Of course CBS Sports Network would pick up the Arena League. It’s just one more tiny league to fill time on CBSSN.
Actually, the Arena League might be a pretty big get for CBSSN, and quite possibly the biggest non-college programming on the network (unless you count odd US Open tennis coverage). It wasn’t that long ago, before the ESPN experiment and bankruptcy, that the Arena League was considered on the level of MLS and the WNBA. The earlier moves by the CFL and UFL to find networks proved that it wasn’t the NFL restricting them to “NFLN or bust”, making it all but inevitable the Arena League would fall short, especially after the final indignation earlier this year when NFLN, Olympics-restricted into carrying an NFL preseason game the night of the ArenaBowl in New Orleans, had it played at the relatively ungodly hour of 9 PM CT with a three-hour time slot. Especially with NBCSN picking up the CFL, it wasn’t out of the question for the Arena League to return to its previous stomping grounds of NBC, so for CBS to pick it up is a pretty big deal and one of those “baby steps” needed to escape being a laughingstock. It’s telling that the ArenaBowl will be aired on the CBS broadcast network on a Saturday afternoon.
I’m not even adding the Sugar Bowl shacking up with ESPN now that it’s taking the Champions Bowl matchup, since we kind of knew that already.
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Sport-Specific Networks |
| 10.5 | 14.5 | 7 | 6.5 | 1 | 1.5 |