CIS CORNER: CANADA'S SPORTS LEADER SEEMS TO BE A BUNCH OF FOLLOWERS

Canada's Sports Leader, so-called, is going to be show a bunch of Bo and Luke Duke types driving 300 miles in a circle next weekend -- instead of two Canadian university basketball teams playing their hearts out for a spot in the national championship game.

Only in Canadian broadcasting: In its infinite wisdom, next Saturday TSN will air only one of the two semi-final games from the Final 8 men's basketball championship in Halifax (here's the broadcast sked). Apparently, you just have to show the 2007 NASCAR Busch Series Nicorette 300 -- whatever the hell that is! -- even though it's probably going to be available on an American station anyways.

The ratings for NASCAR justify the decision, at least to the thinking of the tall foreheads who also believe everyone's dying to watch poker, but it's the epitome of cynical laziness. Forget being journalists, forget being a national sports network, let's just simulcast some Southern-fried shyte instead of actually trying to give a uniquely Canadian event the attention it deserves.

People who care about the CIS long ago developed outrage fatigue over such travesties. When The Score won the Canadian rights to the NCAA Tournament (Sun Media's own Rob Brodie had a great column on this the other day), it nevertheless sent a chill down some CIS fans' spines.

For starters, The Score understands the CIS is part of many Canadians' sporting consciousness. It doesn't have an inferiority complex about what it chooses to cover. You can't begrudge it throwing its lot in with March Madness; it's a major coup for that network.

LITTLE EFFORT

Meantime, TSN gives off a smugness toward university sports -- waltz in, do the bare minimum and expect everyone to act like it's a frigging favour they're showing up out of some federally mandated obligation. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. They put little in -- witness sending Glen Suitor to do basketball play-by-play. When they get little in return, they shrug and say, "Look, the numbers just aren't there."

Sadly, TSN doesn't know its own history. Where was the world junior hockey tournament before TSN began covering it like it was the big time back in the early '90s? It took a chance on the first world women's hockey championship in 1990 and that paid off in spades. At the risk of pitting niche amateur sports against each other, in a couple of hours TSN is going to air the gold-medal game from the Esso women's nationals, which at best will likely draw an audience similar to a Final 8 game.

ESPN, the U.S. parent which TSN tries so desperately to emulate, helped create March Madness by covering early-round games back in the 1980s. When U.S. women's college basketball was still in its infancy, but ESPN put its championship tournament on the air, covered it seriously, and it's built a sizable audience despite being overshadowed by the men's tourney.

Meantime, in Canada, in 2007, it's still the basic cable, pre-Internet era as far as TSN is concerned. Two of the top four teams in the country are going to be playing next Saturday and it won't be on TV or broadband. For this weekend's women's tournament, only the final will be telecast.

Webcasts are probably out since TSN has the broadcast rights to the entire tournament and shows whatever it condescends to show. If CTVGlobemedia wants to be champion pinchpennies about this, then sell off the rights to the other games for a token sum so a webcast can take place. It's called digital democracy. (UPDATE: According to e-mails, efforts are underway to get a webcast up and running, which is wecome news.)

Suppose that in the early semi-final, the four-time defending champion Carleton Ravens engage in the kind of game that would be deemed an Instant Classic if it was played in the States. It won't be an instant classic, since part of that requires a TV audience.

Now suppose the second semi-final which is aired is a boring blowout. How is that going to help drive ratings for the championship game? How does that give the sport a boost?

The long and short of is that TSN has its head literally buried in the ice. To follow up on what was said in January, if they don't get it, those who do -- the writers of blogs/newsites such as cishoops.ca, hooplife.ca and The Point After will gladly fill the void quite nicely. That's leading, which is something TSN can only claim it does.

It should be called Canada's Sports Followers -- following a bunch of cars going around a track insteading of getting off their duffs and giving a great event the attention it needs to grow and flourish.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.