GolTV was a

Canadian Canadians () 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 their being ''C ...

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

Category B

specialty channel A specialty channel (also known in the United States as a cable channel or cable network) can be a commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel which consists of television programming focused on a single genre, subject or targete ...

. GolTV was exclusively dedicated to

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

, 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 The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; ) is a public organization in Canada tasked with the mandate as a regulatory agency tribunal for various electronic communications, covering broadcasting and telecommunic ...

(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 Association football, soccer club based in Vancouver. The Whitecaps compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The MLS ite ...

’s friendly home game against

David Beckham Sir David Robert Joseph Beckham ( ; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Primarily a right winger and known for his range of passing, cross ...

and the Major League Soccer’s

Los Angeles Galaxy The Los Angeles Galaxy are an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The Gal ...

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 Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...

franchise

Toronto FC Toronto Football Club is a Canadian professional Association football, soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference (MLS), Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matc ...

(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 licence 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 9:30 pm (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 The Campeonato Carioca (Carioca Championship), officially known as Campeonato Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro State Championship), also commonly known as the Cariocão, is the top-flight professional state football league in the Br ...

Campeonato Paulista The Campeonato Paulista Série A1, commonly known as Campeonato Paulista, nicknamed Paulistão, is the top-flight professional state football league in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. Run by the São Paulo State Football Federation (FPF), ...

* Canada/United States:

(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 and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

* Mexico: Liga de Ascenso (2nd division) * France:

Coupe de France The Coupe de France (), also known in English language, English as the French Cup or less commonly as the France Cup, is the premier Single-elimination tournament, knockout cup competition in French football organised by the French Football Fed ...

(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 cup, super cups found in many other count ...

* Spain:

Copa del Rey The , commonly known as , or (in English) the Spanish Cup or King's Cup, and formerly known as Copa del Presidente de la República (1932–1936) and Copa del Generalísimo (1939–1976), is an annual knockout football competition in Spanis ...

(final only),

Supercopa de España The Supercopa de España, also known as the Spanish Super Cup, is a super cup tournament in Football in Spain, Spanish football. Founded in 1982 Supercopa de España, 1982 as a two-team competition, the current version has been contested since 2 ...

GolTV broadcast international matches, including friendlies and qualifiers, including: *

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typeset for branding purposes since 2018 as Concacaf), is one of FIFA's six continental governing bodies for association football. Its 4 ...

: Women's Pre-Olympic Tournament *

CONMEBOL CONMEBOL ( ) or CSF (; ; ), is the continental governing body of football in South America and it is one of FIFA's six continental confederations. The oldest continental confederation in the world, its headquarters are located in Luque, Parag ...

South American Youth Championship South American Youth Championships may refer to: * South American Youth Football Championship The South American Youth Football Championship, also known as South American U-20 Championship (; ), branded as CONMEBOL Sub 20, is a South American foo ...

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

: 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 name is ...

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 as the Primera División or La Liga, and officially known as LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest ...

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

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

-owned channel

beIN Sport beIN Sports ( ) is a Qatari multinational network of sports channels owned and operated by the media group beIN. The network has played a major role in the increased commercialization of Qatari sports. Its chairman is Nasser Al-Khelaifi, and it ...

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 Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

. 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