NAFTA is no more, or at least the NAFTA that went into effect in 1994. The new North American Free Trade Agreement, or the USMCA if you’re feeling frisky, will change the way the United States, Canada and Mexico interact with one another in a variety of fields of business.
One of the weirder ones, however, will impact how Canadians watch the Super Bowl. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the new NAFTA changes the rules about what commercials Canadian television viewers get to see during The Big Game. Usually, Canadian ads would be shown in leiu of the big budget American ads that everyone gets all hot and bothered about. But a rule change had a big impact on viewership numbers in Canada as people flocked to another network to see what all the Frito Lay and Coca Cola fuss was about.
Bell Media, the local rights-holder for the NFL championship, earlier this year saw nearly 40 percent of its traditional TV audience bolt its CTV network to the rival Fox network to view buzzy U.S. Super Bowl ads. That followed the CRTC, the country’s TV regulator, forcing the Fox game feed in Canada to air American commercials, rather than local Canadian ads as in years past.
While allowing Canadian NFL fans to see glitzy U.S. Super Bowl ads for the first time, rather than go online, the CRTC stopped CTV from maximizing its NFL championship game ad revenue by substituting flashy U.S. commercials on the Fox feed with homegrown ads, as part of a traditional simultaneous substitution business model.
The New NAFTA returns the rules to their previous state, which means the NFL gets additional TV revenue from the Canadian market. Bell seems pretty excited about it, too.
“We thank the government of Canada for overturning an unfortunate decision by the regulator. It’s a positive outcome for content creators, advertisers and the overall Canadian broadcasting industry,” CTV-parent Bell Media said in a statement after the new NAFTA agreement went through.
Unfortunately for Canadian (American) football fans, that means they’ll have to go to YouTube to see what all the fuss is about between game action down south.
