TORONTO (AP) — The NHL and Rogers Communications introduced a brand new 12-year nationwide media rights deal Wednesday to air video games on a number of platforms in Canada.
The settlement, which was first reported Monday, is valued at $11 billion Canadian {dollars}, or roughly $7.7 billion. The brand new deal runs via the 2037-38 season.
“Primarily based on how the discussions had been going and Rogers’ resolve to retain us and our resolve to try to proceed to make the partnership work, we truly prolonged the unique negotiating interval in order that we might get to some extent that we had been each snug,” Commissioner Gary Bettman mentioned at a information convention in regards to the deal. “It wasn’t what I might describe as contentious within the least. I feel we had been just about on the identical web page. We needed to work just a little bit on the cash, however that got here collectively as nicely. However within the remaining evaluation, we wished to be collectively. And that’s the way it got here collectively, as rapidly because it did.”
In Canadian {dollars}, it’s price greater than double the earlier contract signed in November 2013 that price Rogers $5.2 billion within the native foreign money.
Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri mentioned the funds have labored out and can proceed to work out with the brand new deal. Sportsnet, Rogers’ sports activities community, mentioned its income has greater than doubled since 2013.
“The worth of dwell sports activities content material simply continues to understand, and it’s actually rooted in viewership persevering with to develop,” Staffieri mentioned. “In case you take a look at our NHL deal during the last decade, viewership grew by 50%. And with that form of development, what you see is income rising at a really regular and wholesome tempo when it comes to promoting income, subscription income, and within the deal we now have now, sub-licensing income. And in order we glance to the following 12 years, we had been very considerate in how we thought in regards to the economics.”
The NBA’s U.S. rights deal went up 160% from 2016 to 2025 and the NHL’s U.S. rights deal elevated by 213% from 2011 to 2021. Rogers’ deal is a 111% increase from 2014 to 2026.
That is the league’s newest income after contracting with ESPN and Turner Sports activities in 2021 for the present U.S. TV and streaming rights deal for $4.5 billion over seven years mixed.
The deal contains nationwide rights throughout all platforms, together with TV, digital, and streaming, for all nationwide regular-season video games, in all languages, in addition to out-of-market rights for all regional video games.
It additionally contains nationwide rights to all playoff video games, the Stanley Cup Remaining and all particular occasions and tentpole occasions, in all languages.
The settlement permits for strategic sub-licensing for a subset of the rights, together with nationwide French-language and a single-night unique nationwide package deal.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
