Not enough people understand this, or know this. For every gripe viewers had of the show, they were convinced it was the CBC making decisions. It was not. Every decision made the last 12 years was made exclusively by Sportsnet. They rented CBC's airwaves to reach all Canadians.
You need to understand re CBC & Rogers. For 9/12 yrs Rogers paid CBC in value kind for CBC staff (mostly production) & studio space. CBC got to fulfill their mandate by having games & Rogers kept 100% of the ad revenue while CBC got 3 mins of promo time per game. CBC made no $