TSN set to retain Canadian Football League rights

Canadian pay-television sports broadcaster TSN is set to extend a domestic rights deal for the Canadian Football League, the country’s top gridiron division, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper.

TSN and its French-language cable-television sister channel RDS will continue to provide live coverage of the league beyond the conclusion of the existing agreement at the end of 2013, the report said.

The newspaper added that the new deal would start in 2014, but details about the length of the agreement were unavailable.

TSN has broadcast the league’s games since 2008. The current deal is worth about C$17 million ($17 million/€23 million) per year, but the newspaper said that the league wanted to double the rights fee for the next cycle.

The league will expand by one team to become a nine-team competition from the start of the new rights deal.