Canada’s NSL secures national broadcasting deals with TSN, CBC

The GIST: The Northern Super League (NSL), Canada's new professional women’s soccer league, is coming in hot. Yesterday, it announced a multiyear media partnership with Bell Media’s TSN/RDS and CBC/Radio-Canada, the nation’s top English and French networks, making the league accessible across Canada in its two official languages. Très bien.

The details: The networks will begin broadcasting play when the league kicks off in April 2025, with NSL founder Diana Matheson noting that nationwide accessibility is “key to the long-term growth and viability of professional women’s soccer.” In addition to live game coverage, the NSL plans to engage fans by sharing the stories of the players and their clubs.

The networks: Bell Canada is the country’s largest telecomms company, while CBC is a public radio and TV broadcaster akin to the UK’s BBC. ESPN equivalent TSN (which counts ESPN as a 30% minority owner) has been Canada’s most-watched specialty network for years. Meanwhile, CBC has faced dramatic ratings drops, despite being home to Olympic and Paralympic coverage.

• While both companies have expressed commitment to women’s sports, this is a key way to grow their audience of women’s sports fans, especially among younger generations. Only 25% of TSN’s web audience is women, while 27% are under the age of 34.

The precedent: The PWHL’s inaugural season showed how media partner investment early on can encourage growth for a women’s sports league. Canadian networks TSN, CBC, and Sportsnet bought the rights to broadcast games, and it was worth it — the Jan. 1 season opener drew 2.9M total viewers, beating out the NHL Winter Classic that day.

Zooming out: According to the NSL, women’s soccer is the fastest-growing area of sport globally, with its commercial value expected to increase 6X in the next decade. Plus, recent data has revealed a hunger for more women’s sports in Canada.

• WNBA fans in Canada grew from one in 10 to one in five after the first WNBA Canada game last May, setting things in motion for the WNBA Toronto franchise announced last month. And considering how WNBA and PWHL popularity skyrocketed once Canadians could access these leagues, an NSL broadcasting deal seems like easy money. In her pocket.