Rogers has extended its exclusive Canadian national television rights deal with the National Hockey League through 2038, helping bring our country’s sports media landscape into focus with the CFL’s agreement with TSN set to expire after 2026.
The new NHL agreement is worth a reported $11 billion, over double the $5.2 billion Rogers paid for its existing 12-year broadcast deal, which expires after next season. Rogers broadcasts most national games on its own network, Sportsnet, though some are sublicensed to the CBC. There’s also an agreement in place for TSN, Bell’s network, to broadcast regional games.
In September, Rogers struck a deal with Bell to purchase its 37.5 percent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) for a reported $4.7 billion. The sale has yet to officially go through, though that’s considered a formality as it’s expected to close sometime this year. MLSE’s portfolio includes the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC, and Argonauts.
Some speculated that the deal was a sign of Bell’s long-term plan to leave the industry.
In December, sports media insider Jonah Sigel reported that Bell was considering selling TSN. He cited the company’s then-recent purchase of Ziply Fiber, a popular broadband provider in the Pacific Northwest, as a possible sign of Bell shifting its priorities from sports to telecommunications. For what it’s worth, a spokesperson for Bell denied the report.
Others speculated the opposite — that by selling billions in assets, Bell could use its newfound liquidity to push for the national NHL broadcasting rights it lost to Rogers in 2014. Losing the TV deal was a big blow to TSN just over a decade ago and there must have been at least some appetite to win the rights back.
With the NHL having now moved on without them, Bell is in an interesting spot. TSN still has a respectable portfolio, including NFL and college football simulcasts, select NBA and CEBL games, domestic and international soccer, Formula One, the men’s major golf championships, Canada’s major curling events, the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, major horse racing events and, of course, regional NHL games.
The product most synonymous with TSN, however, is the Canadian Football League. The network has held the CFL’s exclusive broadcasting rights since 2008. The existing deal, which will expire after next year, is worth a reported $50 million per year. TSN’s initial deal from 2008 to 2013 was reportedly worth $15 million per season, which grew to a reported $43 million per year from 2014 to 2018. None of these figures have ever officially been confirmed by Bell.
Given that the value of the NHL’s broadcasting rights more than doubled over the past decade or so, the CFL might be expecting a similar jump. Last year, TSN averaged ratings of a little over 450,000 per regular season CFL game and 1 million per postseason CFL game, according to 3DownNation’s exclusive reporting. The Grey Cup was one of the strongest Canadian broadcasts of the year, averaging an audience of just under 3.4 million.
Hockey will always be king in Canada, but those numbers are nothing to sneeze at. For the first time since TSN secured the CFL’s exclusive rights in 2008, almost a dozen games were shown on CTV, Bell’s flagship network, this past year, which should help expose new audiences to the game.
A fat raise on its next TV deal doesn’t seem like a guarantee for the CFL, however. If Bell is planning to exit the sports market, ponying up for a long-term broadcasting deal with the CFL doesn’t make a lot of sense. If TSN is actually for sale, it also doesn’t seem optimal for the league to be exclusively tied to a network that could soon have a new owner.
There’s also the matter of leverage. With Rogers spending a boatload of cash on national NHL rights, it seems unlikely they’re planning to push for the CFL, a league that directly competes with the Blue Jays during the summertime. Rogers not only owns the exclusive national broadcasting rights for the Blue Jays but also the team itself and the building it plays in. Disrupting that synergy by drawing resources elsewhere throughout the summer might not be wise.
The Blue Jays are arguably the biggest reason TSN has invested in the CFL for so long. Canadian football is one of few properties that runs throughout the summer and can reasonably compete with Canada’s baseball team on television. The Blue Jays generally draw more viewers than the CFL, though the ratings are at least somewhat comparable, especially when the team struggles. The Blue Jays finished last in the AL East in 2024 and are widely projected to do so again in 2025.
There’s always a chance that a multinational megacorporation like Amazon, Google, or Apple vies for the CFL’s global broadcasting rights, though this might be a pipedream. Non-Canadians are generally receptive to the three-down game once exposed to it, but Canadian football has little appeal outside of Canada, particularly when compared to sports like soccer, baseball, or basketball.
It also seems fair to wonder whether or not the CFL, a legacy product woven into our country’s social fabric, would be best showcased by an ultra-bloated Wall Street giant. The CFL would love to be considered an international brand with global appeal, but there are no metrics to suggest it is one. Barring an unimaginable financial offer, a domestic partner, one with at least some reverence for its history, is probably best.
It also remains to be seen what will happen to the CFL’s French-language rights, which currently belong to RDS, an affiliate of TSN.
Pierre Karl Péladeau, the intrepid owner of the Montreal Alouettes, bragged during his introductory press conference in 2023 about stealing business away from Bell. As the president and CEO of Vidéotron, which owns RDS rival TVA Sports, it seems fair to speculate that he’ll want his team playing on his network sometime in the future.
Then again, Péladeau suddenly appears intent on making the Alouettes profitable after repeatedly stating he was comfortable losing money on the team, so who knows what he’s planning. Montreal’s team president “stepped down” last week and isn’t being replaced. A team without a president? Yikes.
For all the sports media landscape is changing, one could argue that TSN and the CFL are in the same boat they’ve been in for the better part of two decades. Bell just got a massive injection of cash but can’t use any of it to buy national NHL rights. This could mean extra money for a CFL rights deal, but there’s little reason for the network to up its offer unless there are other bidders in play. The league, meanwhile, needs a robust TV deal to thrive and it’s unclear how many potential partners are interested in making an agreement.
Whatever happens, it could happen relatively soon. The last time the two sides extended their deal, the previous agreement wasn’t set to expire for a little over two years. As of now, the existing deal is set to expire in 21 months. Once a new commissioner is in place, which seems imminent, a long-term television deal should be at or near the top of his or her list of priorities.
The post What does the new Rogers-NHL TV deal mean for the CFL? appeared first on 3DownNation.
