CBC Sports watch (I)

Thought of going to Montreal for Saturday’s Argos/Als game and didn’t, which I’m somewhat regretting on two fronts. First, I missed a fantastic Argos win – as dominant as I can remember them being against a good team. And second, I was left watching the atrocious CBC broadcast.

I often pick on TSN for their football coverage, mostly because their colour commentators are an embarrassment. But “embarrassment” is pretty well the only word that comes to mind thinking about the entire CBC broadcast.

For the entire first half, and a chunk of the second, CBC couldn’t even manage to get the score or the game clock onto the screen – and since Mark Lee rarely deigned to tell us, it was impossible to know how much time was left, even in the dying minutes (and seconds) of the first half. The virtual first-down line, now a staple on virtually every professional football broadcast, was usually nowhere to be found – turning up spontaneously every few plays, then disappearing again. The camera work and production was often shoddy. The crowd wasn’t miked properly for much of the game, negating the atmosphere that comes with having 51,000-plus in the stands. And even on the game’s most exciting plays, Lee sounded about as excited as if he were calling a pre-season game – not one of the CFL’s biggest games of the year.

Thankfully, the quality of CFL contests tends to make up for the amateurish way they’re broadcast. That’s why ratings remain extremely high. But there’s no excuse for our national broadcaster doing such a half-assed job of covering the Canadian game. If the CBC’s not up to the challenge, let someone else do it.