Speed became available in Canada shortly after its U.S. launch. As Speedvision, Speed was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to be added to its list of foreign cable networks approved for carriage on Canadian cable and satellite providers in 1997. As such, Speed is carried by most Canadian television service providers. Prior to August 2013, Canadian viewers saw a largely identical schedule as the U.S. channel, although some programming, particularly live Formula 1 events, were blacked out to protect TSN, which holds domestic broadcast rights to F1 events (under CRTC rules, foreign services must own Canadian broadcast rights to the content they air). However, this point became moot when NBC Sports Network obtained rights to F1 events beginning with the 2013 season, as that network is not available in Canada.