Early history Licensed by the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on April 2, 1984, as the
Action Canada Sports Network, the channel was launched by the Labatt Brewing Company on September 1 of the same year as The Sports Network, or TSN. The network was founded under the leadership of
Gordon Craig, a former employee of
CBC Sports; alongside coverage of the then co-owned By December 1987, TSN had reached one million subscribers, but the network's staff sought wider distribution for the channel as part of
basic cable service; the CRTC approved the network's request for permission to allow TSN to be carried as part of a basic cable lineup. Mike Day, producer of TSN's daily sports news program
SportsDesk lamented about the shift to basic cable and the larger audience it would bring, commenting that "one night you're doing a news show that potentially has an audience of one million people, and the next day the potential is five million people." In 1990, TSN acquired rights to the
IIHF World Junior Championship, otherwise known as the "World Juniors", which were previously broadcast by CBC. TSN's coverage, along with the recent "
Punch-up in Piestany" incident and a strong performance by
Canada at the tournament in the mid-1990s, helped to significantly heighten the profile of the tournament in the country (even more so than in other participating countries at the time), to the point that it is, alongside U.S.
college football bowl games, regarded as a traditional sporting event of the holiday season in Canada. Due to CRTC regulations on the foreign ownership of broadcasters, Labatt was forced to sell TSN and RDS upon its acquisition by
Interbrew in 1995. Labatt's broadcasting assets were sold to a privately held consortium named NetStar Communications, the investors of which included a number of Canadian firms as well as
ESPN Inc., which held an interest of about 30 percent. The same CRTC regulations prevented ESPN from establishing its own separate Canadian sports network outright, so acquiring a minority stake in TSN became ESPN's alternative plan to get into the Canadian market. The Sports Network launched its website TSN.ca on October 1, 1995. In 1997, the CRTC began permitting TSN to offer an "alternate feed", which could be used to provide a regional opt-out of the main TSN service for programming that must be
blacked out in the rest of the country. Alternate programming could make up a maximum of 10% of the TSN schedule—an average of 2.4 hours a day.
Acquisition by CTV, expansion In 2000, after ESPN blocked two attempts by the Canadian partners to sell NetStar to
Canwest,
CTV Inc. acquired the Canadian partners' shares. CTV Inc. was acquired by
Bell Canada and
The Woodbridge Company (publisher of
The Globe and Mail newspaper) as part of the joint venture Bell Globemedia in 2001. As a result of its purchase of TSN, CTV would be forced to sell its
regional sports network CTV Sportsnet, eventually selling it to minority shareholder
Rogers Media. Following the acquisition, TSN would move its operations to CTV's
Agincourt complex in the
Toronto district of
Scarborough. This oddity would become an
inside joke between personalities on both networks, who commonly referred to jumping between the two networks as "crossing the parking lot." Following the sale, TSN began to closer align its on-air imaging with that of ESPN; the most prominent effect of these changes came with the introduction of a new logo similar to that of ESPN, and the re-branding of TSN's flagship sports news program
SportsDesk as
SportsCentre—a Canadian version (in both format and
spelling) of ESPN's
SportsCenter. TSN also launched a number of digital specialty channels in 2001; including a local version of
ESPN Classic, the
NHL Network— a network devoted to
ice hockey and the
National Hockey League, and
WTSN—a channel dedicated to
women's sports. On August 15, 2003, TSN became one of the first two specialty television services in Canada (the other being fellow Bell property Discovery Channel, now
USA Network) to be available in
high definition. Following this development, TSN began to use such a feed to broadcast additional programming that could not be aired on TSN due to scheduling conflicts or other events. On August 29, 2008, the feed evolved into a new 24-hour channel, similar to
ESPN2, known as
TSN2. Upon its launch, TSN2 was legally considered a west coast
timeshift feed of TSN, although soon after TSN2 was launched, the CRTC announced a proposal to remove genre exclusivity protections for "mainstream sports" and "national news" channels in the near future. As a byproduct of the decision, TSN would be allowed to use streamlined conditions of licence (legally referred to as a
Category C license as of September 2011), which state that the service may offer "
multiple feeds" consistent with their licensed programming format, without any restrictions on alternate programming. TSN was officially permitted to use these streamlined conditions of licence on February 1, 2010.
Acquisition by Bell, TSN Radio On September 10, 2010,
Bell Canada announced plans to re-acquire 100% of CTVglobemedia's broadcasting arm, including its majority control of TSN. Under the deal, Woodbridge Company Limited,
Torstar, and the
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan would together receive $1.3 billion in either cash or equity in BCE, while BCE would also assume $1.7 billion in debt (BCE's existing equity interest is $200 million, for a total transaction value of $3.2 billion). Woodbridge has since simultaneously regained majority control of
The Globe and Mail, with Bell retaining a 15% interest in December 2010. The deal closed on April 1, 2011, after the CRTC approved the sale on March 7, 2011 – the new company became known as
Bell Media. After a longstanding speculation about TSN's interest in launching its own TSN-branded radio network (similarly to its
U.S. counterpart), TSN entered radio broadcasting with the launch of the first
TSN Radio station, a relaunch of AM station
CHUM in
Toronto on April 13, 2011.
Bell Media's
Bell Media Radio division already operated several
sports radio stations elsewhere in Canada (most of which were branded as
The Team, a name introduced by previous owner
CHUM Limited in its own failed attempt at establishing a national sports radio network), it was reported that Bell could theoretically relaunch these other stations under the TSN Radio brand in the future. Also in 2011, TSN acquired broadcast rights to the new
Winnipeg Jets. TSN would establish another part-time feed,
TSN Jets, to broadcast the games. Additionally, co-owned
CFRW would also gain radio rights to the new Jets. CFRW, along with Montreal station
CKGM, also migrated to the TSN Radio brand on October 5, 2011. Additionally, Bell would also launch TSN Mobile TV, streaming versions of TSN and TSN2 offered through
Bell Mobility's
Mobile TV services. The deal was completed in summer 2012, following the approval of Canada's
Competition Bureau, the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (with regards to MLSE's television channels), as well as the leagues for each of MLSE's main sports franchises. The deal was expected to have a major impact on future broadcast rights for MLSE's teams, including the
Toronto Maple Leafs and
Toronto Raptors, as their ownership of the teams will offer enhanced coverage for the team through new platforms such as
mobile television. In March 2014, TSN launched its
TV Everywhere service TSN Go, allowing subscribers to TSN on participating service providers to stream TSN networks online or through a
mobile app. On launch, TSN Go was available exclusively to
Bell Satellite TV and
Rogers Cable subscribers. It has since been expanded to other providers, such as
Shaw.
Loss of national NHL rights, expansion into regional service Following the announcement of Bell and Rogers' acquisition of MLSE, concerns were again raised by critics, speculating that Bell Media could attempt to acquire full rights to the NHL after CBC's current contract with the league expires following the 2013–14 season – using their ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the NHL's highest valued franchise, as an impetus for such a coup. Concerns were also raised that such an arrangement could prevent wireless service providers other than Bell and Rogers from accessing its content; the CRTC had ruled in favour of
Telus in a decision requiring Bell and other media companies to allow other competing wireless providers access to its content, and not exclusively tie it to their own service (as they had attempted to do with TSN Mobile TV). Critics considered Rogers' move to be a major blow against Bell and TSN, showing concerns for how the network could sustain itself without what is considered a key property in Canadian sports broadcasting. However, they also acknowledged the network's continuing rights to
IIHF hockey tournaments (including the popular
World Junior Hockey Championships), the
Canadian Football League (who renewed their contract with TSN without allowing any outside bidders in 2019 and whose current contract lasts through 2025), and TSN's growing regional NHL rights portfolio, including the Maple Leafs—which would, beginning in the same season, air 26 games on TSN per season. On May 6, 2014, TSN announced that it would launch three new channels—
TSN3,
TSN4, and
TSN5, in September 2014 to coincide with the network's 30th anniversary. TSN president
Stewart Johnston described the expansion as an "important evolution" for the network, as it would allow TSN to make more efficient use of its portfolio of sports properties: the network promoted that these new channels would allow TSN to broadcast a larger amount of ESPN content and live events, particularly including expanded coverage of major events (such as
Grand Slam tennis, curling tournaments, and the
NCAA basketball tournament) with multiple games occurring simultaneously. Although the expansion was discussed by TSN staff as early as 2012, critics considered the loss of NHL rights to Rogers (which had recently launched its seventh Sportsnet-branded television service with its acquisition of The Score, now
Sportsnet 360) to be a catalyst for the move, as TSN attempts to defend its position as the largest specialty television service in Canada in terms of total revenue. At the same time, Dave Krikst created
BarDown, a segment on TSN's
YouTube page focused on attracting a younger audience. Made up of TSN producers Jesse Pollock, Corwin McCallum, Daniel Zakrzewski, Luca Celebre, and others, they post hockey-focused quizzes and
beer league content. On January 13, 2016, TSN announced that it would present its first telecast in
4K ultra high-definition—a
Toronto Raptors basketball game—on January 20, 2016. It was followed by a slate of regional NHL games and other Raptors games in the format. On June 7, 2018, TSN announced that it would offer its channels as part of an
over-the-top subscription service branded as "TSN Direct". By late 2022, the "Direct" branding was dropped. On January 12, 2023, TSN announced a separate direct-to-consumer service called "TSN+", which launched the same day with a limited-time free preview. The service, which is comparable but not entirely equivalent to
ESPN+, initially includes Canadian rights to
PGA Tour Live (acquired after
Warner Bros. Discovery's
GolfTV ceased operations), the
NTT IndyCar Series (previously on Sportsnet), the relaunching
XFL, as well as various other properties such as
La Liga and
AEW Rampage which were previously available as bonus streams to subscribers of the regular TSN service. ==Channels==