NFL lobbied PMO about CRTC Super Bowl ad ruling
League filed legal challenges asking Federal Court to overturn verdict
The National Football League is taking its fight to overturn Canada’s new Super Bowl ad policy to the Prime Minister’s Office.
The NFL lobbied the Prime Minister’s Office, the international trade minister’s office and three members of Parliament in November and December in an attempt to pressure the Trudeau government to reverse the broadcast policy that enables Canadians to watch bigbudget American ads during the Super Bowl, according to lobbying records made public this week.
For decades, broadcasters have substituted U.S. ads with Canadian ads, selling local ad space to recoup the cost of the rights to broadcast the programming. But last summer the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission banned the practice of simultaneous substitution solely for the Super Bowl after deeming the glitzy U.S. ads an “integral element” of the event.
Both Bell Media, which is in the middle of an exclusive contract worth tens of millions of dollars with the NFL to broadcast the championship game, and the NFL filed legal challenges in late December asking the Federal Court to overturn the decision.
It’s extremely unlikely the court will rule before game day on Feb. 5, so the NFL is turning up the political pressure in hopes of getting action before the broadcast.
“When you want to get something done — and we do — we are using all the tools in our tool box, that is up to and including reaching out to the Prime Minister’s Office,” said Jocelyn Moore, the NFL’s D.C.based senior vice-president of government affairs.
To Moore’s knowledge, this marks the first time the NFL has registered to lobby the Canadian government.
The NFL started fighting the policy through the courts after the CRTC first floated the idea in 2015. The rules were changed without the opportunity for consultation, with the uncertainty making it difficult to conduct business, Moore said.
“It would be one thing if this ... were a broad policy that didn’t just apply to one entity, the NFL, and one broadcast, the Super Bowl,” Moore said.
Moore wouldn’t reveal what was said in private conversations with politicians and political staffers, but said the NFL is taking “every appropriate step” to try to get the decision overturned before the 2017 Super Bowl. She remains optimistic, noting that the government has changed since the policy was introduced.
“We’ve been trying to deal with this since it happened. The Trudeau administration is not the same administration as the one that implemented this,” she said.
Days after NFL Canada’s managing director lobbied Liberal MPs Wayne Easter and Bob Nault, the MPs wrote letters to policy makers urging them to change the policy before the big game.
In a December interview with The Canadian Press, Nault said he was shocked the CRTC made the decision based on less than 100 complaints. (In 2013, the CRTC said it received 91 complaints about not being able to see U.S. ads during the Super Bowl.)
The NFL also lobbied Liberal MP Seamus O’Regan, MP Hedy Fry’s executive assistant, a special assistant in the Office of the Minister of International Trade, and a policy adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Easter and O’Regan were unavailable to comment Wednesday, and Nault did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In emailed statements, the offices of the prime minister and the minister of international trade said they meet regularly with stakeholders from across Canada.
But the Prime Minister’s Office emphasized the CRTC’s independence and said the decision is “explicitly not reviewable by government.” Under the Broadcasting Act, the government has the ability to overturn the CRTC’s licensing decisions but not policy decisions.
“The CRTC is a public authority which operates independently of the government, reporting to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage,” PMO press secretary Andrée-Lyne Hallé wrote. “We respect the independence of the CRTC and any further questions about the CRTC’s decision should be directed to the CRTC.”
When asked if the regulator might change course before game day, CRTC spokeswoman Patricia Valladao said the decision is a final one and that it is before the courts.