Elks, Lions to be first pro football game broadcast in Punjabi

EDMONTON – The Edmonton Elks home game against the B.C. Lions on Saturday will be the first professional football game broadcast in Punjabi.

The Elks announced Tuesday that it is partnering with Edmonton multilingual radio station My Radio 580 AM to broadcast the CFL game across Alberta on radio and throughout Canada through the station’s online player.

Canada is home to a Punjabi population of roughly one million people, according to the 2021 Canadian census. Alberta has the third-largest Punjabi population among Canadian provinces at 126,385 people according to the census.

British Columbia has the second-largest community at 315,000 people.

The Elks were also part of the first Indigenous language broadcast in CFL history last year when they partnered with Windspeaker Media to air a game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in Cree.

Sports broadcasters Harpreet Pandher and Taqdeer Thindal, who work on Hockey Night in Canada’s Punjabi crew, will call the game.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 25, 2023.