DAZN<\/a> will offer a regular-season game every Saturday night and have a presence during the first two rounds of an expanded playoff schedule.<\/p>\n\u201cFrom a business perspective, it was a pretty easy decision for us,\u201d Dionne said. \u201cWe do look at things from a very strategic business perspective at DAZN. To be able to use that side of where we are at as a business to invest in a league that has so much Canadian heritage, I\u2019m proud to be a part of that story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dionne\u2019s own story began in North Battleford, where she spent the first 18 months of her life before the family moved to Red Deer.<\/p>\n
The Saskatchewan roots go back much further. Her parents, Stephen and Fay, grew up in Radville. Fay\u2019s father, Charlie Shropshire, was the town\u2019s mayor from 1969 to 1976.<\/p>\n
Stephen Dionne, a University of Saskatchewan alumnus, coached high school football in North Battleford when future NFL star Rueben Mayes was the featured running back for his hometown team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Roughriders were the only team that brought my dad joy last year,\u201d noted Deidra Dionne, referencing the 2025 Grey Cup champions. \u201cThe Blue Jays broke his heart and the Oilers broke his heart, but the Roughriders pulled through for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wouldn\u2019t have been able to watch any sports if it wasn\u2019t for them last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
From a spectator\u2019s standpoint, nothing will compare to the joy Stephen Dionne experienced watching Deidra excel at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, where she finished third in women\u2019s freestyle aerials. She also won bronze medals at the 2001 and 2003 world championships.<\/p>\n
Following a competitive career that included a second Olympic appearance \u2014 at Turin in 2006 \u2014 Dionne earned a law degree from the University of Ottawa.<\/p>\n
As a law student, she interned with the NFL Players\u2019 Association and spent a summer term with the NHL Players\u2019 Association.<\/p>\n
She joined Rogers Media in 2018, specializing in business and media, before joining DAZN in July of 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been fortunate to have sport all through my life,\u201d Dionne said. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine working in an industry that I wasn\u2019t passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n
The passion extends to the CFL, which has become part of a DAZN sporting portfolio that serves more than 200 markets world-wide. DAZN\u2019s properties include the NFL, international soccer, MMA, boxing, Formula 1 and, beginning in 2027, Canadian football.<\/p>\n
As well, DAZN will become the official global broadcaster of all CFL games, offering every contest to audiences outside Canada and the United States.<\/p>\n
Per the terms of a six-year deal, TSN and DAZN will combine to show all 81 regular-season games throughout Canada. Sixty of those contests will appear on TSN. DAZN will offer Saturday Night Football during all 21 weeks of the regular season.<\/p>\n
There was a time when CFL games conventionally appeared on \u201cfree\u201d TV, but the landscape changed in 2008 when TSN \u2014 long a staple of cable and satellite packages \u2014 became the league\u2019s exclusive rights-holder.<\/p>\n
Select games, such as the Grey Cup, have been simulcast on CTV in recent years. But, for the most part, CFL telecasts have been behind a paywall in some form for 18 years.<\/p>\n
Affiliation with a streaming service is a new venture for the CFL as part of the largest media-rights deal in league history. DAZN and YouTube are the new partners.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to working with the leadership team at the CFL, which is taking some bold moves,\u201d Dionne said.<\/p>\n
\u201cChange is hard, and I fully acknowledge that. It isn\u2019t always easy when our favourite league or product makes big moves but, at the same time, it is exciting to look at it and say that these moves might make the league bigger and stronger. That\u2019s a good thing for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consider, for example, new audiences the CFL will be able to access via its premium partnership with DAZN. There will be adjustments, naturally, but those are inevitable as businesses and technology evolve at an ever-increasing pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cI deal with \u2018change is hard\u2019 by trying to first understand that my consumption habits are not the consumption habits of the generation that is my parents, nor is it the generation of my kids,\u201d Dionne, 44, said from Waterloo, Ont.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor ensuring that something is strong and growing, I think you have to be willing to understand that just because it isn\u2019t the way that you watch doesn\u2019t mean that somebody else won\u2019t watch it that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw that with the invention of these, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dionne punctuated that comment by holding up her mobile phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho was ever going to watch on this when they could watch on a big screen?\u201d she continued. \u201cLo and behold, you\u2019re watching on all the screens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have to be a little open-minded to the inherent speed of change as content really does become such a leader for the health of any sports league.<\/p>\n
\u201cSport consumption continues to be strong, but it has to stay that way by evolving with the pace of where fans are. Right now, fans are consuming anywhere and, also, everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preparations for the CFL\u2019s debut on DAZN will soon become all-consuming. This summer, for example, Dionne hopes to attend a game at Mosaic Stadium, along with Vice-President of Marketing (Canada) Zak Usher.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of fun explaining to my American colleagues why people wear watermelons,\u201d Dionne said with a laugh. \u201cI didn\u2019t really have an answer, but it was a very interesting conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was part of an interesting career that has already included numerous accomplishments in the fields of sport, media, law and business.<\/p>\n
The success story, with so many more chapters to be written, began right here in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I have a pretty solid understanding of who I am and what makes me happy,\u201d Dionne said. \u201cI have a pretty strong North Star compass on how to build my curiosity into an every-day function.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the only life that I know. I can honestly tell you that it doesn\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve accomplished a lot, or done so quickly, through any of these life interests that I\u2019ve had.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I do feel lucky that I\u2019ve been able to do things in my professional career that I never would have thought possible as a kid. I\u2019m also really proud of myself for having performed in the Olympics, winning a medal, and then being brave enough to start over \u2014 because sometimes you have to start over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went back to school and I put myself through a law degree and I started working, understanding that I was going to be bad at something again. That\u2019s not easy, at all, for high-performance athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, as a high-performance executive, she looks forward to using her skills and expertise to help the CFL, DAZN and, ultimately, the fans enjoy a mutually beneficial alliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re coming at this by doing our diligence,\u201d Dionne said. \u201cWe\u2019re meeting with the teams and we\u2019re talking with people and we\u2019re getting an understanding of people\u2019s perspectives.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, we\u2019re also really good at what we do, so we\u2019re going to push some people into an uncomfortable zone \u2014 but it\u2019s for a reason. It\u2019s because of trying to engage new fans and (create) engagement where the CFL hasn\u2019t been before.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is positive for everybody, because the bigger the league gets and the more it\u2019s consumed globally, the stronger it will be. I think that should be looked at as a core partner toward growing this league and its healthiness for the next generation and the generation after that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan-born Deidra Dionne, a 2002 Olympic medallist in aerial skiing, aspires to help the CFL ascend to once-unimaginable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-721430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}