Maple Leafs Broadcast Given a Black-Eye From a Recent Fan Vote
Photo credit: Marc DesRosiers - Imagn Images
In a recent fan vote through The Athletic ranking all 32 NHL broadcasts, the Leafs' rank shouldn't come as a surprise considering the lack of quality in recent years.
The Athletic held a fan vote that involved their subscribers ranking all 32 NHL broadcasts through a variety of factors including a local and national score, where the Toronto Maple Leafs finished 30th league-wide.
The Leafs have always had an interesting blend of broadcasts, as well as different platforms airing their games. Being one of the top markets in the sport, the Leafs have games aired on Sportsnet and TSN, as well as a slew of games on Amazon Prime.
While most clubs have regional broadcasts that are tailored to their team specifically, the Leafs drop the ball in that sense. Broadcasts on Sportsnet try too hard to be impartial, which in turn feels like they're slighting the Leafs, according to some fans.
We're the only team in the NHL whose home broadcast is limited to the radio only. I understand that the national broadcasts in Canada need to or want to appear impartial due to the national factor, but often the coverage seems to slant the other way.
Sportsnet carried 14 regional games that were headlined by Chris Cuthbert and Craig Simpson, TSN had 26 games that featured Gord Miller and Mike Johnson, whereas the rest were nationally televised games through either Sportsnet or Amazon Prime.
Interestingly enough, through the lens of their local score, many fans were actually in favour of TSN's regional broadcast with Miller and Johnson compared to Sportsnet's regional crew of Cuthbert and Simpson.
Sportsnet was generally not well received through the fan vote and some comments described better quality given through Amazon Prime or even the American-based TNT network.
Watching broadcasts on Amazon and TNT this year showed me how far Sportsnet lagged behind in production quality as well, especially in the audio department.
While the local score was ranked 32nd, the Maple Leafs were given an above average national score at 13th. That's where the Amazon Prime games come into the picture as well as some of the more prime-time weekend games from Sportsnet.
Overall, Toronto ranked ahead of only Boston (32nd) and Pittsburgh (31st), whereas Detroit, Seattle, and Utah headlined the top of the vote. In terms of Canadian teams, Edmonton was ranked 5th, Vancouver 8th, Montreal 10th, Winnipeg 11th, Ottawa 17th, and Calgary 23rd.
| POLL | ||
JUILLET 22 | 1738 ANSWERS Maple Leafs Broadcast Given a Black-Eye From a Recent Fan Vote Where would you rank the Maple Leafs broadcast? | ||
| Top-10 | 622 | 35.8 % |
| Middle of the board | 558 | 32.1 % |
| Bottom-10 | 227 | 13.1 % |
| Where they're currently ranked, 30th | 331 | 19 % |
| List of polls | ||
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