GolTV was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

Category B specialty channel. GolTV was exclusively dedicated to

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

(soccer), with live and recorded sporting events from around the world, and news programs. GolTV was owned by

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE) is a professional sports and commercial real estate company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With assets that include franchises in four of the six major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(MLSE).

History

In August 2005,

Insight Sports Insight Sports Ltd. is a sports media and entertainment company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company is owned in part by Larry Tanenbaum, part owner of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. Properties Insight Sports operates Aquila Product ...

(on behalf of a corporation to be incorporated) was granted a television broadcasting licence by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) for ''The Soccer Net'', described as "a national English-language Category 2 specialty programming undertaking devoted to soccer and soccer enthusiasts. The programming will focus on instruction from beginner to advanced play and on amateur and professional soccer games. All of the programming will be devoted to soccer or soccer-related subjects." The channel was launched on November 1, 2005 as GolTV. At some point, GOL TV USA, a division of

Tenfield Tenfield is a broadcasting corporation which holds the commercial rights to broadcast the Uruguayan football and basketball. It was founded in 1998 by the Uruguayan business-men Francisco "Paco" Casal, and the former football players Enzo Franc ...

, purchased a minority interest in the channel. On November 7, 2007, GolTV provided live broadband coverage of the

Vancouver Whitecaps FC Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional soccer team based in Vancouver. They compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The MLS iteration of the club was established on March ...

’s friendly home game against David Beckham and the Major League Soccer’s

Los Angeles Galaxy LA Galaxy, also known as the Los Angeles Galaxy, are an American professional soccer club based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Galaxy competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), as a member of the Western Conference. The club began pla ...

over the internet on a pay-per-view basis. On January 23, 2009,

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE) is a professional sports and commercial real estate company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With assets that include franchises in four of the six major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

, owners of Major League Soccer franchise

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club (commonly known as Toronto FC or TFC) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matches at BM ...

(along with other major sports teams in the city), announced they would acquire Insight Sports' interest in GolTV. The deal was approved by the CRTC on June 2, 2009. In 2015, MLSE reported to the CRTC that it had bought out GOL TV USA's stake in the channel. On July 6, 2015, in a notice to revoke the license of GolTV Canada posted on the CRTC website, it was revealed that the channel would be ceasing operations on August 31, 2015. According to the timetable shown on their website, GolTV Canada would cease broadcasting on August 31, 2015 after it finished airing the whole third season of a

documentary "All For One" starting at 9:30pm (Eastern Time), while their website would redirect to the Toronto FC's website.

Programming

GolTV Canada featured live and taped events from the following leagues and competitions: * Brazil: Campeonato Brasileiro, Campeonato Carioca, Campeonato Paulista * Canada / USA: Major League Soccer (including team-specific coverage of

) * Germany:

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

* Mexico:

Liga de Ascenso Liga or LIGA may refer to: People * Līga (name), a Latvian female given name * Luciano Ligabue, more commonly known as Ligabue or ''Liga'', Italian rock singer-songwriter Sports * Liga ACB, men's professional basketball league in Spain * Lig ...

(2nd division) * France:

Coupe de France The Coupe de France, formerly known as the Coupe Charles Simon, is the premier knockout cup competition in French football organized by the French Football Federation (FFF). It was first held in 1917 and is open to all amateur and profession ...

(final only),

Trophée des Champions The Trophée des Champions (, ) is a French association football trophy contested in an annual match between the champions of Ligue 1 and the winners of the Coupe de France. It is equivalent to the super cups found in many other countries. His ...

* Spain:

Copa del Rey The Campeonato de España–Copa de Su Majestad el Rey, commonly known as Copa del Rey or simply La Copa and formerly known as Copa del Presidente de la República (1932–36) and Copa del Generalísimo (1939–76), is an annual knockout footb ...

(final only), Supercopa de España GolTV broadcast international matches, including friendlies and qualifiers, including: *

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch language, Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CON ...

: Women's Pre-Olympic Tournament * CONMEBOL:

South American Youth Championship The South American Youth Football Championship, also known as U-20 South American Championship and es, Torneo Juventudes de América, "Campeonato Sudamericano Sub 20" or pt, Juventude da América (English: "America's Youth") is a South American f ...

* FIFA: Selected matches for

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

Qualifiers are broadcast live or delayed

Other programs

* Bundesliga Magazine * Canadian Football Weekly * Foot Brazil * Football Today * GolTV News * Hallo Bundesliga * Liga BBVA * MLS Weekly * Off The Pitch * Oh My Gol!

Past programming

GolTV previously aired coverage of Spain's

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men' ...

. Since mid-2012, the Canadian broadcast rights to that league have been owned by the upstart

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

-owned channel beIN Sport.

High definition

GolTV announced on December 5, 2011 that it would launch HD programming in partnership with the RealSports and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

. HD programming will be available via a free app for the Xbox 360 with a monthly subscription fee. GolTV officially launched its HD service on television systems in November 2012 with EastLink. GolTV Canada HD was also available on Ch.428 on Rogers.

References