Prime Video to completely broadcast Wednesday night time nationwide NHL regular-season video games in Canada

Amazon’s Prime Video will completely broadcast Wednesday night time nationwide NHL regular-season video games in Canada in English and French starting subsequent season, as a part of a brand new 12-year sub-licensing settlement with Rogers Communications Inc.

The streaming service can even carry choose Stanley Cup playoff collection, together with two first-round collection and one second-round matchup yearly, below the deal introduced on Tuesday.

A Rogers spokesperson mentioned the playoff allocation will observe a draft format. Prime Video will obtain the fourth and fifth choices among the many eight first-round collection and the third alternative among the many 4 second-round matchups.

Prime Video’s lineup will embody at the least 26 nationwide regular-season video games, beginning Sept. 30, and shall be obtainable to Prime members in Canada at no further value, whereas Rogers-owned Sportsnet retains the vast majority of nationwide NHL video games.

The settlement spans the complete size of Rogers’s 12-year cope with the NHL for the nationwide media rights on all platforms in Canada via the 2037-38 season.

“We’re thrilled to expand our partnership with the NHL and Rogers in this landmark agreement, which brings even more premium live sports to Prime members in Canada,” mentioned Jay Marine, head of worldwide sports activities at Prime Video, in a press release.

No extra NHL on free-to-air tv

The deal follows final month’s announcement that Rogers and CBC wouldn’t renew their sub-licensing settlement, ending Hockey Night in Canada on the general public broadcaster after the 2025-26 season. Rogers-owned Citytv can even now not carry nationwide video games, ending NHL broadcasts on free-to-air tv.

WATCH | End of an period for hockey:

CBC will now not air NHL video games

The CBC will cease displaying NHL video games after the broadcaster and nationwide rights holder Rogers Sportsnet had been unable to come back to settlement on a brand new sublicensing deal. In its place, CBC is launching a brand new Saturday night time primetime present on tv and streaming on CBC Gem, that includes Canadian athletes competing at dwelling and on the greatest occasions around the globe.

The CBC beforehand aired nationwide video games on Saturdays, together with all 4 rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“Our partnership with Prime Video builds on the strong foundation we have established together and reinforces NHL hockey as the most valuable sports content in Canada,” Rogers president and CEO Tony Staffieri mentioned in a press release.

The settlement continues the NHL’s transfer towards streaming platforms after Prime Video started carrying Monday night time video games in Canada over the previous two NHL seasons. That deal didn’t embody playoff video games or French-language broadcasts.

John Shannon, a longtime sportscaster and TV producer in Canada, referred to as the shift towards streaming platforms an “inevitability,” pointing to the CFL’s current deal to stream Saturday night time video games on DAZN starting in 2027 and Major League Soccer’s partnership with Apple TV.

“It speaks to what we’ve witnessed in both Canada and the United States with streaming companies being more involved in sports,” mentioned Shannon, a former panellist on Sportsnet. “They’re learning, as the rest of us learned, that sports is the last bastion of live television, and so from that perspective you can create better sales opportunities.

“And actually, how a lot completely different is it than paying for TSN or paying for Sportsnet?” he added. “It’s principally on that very same platform, on that very same degree.”

Financial terms of the Prime Video sub-licensing deal were not disclosed.

“Over the previous two years, Prime Video has been a useful addition to the NHL’s media lineup in Canada, becoming a member of Rogers in bringing marquee NHL video games to Canadian followers,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said.

“We’re excited that Prime Video and Rogers are deepening their relationship via this long-term settlement, reflecting our shared dedication to serving English- and French-language hockey followers throughout Canada with premium NHL content material for years to come back.”

Moshe Lander, a sports economist at Concordia University in Montreal, says the deal will help Rogers recoup some of the $11 billion it paid last year to get the rights.

“What we’re discovering out in skilled sports activities is that the best way that you simply maximize the take from broadcasting is you attempt to create as many broadcasting alternatives as attainable,” Lander said.  “The days the place the CBC had an entire stranglehold on hockey is lengthy gone.”

Lander said the 12-year length of the contract also lends itself to labour peace in a league that has had shortened seasons due to bargaining disputes three times since 1995.

“You can say: ‘Listen, I do not know why you need a three-year, four-year collective bargaining settlement. Here’s revenues so far as the attention can see so long as you assist us be a companion within the sport.'”

‘Rough time’ for hockey diehards, economist says

As for viewers, Lander says the fracturing of the schedule will mean a “tough time” for diehards bouncing between packages. It also reflects what has been happening in streaming generally.

“The humorous half is all people’s been speaking about cord-cutting and everybody’s saying why do I wish to pay a whole lot of {dollars} for cable after I can simply get virtually à la carte on demand what I would like?” he said. “And but for those who begin to worth out all the pieces that you simply put collectively along with your Crave and Disney and Prime and Netflix and guess what? You’re most likely paying near what you probably did earlier than.”

Rogers has not officially announced a sub-licensing agreement for the remainder of the national French-language broadcast rights in Canada.

La Presse reported last week that TVA Sports would continue as the French-language national rights holder and air 32 Montreal Canadiens regular-season games, up from 22 last season, while retaining exclusive rights to Canadiens playoff games.

A Rogers spokesperson said the company had nothing to share at this time.

The telecommunications giant first purchased the Canadian NHL broadcast rights in 2013 on a 12-year, $5.2-billion deal that expired last season.

Shannon said that deal, which included the sub-licensing agreement with CBC, set the stage for the evolving NHL broadcast landscape.

“The blow is softened in 2026 than it will have been in 2014, when Rogers initially ventured into this world with the NHL after which did the cope with the CBC,” Shannon said.

“The world has modified. How we watch standard tv, via specialty channels, via streamers, and it has been coming. The NFL has embraced it, NBA has embraced it, the NHL and Major League Baseball have embraced it as properly.”