Rogers to drop $11 billion on NHL rights for 12 more years

Rogers is set to announce a reportedly $11 billion deal that locks up the Canadian NHL broadcasting rights for 12 more years.

While this landslide deal might seem like a good thing, it means watching the NHL in Canada is going to remain a major pain in the neck as viewers deal with regional blackouts and games on various platforms.

Rogers currently has the main deal for national hockey in Canada, so nothing major is set to change. This means you will need Sportsnet to watch a majority of games, Bell-owned ESPN has local rights to the Maple Leafs, Canadiens, Senators and Jets and Rogers still has a deal with Amazon for the tech company to stream Monday night games.

A Toronto Star report claims that the deal doesn’t include rights to international hockey, but Rogers will likely be given the right of first refusal. Last year saw successful ratings for the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament, so it seems likely that Rogers would want to grab a hold of other hockey content.

The report mentions that the recent Edmonton Oilers playoff run convinced Rogers to re-invest in hockey since the exciting playoff season brought in new signups, and Rogers says that the final game reached roughly 15 million Canadians. The telecom is banking on the strong Canadian teams in this year’s lineup to continue to perform and grow hockey’s interest in Canada.

This is the second 12-year bundle of NHL rights Rogers has bought. The company bought the same package in 2013, but it only cost $5.2 billion. It was expected that the telecom would face more pressure from streaming networks like Netflix, Prime Video and Apple TV+ this time around. The digital streamers have all made moves towards live sports in the past few years with Prime Video leasing Monday night hockey from Rogers in Canada and Apple TV broadcasting baseball and MLS soccer games.

Sports feels like the last bastion for traditional broadcast TV, so only time will tell if Rogers made the right choice to continue to support the NHL. While viewership was up briefly for the Oiler’s Stanley Cup run, overall, the NHL is on the decline in viewership, so perhaps the streamers don’t care as much about hockey as they might about other sports that have more growth potential and aren’t as region-locked to Canada and the northern United States.

Source: Toronto Star