TVA Sports invested heavily to cover the free agent market day, fielding a top-notch team including Élizabeth Rancourt, Renaud Lavoie, Anthony Martineau, Michel Therrien, Michel Bergeron, Pascal Leclaire, Alexandre Daigle and company, all paid full-time for the event.
Even according to our sources, some were paid double time or time and a half.
Unfortunately, this day turned out to be a real damp squib. By the time it opened at noon, almost all the signings were already known, leaving few surprises and content to reveal.
One could sense the disappointment at TVA Sports, which had to improvise a show with information already available.
According to an internal source in the accounting department, this day resulted in considerable financial losses for TVA Sports, highlighting the challenges of live coverage in a market where information is known in advance.
It is clear that this bet has once again proven to be a losing one in the long term and could accentuate the financial difficulties already present.
Because it must be remembered. TVA Sports’ decision to devote an entire show to the free agent market is not that surprising. But why pay so many employees at the same time when the channel is in the red and sinking into increasing debt day after day…week after week…year after year…
It is understandable that TVA Sports wants to stay “in the game”, as Martin St-Louis would say, and wants to keep up with the frenetic pace of the changing media landscape, while competition intensifies.
Every dollar is crucial, especially for a company in difficulty. It is understandable that TVA Sports wanted to go all out for the draft, given that the station holds exclusive rights to broadcast the NHL in French. Especially since the event was held in the Sphère and the images were breathtaking.
Pierre Karl Péladeau, CEO of Quebecor, nevertheless stated that TVA Sports was currently “on the edge” and that the company was drowning in debt.
“There are a number of considerations that do not support the prospect of success with regard to TVA Sports.”
Despite massive investments totaling nearly $300 million since 2011, the chain has never managed to turn a profit, even with revenues reaching $103 million in 2021.
Yet he continues to spend without counting. As if what he had said before no longer made sense. One day, Péladeau tells us that TVA Sports will have to close and the next day, he wants to obtain the contract extension with the NHL so that he continues to be the exclusive broadcaster.
Péladeau had admitted his mistakes in his investments and his failed decisions such as the disaster of the failed return of the Quebec Nordiques, the disaster of the loss of the Major League Soccer (MLS) contract to Apple, and especially the ridiculous $5.2 billion contract signed in 2013 with Rogers for the rights to the Montreal Canadiens, which sold the French-speaking part for $720 million to TVA Sports.
All of this has sent TVA Sports’ economic health underwater…into the red. But when we see that Péladeau continues to burn money as if there were no tomorrow, when we hear him say that he wants to extend the NHL adventure at TVA Sports, we say to ourselves that he has lost his mind.
“It is our wish to see the rights renewed at TVA Sports because we believe in it and we think we have done a very good job.”
Péladeau refuses to take on American live video streaming giants like Amazon, which are eating up traditional channels for sports broadcasting rights to the point of making them disappear.
Péladeau refuses to accept that the traditional sports broadcasting model no longer works. Instead of accepting it…he pays even more day after day…
In this context, devoting an entire show to the free agent market while paying employees handsomely as if the company was healthy, when we knew all the signings by heart, is totally irresponsible.
Without wanting to, Péladeau is making TVA Sports’ already precarious situation worse.
Pierre-Karl Péladeau will definitely never learn his lesson…
