On Wednesday, Rogers officially confirmed what had first been reported by the specialty publication Sportico: It has renewed its national television rights deal with the National Hockey League for 12 years, from 2026 to 2038, at a cost of $11 billion Canadian ($7.7 billion U.S.).
The deal is similar to the existing one: National rights to NHL television broadcasts in Canada, in all languages and on all platforms, including special events and all playoff games, and out-of-market rights. Like it did in 2013, Rogers promises more national games and fewer regional blackouts, though exactly how many is still unclear.
It also retains the rights to sublicense its rights to others. Currently all French-language TV rights are sublicensed to Quebecor’s TVA Sports, and Monday night national games are sublicensed to Amazon Prime Video. Rogers also has a partnership with CBC to allow Rogers to use CBC Television on Saturday nights and during the playoffs in exchange for Rogers retaining all ad revenue and programming control.
A press conference on Wednesday (which you can see here) clarified a few matters. Based on that, here’s what we know, what we don’t know, what’s likely and what’s possible: