Rogers will continue to bring hockey to Canadians for another 12 years, following the announcement of another exclusive deal between the telecommunications company and the NHL.
The $11-billion deal announced today gives Rogers the rights to broadcast hockey games across the country until 2037-38. The details are similar to the past deal, which also spanned 12 years, but cost just $5.2 billion and expires at the end of the 2025-26 hockey season.
This gives Rogers national rights across TV, streaming and digital for all regular season and playoff games, plus the Stanley Cup Final and all special events. This also extends to coverage in all languages and all regions.
“For us, this isn’t just a game, it’s our game, and we’re proud to be the home of hockey for the next 12 years,” Tony Staffieri, president and CEO of Rogers Communications, said at a news conference Wednesday.
But what will the new deal mean for hockey fans when they sit down to watch the game? Experts say there’s a few things to watch for.
Will the price go up?
When asked if the cost of the $11-billion deal might get passed on to viewers, Staffieri didn’t answer directly, but said Rogers is focused on growing its viewership in order to bring in new revenue. He added that the focus would be on bringing the best value for customers at the lowest prices.
Richard Deitsch, a sportswriter for The Athletic, says Rogers and Sportsnet should be wary of any cost increases for their services. As passionate as Canadian hockey fans are, he says there’s still a threshold when it comes to how much they’ll pay to watch the game, especially given the rising cost of living in other areas of life.
“I think if I was Rogers, I would think very long and hard about what that price point would be for hockey,” Deitsch said.
Fewer blackouts on the horizon
The NHL mandates that its rights holders tailor what games are available by region, causing what are known as blackouts. Montreal Canadiens fans aren’t often able to watch their team in Alberta, for example. However, because some hockey games are deemed national, they are played across the country.
Colette Watson, president of Rogers Sports and Media, told reporters Wednesday that part of the new deal will allow them to convert some regional games to national ones. Details are still to come, but overall that means more games would be available to the entire country rather than just in specific regions.
Where will I be able to watch hockey?
Though Rogers holds the exclusive rights to broadcast NHL games in Canada, it sub-licenses the rights to a number of other media organizations. That’s why you see hockey games broadcast on entities like TSN, TVA and, most recently, Amazon Prime.
The streaming giant made a deal with Rogers last year that allowed it to stream regular-season games on Monday Night Hockey — something both companies heralded as a good way to find new audiences.
Rogers’ Staffieri said it’s a “strong possibility” that they’ll continue their deal with Amazon going forward.
Dan Berlin, an assistant professor of sport media at Toronto Metropolitan University, says the arrangement falls in line with where audiences are moving — that is, away from traditional cable and onto streaming platforms. He says that working with Amazon, who have a “massive, built-in audience” only helps Rogers, and the sport of hockey, grow and innovate.
“I think we’re only really scratching the surface of what that potential sublease arrangement or bringing Amazon in as a partner could look like,” Berlin said.
Sublicensing agreements are also how Hockey Night in Canada — the iconic, Saturday night hockey game program that’s run on TV since 1952 — airs on CBC television. The CBC was the initial broadcaster of Hockey Night in Canada, but lost the rights when Rogers signed their first exclusive deal with the NHL in 2013.
It’s never been more complicated, or expensive, to watch NHL hockey as the multiyear Rogers broadcast deal winds down. To watch every game of the 2024/2025 season fans will need to subscribe to Sportsnet, TSN, TVA and Amazon Prime.
A continued deal to air Hockey Night in Canada on CBC hasn’t been made as of yet. Watson said today that Rogers and CBC are continuing to discuss their agreement.
“We value our partnership with the CBC. And over the next 18 months, we’ll look to see if there’s a continued partnership there,” Watson said.
If that arrangement were to go away after next season, when the deal between Rogers and CBC is set to expire, it would mark the first time that Hockey Night in Canada wouldn’t be available free to all Canadians via the CBC since the program’s inception.
Berlin says as long as the CBC remains interested in bringing hockey to Canadians across the country, he doesn’t see the institution going away. What could complicate that picture is how much funding the CBC has available, Berlin says, pointing to the fact that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has campaigned on defunding the CBC.
“My hope is that [the] relationship will continue because … everybody should have the opportunity to be able to watch that institutional game broadcast on a Saturday night,” Berlin said.
What else might change in the long run?
Berlin says there are huge opportunities for growth in digital and streaming spaces over the next 12 years. He says he anticipates that content will become more personalized and tailored to individual fans over the course of the new deal.
“[It] might not lend itself to fans wanting to watch an entire broadcast, but the diversity of the content and how it has the ability to meet the audience where they are, I think will go through a real profound change,” he said.
Deitsch agrees. He expects to see technological innovations used to make the viewing experience more personal — especially if Rogers ends up raising prices.
But Cary Kaplan, founder and president of marketing firm Cosmos Sports, says an exclusive deal for more than a decade solidifies what he calls Rogers’ monopoly over Canadian sports.
With the full rights and an audience that’s not likely to give up watching hockey any time soon, Kaplan says he worries that could make Rogers complacent in terms of the quality of the programming they’re putting out.
“If you know you’re gonna get your audience, you can do two things. You can say ‘We have an amazing audience, let’s go all in,’ ” Kaplan said. “Or you can say ‘The viewers aren’t going anywhere,’ which is true.”
He says he hopes Rogers takes this as an opportunity to innovate — and that the NHL included terms in the deal that will ensure a high-quality broadcast.
