Rogers Sportsnet Gain Local Broadcast Rights

The Whitecaps have completed the final piece of their broadcast sponsorship by agreeing with Rogers Sportsnet to broadcast the remaining of their 21 MLS games as a local provider.  By agreeing to this deal with Rogers the Whitecaps were not afraid to go against their shirt sponsorship deal with Bell and completing an agreement with their competitor.  Sportsnet will air 11 matches on their Pacific channel, 9 matches on their One Channel and 1 match on CityTV.  At this point it is assumed that the broadcast team will be Gerry Dobson and former Canadian goalkeeper Craig Forrest.

Whitecaps Local Broadcast Options Plus Other News

With TSN gaining MLS national rights in Canada to broadcast 13 Whitecaps matches on TSN/TSN2, there are 21 games available to be aired locally.  The Whitecaps have stated they will try to broadcast every match this season and as tweeted by Matt Kieltyka of Metro News the Caps hope to get it finalized in the next few days.  In addition to the games the Caps would most likely require their new partner to put together a weekly recap show with features on players.

If the Caps are looking to reach the widest audience then Rogers Sportsnet or CBC would be the obvious options.  Both networks have the announcers in place as well as the large potential audience and Sportsnet has multiple channels in their hand.  Since Sportsnet is owned by Rogers there may be some conflict with Bell being major sponsors of the Whitecaps.  Will CBC feel it's worth the cost to produce games for just a western Canadian audience instead of the national audience it normally did in the past.