Rogers hits the hockey mother lode with $5.2 billion NHL deal

The NHL has seen the future of hockey, and for at least the next 12 years, TSN isn’t a part of it.

The league announced this morning it had signed a landmark C$5.232 billion deal with Rogers Communications. The agreement, the most lucrative media rights contract in the history of the league, gives Rogers exclusive national rights to all regular season, and Stanley Cup playoff and final games for the next 12 years.

All platforms, all languages

The deal, which runs from 2014-15 through the 2025-26 seasons, applies to all Rogers broadcast and online platforms, in all languages. As part of the deal, Rogers will partner with the Quebecor-owned TVA Sports network to broadcast games in French. While the CBC will continue to carry Hockey Night in Canada games on Saturday nights during both the regular and post-seasons, Rogers will leverage HNIC branding across its full range of platforms.

At a press conference this morning, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said it made a lot of sense to give Rogers the rights to pen hockey’s next chapter.

“Hockey and all sports is in their blood,” he said. “So we are completely comfortable and confident putting our game in their hands.”

In an earlier statement, he said the time has come to take coverage further.

"Our fans always want to explore deeper and more emotional connections to NHL hockey, and that is precisely what Rogers has promised to deliver over the next 12 years – channelling the reach of its platforms and the intensity of its passion for the game into an unparalleled viewing experience,” he said. “The NHL is excited about the power and potential of this groundbreaking partnership.”

The deal, which is still subject to approval by the NHL’s Board of Governors, is a major blow to Bell, which partnered with Rogers in December 2011 to purchase a majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan for $1.07 billion. That deal, which closed in August 2012, gave the two carriers control over a wide range of Toronto-based sports properties, including the Maple Leafs, the Raptors, the Toronto FC soccer team, the AHL’s Marlies, as well as the Air Canada Centre. With the lion’s share of broadcast and platform rights shifting to Rogers-owned Sportsnet, Bell’s TSN, whose contract to carry NHL games ends at the end of the current season, is about to lose its invitation to the hockey ball.

A growing sports empire

The announcement cements the expanding Rogers footprint on the Canadian sports landscape. The company owns the naming rights to the Rogers Arena home base of the Vancouver Canucks, and is the Edmonton Oilers telecommunications sponsor. Sportsnet currently holds regional broadcast rights for the Leafs, Ottawa Senators, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Vancouver Canucks. Sportsnet held NHL coverage rights from 1998 through 2002.

To no one’s surprise, Rogers President and CEO Nadir Mohamed said the deal was about content. But he added there’s more to it.

“Sports content is a strategic pillar for Rogers,” he said. “And NHL hockey is the holy grail. Hockey brings us closer together as a family, as a country; it’s our religion. This is the content that matters. Canadians want to watch hockey live, in person, on television, on their mobile, on their wallet.”

Mohamed said today’s announcement continues his company’s investments in building out a sports portfolio that now includes the Blue Jays, MLSE, and The Score, since rebranded Sportsnet 360.

“Two years ago, I said we wanted Sportsnet to be the number one sports media brand in Canada,” he added. “Today we’re positioned to do just that.”

Innovation must drive ROI

But it’ll take deeper investments in platform innovation to justify the asking price. Enter Keith Pelley, Rogers Media President, who now becomes point person for the boldest multiplatform bet in Canadian sports broadcasting history. He headed the 2010 Canadian Olympic broadcast consortium and was President of TSN from 2000 to 2003. He has also been CEO of the Toronto Argonauts and Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning for CTV. At this morning’s press conference, he wasted no time confirming how Rogers intends to justify the investment.

“There will be an emphasis on innovation,” he said. “We’ll leverage our first-to-market technology for enhanced production and viewing experiences. We’ll create our own hockey production centre of excellence to unify our NHL content. It will be everywhere.”

It’ll have to be. Seen through a conventional broadcast lens, the ROI would fall significantly short of the rich asking price and look eerily like its investment in the Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre stadium – often seen as an expensive vanity play that’s done little to bolster the bottom line. But as it moves more deeply into hockey, Rogers isn’t looking through a conventional lens, and it’ll need to leverage every multiplatform trick in the book to unlock value for advertisers and drive revenue streams that don’t yet exist. Get ready to experience – and pay for – hockey on virtually every screen you own.

While dispa Bell, their most significant competitor, clears the decks for the coming multiplatform assault, Rogers now finds itself in unexplored territory. For investors, the company’s ability to conjure up new revenue streams to justify its massive investment is now the only game that matters.

Carmi Levy is a London, Ont.-based independent technology analyst and journalist. The opinions expressed are his own. carmilevy@yahoo.ca