With “March Madness” set to take over television screens for the next two weeks, I am left wondering why American college sports are more popular than their Canadian counterparts.
Be it basketball, football or even arguably hockey, sports fans north of the 49th parallel seem to turn their attention to sports played in the USA.
I, for one, believe it is because of publicity and coverage the National Colligate Athletic Association (NCAA) receives compared to Canadian Interuniversity Sports. During the NCAA football season, any person who flips on the guide will be hammered with a barrage of American college football games all day on Saturday, spanning across a number of American channels including ABC, CBS and ESPN, all while also taking up timeslots on Canadian networks the likes of TSN and Sportsnet. While, opposed to the NCAA’s season-long coverage, CIS football is lucky to receive a handful of games broadcast on TV by Shaw, Sportsnet and TSN, CIS football doesn’t receive complete coverage until playoff time rolls around when channels start to broadcast games more frequently.
With that being said, I assume fans care more about American college sports because of how accessible the games are for viewing.
Secondly, I believe people are more interested in American sports due to the diversity in teams and division parity. In CIS football, there are a handful of teams that are always competing for the league championship Vanier Cup. Teams like the Calgary Dinos, Laval Rouge-et-Or and Macmaster Marauders are usually favourites to win the Vanier Cup year in and year out. Teams like the Carlton Ravens have won 11 of the past 13 CIS men’s basketball championships and Alberta Golden Bears have won 15 CIS men’s hockey championships since 1966, five more than the next closest university.
The NCAA has much more parity in all of their sports, sure there are frontrunners every season, but there is usually a new batch of teams competing for their respective championships every year.
CIS is trying to curb this parity issue with the possible inclusion of a conference called the Northern 8, which would include the top teams from three of the four conference that make up the CIS, two from Canada West Universities Athletic Association, four from the Ontario University Association and two more from the Quebec Student Sport Federation.
This would give teams like the Calgary Dinos a chance to play teams outside of their conference which would provide more closely contested games and more exciting outcomes for fans. The Northern 8 teams will still play teams in their respective conference and the Vanier Cup playoff format will remain unchanged, this is just a way the CIS is trying to generate some excitement for their fans.
Next I want to talk about the difference in the level of talent in NCAA hockey compared to CIS hockey. The problem with the CIS is their teams are built by students who are more focused on the education aspect of being a student athlete and players who played junior level hockey in the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) who were not quite good enough to go to the next level, then National Hockey League (NHL) or American Hockey League (AHL).
The NCAA on the other hand does not have a national junior league to compete with like the CHL, so most of their players are 18 year olds who have just as much draft attention as players coming out of Canada’s CHL program. Players like Calgary Flames superstar Johnny Gaudreau and top draft prospect of this year’s upcoming draft Jack Eichel developed their talents in the NCAA while not many, if any players get drafted and develop in the CIS. To put it softly, the NCAA has 18 to 22 year olds with a shot at NHL success, while the CIS is mostly 20 to 25 year olds who were successful junior players but were not able to make it to a professional league.
I’m not trying to make an argument for either the NCAA or the CIS, because I enjoy watching them both. Both leagues provide exciting entertainment for their fans while both play the exact same sport. In my mind, there should be no difference between the two.
