I remember when Tim Micallef left The Score and their University Rush OUA football broadcasts following the 2011 Yates Cup. I was there, in uniform, the proud backup Quarterback and temporary Punter of the Marauders.

It was a sad day for our guys. We talked about it in the jail cell that is the Western away locker room before the game. Arguably to distract ourselves from the moment at hand but nevertheless we knew what Tim’s voice meant to Canadian university football. Tim left, but the regular season broadcasts continued in 2012 on The Score.

I remember seeing Tim at The Loose Moose enjoying a pint following the 2012 BLG Awards which he hosted. We were there celebrating my good friend and current quarterback coach Kyle Quinlan being awarded the top male athlete in CIS sports. I walked past Micallef, shook his hand and said “hope to have you back soon” he responded “something is in the works”.

That something was Sportsnet 360 attaining the rights to OUA football and in 2013 Tim and the gang were back. It just felt right.

Fast forward to Saturday when Scott Radley of the Hamilton Spectator revealed that the entire Sportsnet family will not be covering OUA football or CIS football for that matter until the Utech bowl or Mitchell Bowl (national semifinals) and the Vanier Cup national championship game. Take that sadness of losing Tim in 2011 and multiply it by 11, being the number of teams that will no longer have provincial and national coverage on network television. We are not the Buffalo Bills. A television blackout will not force people to buy tickets, they will simply lose what limited interest they once had.

As per Radleys article, “According to OUA executive director Bryan Crawford and a number of university coaches and administrators, Rogers’ massive new $5.2-billion, 12-year deal with the NHL has squeezed the OUA to the sidelines”.

Urban dictionary defines that statement as a noun meaning “An excuse designed to shirk responsibility”. Better known as a cop out.

I reached out to Mr. Crawford wondering how losing the assumed television money income would effect the OUA. Not surprisingly it turns out the relationship between television rights and Canadian athletics conferences is far different from our American counterparts who just launched the Southeast Conference Network this week, a deal worth 2.25 billion to the SEC.

Crawford stated, “The OUA actually committed significant financial resources in supporting production costs for the SportsnetU and University Rush broadcasts” adding, “The primary benefits to OUA and our members came from the branding and visibility opportunities that come with being on national television”.

Essentially the OUA had to pay to get their own games on TV with the only true positive being exposure to preserve and grow the game. Well now the OUA stock is trading at an all-time low and Sportsnet has decided to play the role of the bitter Italian shopkeeper in declaring “your money’s no good here”.

The reality is that OUA regular season football has not created enough viewership to mandate growth in coverage and attention from Sportsnet executives. I understand that television contracts are big business and primetime events are how sports networks are identified, but I am not a network executive, nor am I here to throw dollar figures at you. I am a 5th year student athlete with a love for the game and a fear for its future.

The culture of have and have nots in OUA football has greatly expanded in recent years with the influx of alumni and corporate money being required to remain competitive. You can listen to Canadian Football Hall Of Fame coach Tuffy Knight and former Director of Athletics and Recreation at McMaster Jeff Giles express those concerns here and here. The loss of television exposure to the OUA calls into question the sustainability of a league which people do not seem to know or care about. As a broadcasting colleague of mine from McMaster Scott Hastie wrote in the CIS Blog which he operates “If a sport is not on TV, does it even exist?”

Giles, only weeks into an OUA free lifestyle after his resignation from Director of Athletics and Recreation at McMaster spoke candidly with me about the cause and effect relationship of losing television exposure. Giles stated, “In the short term there shouldn’t be too much of an effect on the university’s revenue as the TV numbers on Sportsnet the past few years have been terrible”. This appears as a situation wherein the numbers don’t matter nearly as much as the message they send, that alumni and sports fans at large have become greatly disinterested in the OUA product.

Giles continued to say, “The real issue here is the lack of interest for OUA football as reflected in the numbers. In part it relates to a lack of parity and in part poor marketing by everyone including the schools, the OUA, and in particular the TV networks. The TV networks say it just doesn’t look good given the low attendance. It’s a catch 22 that needs to be fixed”.

So Sportsnet doesn’t promote the OUA product, causing limited interest, then they drop the OUA product because it has limited interest. In case you’re wondering yes,  you have just crossed over into… the Twilight Zone.

Maybe the OUA simply isn’t sexy enough for mainstream television. With an ever decreasing amount of sports on sports networks (darts, poker, talk shows) sports is more than ever based on sizzle over steak.

20 of 125 division one programs fired their head coach and will begin their 2014 season with a new man at the top. Juicy stuff, PTI fodder for days. Meanwhile only 2 of 27 CIS programs will have a new bench boss in 2014, oh and neither of them were fired. Joe PaoPao left the University of Waterloo to take the BC Lions receivers coach job well at Concordia Gerry McGrath settled into retirement after 14 seasons as the big bee for the Stingers. If there is anything less sizzle worthy than retiring please let me know about it.

Enough about the problem though, playing football has taught me don’t worry about things you can’t change, like those back to back interceptions you just threw to that Kruba guy in purple.

CBC has long been the voice of reason in covering youth and amateur athletics with quality personalities and exceptional effort to expose the stories and athletes which would otherwise go unnoticed. It seems like a great fit right?

A national broadcaster for a sport which boasts the only truly national professional league! A national broadcaster which has experience in football coverage stemming from a 55 year tenure as exclusive rights holder of the CFL from 1952 through 2007 when TSN scooped the rights! Thats perfect where does the Canadian football world sign the dotted line?! Not so fast my friends. With the CBC slashing jobs and budgets like they’re auditioning for Freddy Vs. Jason 3 the probability of the CBC being able to purchase and produce the games would be in question even if Rogers Sportsnet decided to part with the regular season.

Enter stage right the only viable option left, The Saviour Network, TSN.

TSN boasts an established cast and crew of knowledgable football personalities, many of which such as CFL on TSN anchor Rod Smith (Queens), colour commentary man Duane Forde (Western) and analyst Jock Clime (Queens) cut their football teeth in the OUA.

TSN is only 3 years removed from broadcasting a proverbial amateur sports goldmine in what many continue to call the best game ever, the 2011 Vanier Cup. An average audience of 660,000 viewers tuned in to TSN and RDS to watch McMaster defeat Laval 41-38 in double overtime that night and over 1 million Canadians saw at least part of the madness.

TSN capitalized on their championship rights again in 2012 when they’re dream rematch of Laval Vs. McMaster successfully came together again for what they labelled the ‘Best Game Ever.. Again’. The game did not live up to the hype, we were destroyed by the big red and gold machine that is Laval football but TSN still cashed in.

That night a record-setting average audience of 910,000 viewers tuned into TSN and RDS, making it the most watched CIS game in history while 37,098 spectators were so drawn by the hype they NEEDED to see the game live. There were people in maroon in the 500s of Skydome. That was a real thing I saw with my own eyes during the national anthem and it made me realize I was a part of something much much bigger than I previously acknowledged.

I fully understand that the CIS championship pitting language and rivalry against each other can be far different from Western obliterating Waterloo 86-22 as they did in week 1 of 2011, but TSN has experienced how quality CIS football coverage can be mutually beneficial. What’s to say they can’t find somewhere in their FIVE, YES FIVE networks beginning in September to slot a fast paced football game with talented athletes and interesting characters?

In fact if TSN were to save Ontario University regular season football coverage it could act as cross promotion for their CFL on TSN broadcasts since the OUA has 64 athletes listed on CFL dress rosters this season. Even the coaches have strong ties to the CFL game. Former Edmonton Eskimos Defensive Coordinator Greg Marshall recently took the DC job at Queens, while Gryphon alum Kyle Walters and ex Gee Gee head coach Gary Etcheverry have teamed up in Winnipeg to turn around the Bombers season in their respective GM and DC roles.

Whether having played or just coached in the league, the web of OUA and CFL football interactions and relationships is so diverse and tightly woven it would impress a spider.

The connections are seamless, the network is in need after losing hockey to Sportsnet, the action is intense, the coaches and athletes are characters, many with amazing back stories and TSN has FIVE NETWORKS.

All seems right, except for the ego of sports broadcasting decision making. As stated in Radley’s article although TSN would appear the perfect landing spot, “investing in the regular season only to watch the playoffs and championship game go to the competition would be a tough pill to swallow”.

So despite a perfect situation to inherit quality Canadian content (the CRTC presently requires that 60% yearly, and at least 50% of prime-time programming, 6pm to midnight, be of Canadian origin) Bell and TSN would rather see the death of OUA football interest (and possibly teams that live off the exposure) than watch a competitor get the big games.

It is time for TSN to bite the bullet and do what is right here. Facilitated by the right coverage the possibilities in covering the OUA are nearly as limitless as Bradley Cooper’s little clear pill and they know it. Anyone who has genuinely followed the OUA knows what the potential is here if done correctly.

In closing i’d like to present you with two examples of why the human aspect of this topic means a hell of a lot more than the dollar signs and Rogers-Bell rivalry ever will.

My new roommate just moved in with me. His name is Asher Hastings and he is the next great quarterback at McMaster with the arm of Hulk Hogan and the mind of a kid who probably should have skipped a grade. Asher moved here last week from Regina. How did we get a kid from Regina?!

Television.

Asher told me “I saw a Mac regular season game against Western on TV and that made me really start to think about maybe looking into Ontario and McMaster”. Turns out that exposure Bryan Crawford mentioned was actually enough to pull a born and bred prairie boy 2,500 km from home.

My grandma’s (plural) were both sick with various ailments in the last couple of years. They would go into the hospital, come out of the hospital, refuse to go to the hospital, any of the above could happen on any given day. As a result they were unable to travel to my games. Any idea how they saw me play?

Television.

Seeing me strap on pads and a helmet and try not to get flattened like Wile E. Coyote under an anvil meant the world to them in their late years. It was a source of excitement, joy, unpredictability in their otherwise monotonous day. Before my Grandma Simkins passed she made sure to arrange her money (this usually took significant creativity) so that she could buy the channel package that included The Score so she could watch me play from far away or I could watch OUA games at her apartment. Hell we even watched Montreal defeat Laval 17-12 on a French CBC broadcast Thanksgiving weekend 2011 so I could figure out Laval coverages (a lot of cover 2 soft man locking the strong number 3 receiver with the sam) incase we met in the Vanier.

These moments, these memories may seem small but they mean the world to me. The power of sport is not in the games. It is in the moments that the games cause us to experience that we remember for the rest of our lives.

OUA football simply can not die a senseless death. Jeff Giles admits that, “In the long term no TV will affect revenue which is why it’s critical to get a new deal soon”.

We might not have Uncle Timmy on the call, but the students, their families and anyone else who appreciates raw egoless competition deserves OUA football coverage.

*** Click HERE for Marshall’s interview with Scott Radley on the future of OUA football coverage as aired on McMaster University radio CFMU 93.3.

* Marshall Ferguson is a current Marauder student athlete originally from Kingston, Ontario attending McMaster University studying Political Science and Communications. While being an active member of the Marauder football program, Marshall also hosts and produces a weekly youth football radio show @OVFL_Live while serving as Sports Director at 93.3 CFMU radio and appearing as a contributor to both AM900 CHML’s The Sports Lounge with Scott Radley and Cable 14’s local football coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @Marsh2Fergs

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