CBC Sports to broadcast U Sports national championships for next 4 years

Every U Sports national championship is set to be broadcast on CBC Sports. The sides announced a four-year agreement on Monday, which includes the English-language broadcast 2021 Vanier Cup exclusively on CBC-TV.

Multi-year deal highlighted by return of Vanier Cup in December on CBC-TV

CBC Sports · Posted: Sep 20, 2021 1:00 PM EDT | Last Updated: November 5, 2021

CBC Sports has entered a multi-year partnership with U Sports to broadcast national championships, including the Vanier Cup men's football title game. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)

Every U Sports national championship is set to be broadcast on CBC Sports.

The sides announced a four-year agreement on Monday, which includes the English-language broadcast 2021 Vanier Cup exclusively on CBC-TV.

Digital coverage will be available for all championships on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and the free CBC Gem streaming service, except the Vanier Cup on Dec. 4, which will only be shown live on CBC-TV.

"These U SPORTS championship events offer the opportunity for audiences to see some of the top high-performance athletes in the country in action on a national stage," said Chris Wilson, the executive director of CBC Sports and CBC Olympics.

The national championships each year will be evenly split between men's and women's sports, which Wilson says further cements CBC Sports' commitment to gender equality.

CBC Sports carried six national championships live in the 2019-20 season.

"Today, is the first step towards reshaping coverage of university sport in Canada," said John Bower, U Sports' director of marketing and communications.

"CBC Sports is Canada's Olympic Network and has an impressive repertoire of high-performance sport coverage on its digital platforms. U SPORTS look forward to growing our audience with CBC so that the performances and stories of our student-athletes reach the widest possible audience."

No Canadian university national championships were awarded in the 2020-21 season amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Vanier Cup is set to be contested for the first time since 2019 at TELUS-UL Stadium in Laval, Que.