Canadian Premier League nets broadcast deal
To Jaume Roures and Oscar Lopez Garcia, the Canadian Premier League is a blank canvas.
So when the upstart professional soccer circuit was shopping its broadcasting rights, Roures, the founder of Mediapro, a leading multimedia communications group based in Barcelona, and Lopez Garcia, the chief executive of Mediapro Canada, made an offer that couldn’t be refused.
On Wednesday, Canadian Soccer Business announced a 10-year media partnership with Mediapro, which plans to broadcast more than 2,000 CPL games and all Canadian national team games during that span, along with thousands of hours of related content.
“We see the opportunity in the new Canadian soccer league, in perspective to the rest of the world, and how young people will grow up in a different soccer climate than young people have before,” Roures said.
“Secondly, it’s unprecedented. We’re starting from scratch, we’re starting an association with a Canadian league — like we are doing in Spain at this moment — and we want to create something that the rest of the world will be envious of. This is a country that is capable of building something important and we’re trying to take advantage of a good situation.”
In Canadian soccer, Mediapro sees an opportunity to expand its global brand and tap into a new market. In Mediapro, the CPL has found a partner with global appeal, which has specialized in the development of the game in many countries. It is a well-suited partnership with huge potential.
“For example, the women’s Spanish league five years ago didn’t exist,” Roures said.
“We started to work with them, give them an outlet for them to be received and we started to tell their stories; how they live, how they play and what their dreams are, and things like that. There was a game the other day, which drew 40,000 spectators and there was another game that drew 18,000. And it was only five years ago that they were playing in dirt fields.”
Founded in 1994 by Roures, Mediapro is involved in movie and television production, as well as broadcast and media. It operates beIN Sports, which has made inroads in Canada and the U.S.
In 2017, Mediapro recorded an annual revenue of $1.72 billion producing more than 6,000 events worldwide.
“From a CPL perspective, and for the game of soccer in this country, a level of commitment as large as a company as Mediapro is making in the game of soccer in Canada, I think it’s a generational change,” said CPL commissioner David Clanachan. “It will change the way soccer is viewed in this country and it’ll change the game in a much quicker way than we’ve ever seen before. Frankly, it’s the largest investment made in the game of soccer ever in the history of this country.”
The CPL inaugural game will take place in Hamilton on April 27, between Forge FC and York9 FC. The seven founding teams spanning the country will play a 28-game schedule.
CANADIANS TO WATCH
While the world’s top-ranked players are in Mexico, there is an opposite-field PGA Tour event being played in Puerto Rico, featuring six Canadians. This week is a great opportunity for David Hearn, Corey Conners, Adam Svensson, Ben Silverman, Roger Sloan and Taylor Pendrith.
Meanwhile, Brooke Henderson is back in action this week in the Honda LPGA Thailand.