would help them in future scenarios in life. And he believes it’s possible—with efforts to collaborate among schools and make their product less expensive, U Sports could get back on the air consistently and help their athletes showcase their unique talents on the biggest stage.
“One of the best things about playing in those national TV games was you knew it was a stage,” said Bennett. “It hit different when you’re playing one of those big national TV games.
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