EURO 2016 Programming Overview

TSN was the Canadian rights for the EURO 2016 soccer tournament which took place in France from June 10 - July 10. A tournament of this size would require detailed plans for the sales, scheduling, traffic, news and transmission teams. Many of soccer’s best players would be in action along with 13 of the top 20 teams in the world. A plan was laid out nine months in advance so that all departments would be on the same page and any challenges could be identified early. Here are some highlights for the plan to maximize ad revenue and efficiently deliver matches across five linear feeds and the TSN GO mobile app.

The 16-team format from EURO 2012 was expanded to 24 teams for 2016. This saw the number of matches increase from 31 to 51. Tournament organizers created an efficient schedule for broadcast partners with limited simultaneous match play. After scheduling conflicts were identified, 33 matches were scheduled for TSN 1/3/4/5 and 18 games on TSN2. All 51 games would be carried live on TSN GO.

The Group Stage had 36 games and would be followed by a Knockout Stage of 15 games. There were morning and afternoon kick-offs for the eastern part of the country (9am, noon, 3pm EST). Early matches meant there would be an opportunity for “Match of the Day” prime repeats. Countries with large immigrant populations in Canada would often translate into higher ratings so matches for teams like England, France, Italy and Portugal would get first priority in scheduling. 

A 30-minute highlight program would be supplied every match day by UEFA. The show would be scheduled for primetime premieres on TSN2. In order to build out more supporting content, TSN would produce 30-minute pre-match shows and 15-minute half-time shows. TSN was required to join the Basic Match Feed before the teams left the players tunnel. All studio sets and backdrops needed to prominently feature the UEFA and EURO 2016 marks. 

From an advertising standpoint, EURO 2016 offered some strong numbers for the sales team to work with. In EURO 2012, the top Group Stage games had an average 2+ audience of 849k while the Knockout Stage games averaged 61% higher than Group Play average. Numbers in key sales categories were equally as strong. TSN was required to offer 30-day first right of refusal to all of the tournament’s commercial partners. UEFA did not need to approve sales decks but had to be notified when packages went out. TSN could offer brand sell packages to third parties after the 30 days (including category competitors) but commercial partners had global exclusivity on billboards and promotional opportunities.

TSN retained all commercial inventory with ad time restricted to pre-game, half-time and post-game. All commercial breaks must commence and end with UEFA produced bumpers. Official on-screen graphics could not be altered and a sponsored score bug would not be possible. Animated Lower Thirds (ALTs) would also not be allowed in any match play or UEFA supplied programming. 

It was agreed that all match times, repeats and related content would be in the sales/scheduling system (IBMS) nine months before the tournament started to aid sales efforts and to identify any conflicts. The end result was a solid sales result and a smooth schedule for the entire tournament.