There are many areas into which wise Canadians tread lightly for fear of either ending up as the main target in a line brawl or becoming the subject of a Royal Commission.

Among those verboten topics are the role of fighting in hockey, taxes and whether or not Canadians prefer the CFL or NFL. We'll deal solely with the latter today, keeping in mind that torches are being lit and pitchforks are being sharpened as these words are being typed.

The big news is that NFL television ratings have been quite strong in recent weeks while CFL audiences have been dropping. The big indicator of this is the 28 per cent growth in audiences for the 4 p.m. NFL Sunday games. That growth seemed even greater last weekend when the much-hyped Tom Brady-Peyton Manning showdown topped the 1 million mark while the best audience the CFL could produce was barely half that.

But before anybody jumps to any conclusions about the CFL heading to the scrap heap or the way being paved for an NFL team in Canada, let's look at the big picture.

Overall, the NFL is drawing basically slightly more than what it drew last season while the CFL is down a few percentage points. The main reason for the bump in NFL numbers is the late Sunday afternoon game, which has featured some great matchups and great entertainment. But playing a significant role in that increase is the fact that those games are now on CTV, which has substantially greater drawing power than City, where games aired last year.

But if you're thinking this is simply the advance guard in the NFL takeover of Canadian eyeballs, look at Monday Night Football. The most recent game, a relatively attractive showdown between Indianapolis and the New York Giants, averaged but 334,000 viewers on TSN. That's way below any CFL audience this season and not out of sync with other Monday night games.

As for the CFL, ratings were up during the summer, but have cooled off at a time when they're usually ramping up. There is, of course, no one reason. But here are a few:

1) This has been the dullest CFL year in memory, with historically low scoring and little of the last-second lead changes that have become the league's trademark.

2) A start that saw no team in the East anywhere near .500 killed a lot of interest in the east.

3) The Toronto Argonauts have done little to attract fans in the country's most populated region.

4) While expansion may have brought in new viewers in Ottawa, it definitely watered down the product.

The good news for the CFL is that none of these factors is unfixable, though unless the Argos find a new home that may not be true in their case.

Who's hot: Sportsnet was the beneficiary of the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals pushing the World Series to a seventh game, with the finale drawing an average of 1.25 million viewers -- a record for Sportsnet's baseball coverage. That pushed the channel's World Series average to 634,000 -- a 6 per cent increase over last season.

Who's lukewarm: The ratings picture looks a little brighter for the Toronto Raptors, though the team's peripatetic broadcast schedule will once again keep ratings down. The Raptors opened the season in great fashion, luring an average audience of 320,000 viewers to TSN last Wednesday. But then its games moved to Sportsnet 360 and TSN2 and the numbers dropped like a stone: 149,000 on Saturday and 133,000 on Sunday.

Until the team can get all of its games on TSN and Sportsnet, this will likely be the pattern again.

Who's not as hot as they expected to be: Hockey, as has been the case since dinosaurs roamed Canada, dominated the ratings. But audiences are still trailing last season, off 9 per cent in the first three weeks of the new Rogers reign. On its own, that's not a big concern since the season is still young and since there are so many more games being broadcast. More choice doesn't necessarily mean higher ratings.

But one area that has to be disappointing is the new Sunday package. So far, ratings are underwhelming both for the games and the much-touted pre-game show. They should improve once the football season is over, but the battle to persuade Canadians to make Sunday another hockey night in Canada will take some time.

Here are the most-watched English-language sports events from the past weekend, according to Numeris overnight ratings:

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