For all the hype around every CFL game, what fans actually see is just a small element of the league. The two to three hours teams spend actually playing a game each week are important, of course, but so are all the preparations leading up to game day. Film meetings, strategy sessions, work in the weight room, on-field practices, injuries and treatment and players' struggles to earn or keep roster spots all factor into what happens after the opening kickoff. This background work usually goes on out of sight of the majority of fans, though, and that's something TSN's hoping to change this year with a behind-the-scenes documentary series on the Toronto Argonauts, the first one of its type in the CFL. (Of course, the CFL itself did a behind-the-scenes documentary on John Surla earlier this year, with a second installment to follow soon, but this is a series with a much broader scope.)
TSN vice-president of programming Shawn Redmond said in an interview Tuesday the CFL was a natural subject for the network, considering the league has been very open to allowing TSN substantial behind-the-scenes access in the past and that the CFL's a key part of TSN's programming.
"The CFL is the most accessible league in the world," Redmond said. "There's a passion for the CFL that oozes from the walls of this building."
Redmond said the Argonauts were a logical choice as the team to profile thanks to their history and their dynamic personnel figures, including coach and general manager Jim Barker (pictured above).
"They're the oldest professional sports franchise in North America," Redmond said. "Coach Barker and his staff, there's some real personalities there."
Redmond said other factors considered were the Argonauts' incredible 2010 turnaround and the amount of interesting battles they should have in training camp and the pre-season.
"There's a lot of really great, compelling storylines," he said. "There's some real competition for jobs."
TSN doesn't want this to be something that only appeals to die-hard Argonauts' fans, though. Redmond's hoping the unique look deep behind the scenes will tell fascinating stories that will appeal to not just fans of other CFL teams, but also sports fans who have never checked out the CFL.
"It will be very interesting to fans of the CFL in general and sports fans in general," Redmond said. "We think there's a broader target here."
The interaction between coaches and players is a key selling point for these documentaries, as it's something that the viewer doesn't usually get to see.
"It's really interesting to see how coaches talk to the players," Redmond said. "As a sports fan, you really don't see that. ... Nothing's ever been done like this in the CFL before."
Of course, we've seen these kinds of documentaries before in other leagues with great success, and Redmond said that's part of what prompted TSN to try and bring this approach to the CFL.
"There have been a number of successful projects over the years that have taken this form," he said, citing HBO's Hard Knocks (on NFL training camps) and 24/7 (on boxing and hockey) as projects that helped prove these behind-the-scenes looks could work. "There's been a bit of a shift into the long-form documentary."
Unlike those other shows, though, Redmond said it was two separate series that actually aired on TSN that convinced the network to do one for the CFL.
"The TSN Turning Point was this last year's 30 for 30," he said.
The 30 for 30 films, a series of sports documentaries produced for ESPN by prominent filmmakers such as Mike Tollin, Peter Berg and Billy Corben, as well as unconventional directors such as Ice Cube and Steve Nash, turned into a notable success for both ESPN and TSN, which picked them up. They helped inspire the made-in-Canada Oil Change, a behind-the-scenes look at the 2010-2011 Edmonton Oilers' season made by Alberta's Aquila Productions for TSN. Aquila will be doing the Argonauts' series as well. Redmond said the success of Oil Change in particular proved that these kinds of in-depth sports documentaries could be done in Canada, and that they could draw a notable Canadian audience.
"The feedback from our viewers has been outstanding," Redmond said.
He also cited Oil Change as something that made Aquila the natural choice for the CFL project.
"We saw how good Oil Change was; that was a real world-class product," Redmond said. "We expect the same here."
Redmond said these documentaries are dramatically different than TSN's usual projects, so it makes sense for them to work with an external company instead of trying to do it in-house.
"What we do here is mostly live sports and news," he said. "It's a completely different style of product."
He said the behind-the-scenes approach isn't particularly easy, so it's logical to work with an experienced group.
"This takes a lot of resources to pull off," Redmond said. "This is something these guys do well."
Redmond said filming has already started, and it's going to be an intensive process for the next couple of months.
"It requires guys to be almost embedded with the team," he said.
That level of access could potentially lead to competitive problems for the Argonauts if confidential information on their players or strategies leaked, but Redmond said TSN and Aquila have set it up so the documentary is completely separated from TSN's news reports and game broadcasts, and they have agreements with the Argonauts on what can and can't be shown even weeks later in the documentary.
"We have this church and state separation agreement," Redmond said. "It's an independent production."
The series is going to be split into four parts, with the first episode on training camp, the second on the team's first three regular-season games (which are all on the road), the third an intense look at a week in the life of the team and the final one on the push to the Labour Day game. Redmond said the first episode is set to air July 3, with the remaining ones following in the first week of August, the first week of September and then some time mid-September. In an unconventional move, each will directly follow a CFL game; the ratings bump from prime live programming like the CFL is usually used for TSN's flagship SportsCentre, but Redmond said they're confident enough in this series to try and get it as much of an audience as possible and try and bring in fans from the games.
"I guess it speaks to how bullish we are on the show," he said.
As of now, there aren't any firm plans for future series in this vein on other CFL teams down the road. Redmond said that remains a possibility if this one is received well, though.
"We're very excited about the program," he said. "If it works well, we'll look at additional opportunities down the road."
Redmond said the series' ultimate goal is to try and show fans what life in the CFL is really like.
"It's to take the helmets off the guys and expose them and their stories to the viewers."
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