The era of free hockey on Canadian television is over.
On Tuesday, Sportsnet and CBC said the pact that had kept NHL games on the public broadcaster had come to an end. The announcement means the country’s longest-running weekly program, Hockey Night in Canada, which began airing in the fall of 1952, will also cease to exist in its current form.
The program was an icon of Canadian culture, one that Michael McKinley, author of the commemorative book Hockey Night in Canada: 60 Seasons, had called “our date night with the country.”
Saturday night games will now air exclusively on the subscription service Sportsnet.
“Watching hockey on Saturday night is a time-honoured tradition for Canadians, and Sportsnet is privileged to continue delivering that tradition,” the two companies said in a statement. “This has been a terrific partnership, and both parties look forward to continued opportunities to collaborate in the future.”
Sportsnet had been producing English-language NHL broadcasts for its own network and CBC ever since the Rogers Communications Inc.-owned service bought up the national rights to the league in a blockbuster $5.2-billion, 12-year deal that began in the fall of 2014. Prior to that, CBC had owned the rights to Saturday night games for decades.
The Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts, which featured double-headers, often drew more than 2-million viewers for the first game and more than 1-million for the late match-up.
The announcement did not come as a surprise to Michael Naraine, Brock University associate professor of sport management.
“A lot of people are up in arms about the news, because this is such an ultra-sensitive institution,” he said. “The thing is, the CBC was lucky to be airing hockey for the last 12 years.”
When the deal between the two broadcasters was first struck, Rogers and CBC needed each other. Rogers did not have a national TV broadcast network that would assure the NHL of the widest possible audience for its games, and CBC had just lost one-seventh of its prime-time programming – as well as a way to advertise its other programs in front of the largest audience it would attract each week.
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In the interim, Rogers has been able to sharply increase the amount it charges Sportsnet subscribers, in large part because of the popularity of the NHL programming. In 2013, before landing the NHL rights, it charged approximately $21 a year to those who got the channel through a traditional cable or satellite provider, according to data published by the CRTC. In 2024, the last year for which data are available, Sportsnet received about $72 a year for traditional TV subscribers, or more than triple the 2013 figure.
The NHL rights are also a key driver for subscriptions to its streaming service, Sportsnet+, which Rogers launched in 2016.
After being priced out of hockey 12 years ago, CBC chose to increase its focus on the amateur and Olympic sector.
Neither broadcaster would disclose the extent of their efforts to keep hockey on CBC.
Chuck Thompson, the CBC’s spokesperson, said despite their best efforts the two broadcasters “couldn’t come to an agreement that works for both parties.”
In a statement, Sportsnet spokesperson Jason Jackson said that Hockey Night in Canada viewership on CBC had “declined significantly over the years,” with audiences for the early Saturday night game down 70 per cent since 2014. “Most fans watch Saturday night hockey on Sportsnet,” he said.
His statement added that Saturday night broadcasts would now air exclusively on Sportsnet. Previously, games had been seen across Rogers’ TV platforms, including CityTV and its multicultural OMNI channel.
Prof. Naraine noted that the environment for terminating a cultural mainstay such as Hockey Night in Canada has changed over the past decade.
“Rogers is no longer afraid that the Canadian government and the Canadian people would reject this as a mass cultural massacre,” he said. “We’ve normalized buying over-the-top streaming services.”
He added that Rogers is now aiming to position its sports media division as a premium offering in the marketplace, in particular ahead of the company’s acquisition of the remaining portion of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, expected to close later this year.
“Rogers needs to prop up its sports and media division,” Mr. Naraine said. “Why would you let the CBC have viewership numbers when you want to drive viewership numbers to your platform, so that you can monetize the division?”
Carolina Hurricanes center Jordan Staal celebrates with the Stanley Cup after defeating the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday.John Locher/The Associated Press
The shift comes as Rogers embarks on a new 12-year, $11-billion agreement with the NHL that, when it was signed in April, 2025, company executives said would be immediately profitable.
Rogers had managed to cut the overall cost of the previous NHL rights deal with two sublicense agreements, selling off all 12 years of the French-language rights to Quebecor’s TVA Sports channel and the last two years’ worth of rights for English-language Monday night games to Amazon’s Prime streaming service. But it has not yet renewed either one of those deals for the coming season.
In April, Quebecor chief executive officer Pierre Karl Peladeau told The Globe the companies were in talks over the French-language hockey games, saying that there is “always a price point somewhere” that could make sense for the company. NHL games are a pillar of programming for TVA Sports, filling the schedule on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday in prime time.
Next year’s hockey season begins in about three-and-a-half months. Cheri Bradish, a professor of sports marketing at Toronto Metropolitan University, said the lack of a new sub-license at this point seems delayed compared to the usual schedule.
In a press release, CBC said it would launch a new prime time Saturday show that would “provide Canadian athletes with an unprecedented profile between Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Mr. Thompson said that reports of the demise of Hockey Night in Canada are incorrect. “CBC owns the Hockey Night in Canada brand and we have every intention of using it going forward,” he told The Globe. “We will have more to share about how we use the brand in the coming weeks.”