Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment headquarters in Toronto on Sept. 18. Rogers Communications Inc. acquired Bell’s 37.5-per-cent stake in MLSE for $4.7-billion.Yader Guzman/The Globe and Mail
For the 12 years that BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc. have co-owned 75 per cent of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, rumours have persisted about behind-the-scenes tensions between the corporate behemoths. So, when they simultaneously issued separate press releases on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. announcing that Rogers was buying out Bell’s 37.5-per-cent stake in the sports giant, it was hard to ignore the differences in how they portrayed the path forward for TV viewers of MLSE’s two most popular teams.
Bell proudly declared that its media division, “has secured access to content rights for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors on TSN for the next 20 years through a long-term agreement with Rogers.” That made it sound as if the deal contained a subcontract spelling out the terms by which TSN would continue to broadcast the Leafs and Raptors games it currently carries, after it no longer owns those teams.
Rogers’s language made things sound a lot less certain. Its announcement said the deal would merely, “provide Bell with the opportunity to renew its existing MLSE broadcast and sponsorship rights long-term at fair market value. This includes access to content rights for 50% of Toronto Maple Leafs regional games and 50% of Toronto Raptors games for which MLSE controls the rights.”
The deal is unfolding against a backdrop of increasing chaos in North American sports broadcasting. While leagues are striking richer deals than ever with national carriers – in July, the NBA announced it had signed an agreement with ESPN, NBC and Amazon that would bring in US$76-billion over 11 years, starting with the 2025-26 season – a number of the regional broadcasters in the U.S., the ones that actually carry the majority of games, are in trouble as subscribers cut the cord. Some teams have begun offering their games on over-the-air broadcasters, while others are trying to build their own sports channels.
Meanwhile, streamers have been moving into Canadian sports broadcasting over the past few years, making things a lot more confusing – and, frankly, expensive – for fans.
So, with that in mind: A helpful Q&A on what the changes at MLSE might mean for TV viewers.
Will Rogers’s consolidation of its MLSE ownership make it easier to watch Leafs or Raptors games?
You’re kidding, right?
Okay, why not?
It’s complicated, so let’s begin with the source of what may be the greatest irritation for sports fans. TV rights for live sports are usually sold off in two separate packages: regional and national. Leagues handle national-rights sales, while the individual teams themselves sell the remaining games to regional or local broadcasters.
In Canada, the most famous example of a national-rights deal is the $5.2-billion purchase of 12 years’ worth of NHL games by Rogers Communications, beginning with the 2014-15 season. For the first 10 seasons of that deal, the company broadcast national games on its Sportsnet and CityTV channels, as well as (on Saturday nights) CBC. This year, Amazon’s Prime TV service is taking over the Monday night national broadcasts that used to be on Sportsnet. But most games are still carried by regional broadcasters, and the deal probably won’t change that landscape, at least not yet.
Wait, what’s the difference between regional and national broadcasts?
Regional games are available only to viewers in the teams’ home markets, or those who buy out-of-market packages such as NHL Centre Ice or Sportsnet+.
Rogers is the English-language regional broadcaster for the Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames, so its Sportsnet operation carries 55 to 60 of each of those teams’ games each season; the rest of the teams’ games are carried nationally on either Sportsnet or CBC, or Prime.
Bell Media is the English-language regional broadcaster for the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and Winnipeg Jets, so its TSN operation carries 50 to 60 of each of those teams’ games, with the rest broadcast nationally by Sportsnet or CBC, or Prime.
How are Leafs regional broadcasts handled?
They’re carved up between Bell and Rogers. So, this season, 40 of the Leafs’ 82 regular-season games will be split between the regional operations of TSN and Sportsnet – which is to say TSN4 and Sportsnet Ontario. TSN will broadcast 26 games, while Sportsnet Ontario will carry 14.
The rest will air nationally: Sportsnet or CBC will carry 36, and Prime will carry six.
So Leafs fans will have to subscribe to three services this year if they want to watch all of the team’s games?
Yes. Well, four, actually – but viewers don’t have to pay to watch CBC.
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What does this announcement mean, then?
From a regional perspective, not much.
Probably.
During a brief chat with Ron MacLean that ran on Sportsnet’s website Wednesday afternoon, Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri said that the company would continue to share rights to the Leafs and Raptors “over the next couple of years. And then after that, they’ll have the opportunity to continue to buy those rights at market rates. And so, from a viewer’s perspective, they’ll continue to watch the games the way they do today for a very long time.”
Need we point out that an “opportunity to continue to buy those rights” isn’t the same as saying the sale is assured?
There’s another “but” coming, isn’t there?
Indeed! Rogers’s national NHL rights deal concludes at the end of the 2025-26 season. At the time it was struck, in December, 2013, it seemed like it might be a model for future media deals: Rogers would be the gatekeeper for all national broadcasts, on any platforms that existed at the time of the signing as well as any that might be developed during its 12-year span.
That made things simple for the NHL, because it only had to deal with one partner in Canada. But it meant the league lost some pricing power. And it also meant that, as the rights payments escalated over the course of the deal (starting at about $300-million a year and rising to about $500-million toward the end), Rogers might be under pressure to find more revenue – which is to say, to put its more popular games on Sportsnet, where fans would have to subscribe to watch, instead of CBC or CityTV. That approach might be good for Rogers, but it almost certainly reduces the reach of the NHL. While the league has a monopoly on professional hockey in North America, the NHL remains a distant last place among the big four pro sports leagues, so reducing its potential reach is exactly the wrong way to go.
So, what happens when Rogers’s deal for national NHL rights expires in two years?
That’s the $6-billion (plus?) question. Nobody knows – and while today’s deal makes Rogers an even more powerful voice in the NHL boardroom, the league will almost certainly want to boost both its rights fees and its potential Canadian TV viewership. Which likely means more streamers in the mix, and also almost certainly an old-fashioned broadcaster with an over-the-air channel that boasts a fat national footprint.
Okay, how about the Raptors? Is it as confusing to watch them?
No. Not yet. TSN and Sportsnet currently divide the team’s 82 regular-season games, with each broadcaster carrying 41 games. All of those are national, because the Raptors are the only NBA team in Canada, so its “region” is the entire country. Again, assuming Bell steps up to pay what Rogers considers “fair market value” for the rights, TSN will continue to be able to buy and broadcast the same number of games.
(If Rogers and Bell are looking to boost their revenue, maybe they should sell pay-per-view access to the negotiating sessions where they argue over what “fair market value” means.)
What about the Argos and TFC, which MLSE also owns?
In Canada, rights for both CFL and MLS are sold to broadcasters by the leagues: Regional rights don’t exist, because the individual teams aren’t popular enough. (No offence, Rider Nation!) Bell has been the exclusive broadcaster of the CFL since 2008, putting all of the games – including the Grey Cup – on TSN, much to the consternation of traditionalists and my Grey Cup-loving father (a traditionalist without a TSN subscription). This season, Bell also began airing select games on its CTV broadcast channel, leading to a bump in viewership.
This MLS season, TSN is carrying 14 games each of CF Montreal, TFC and the Vancouver Whitecaps. All MLS games are also available through a subscription to MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+.
And, while we’re talking about sports, how about the Jays?
The Toronto Blue Jays operate within a division of Rogers Communications. They sell their games directly to, er, a division of Rogers Communications, which broadcasts them nationally.
A handful of games are kept back each season by Major League Baseball and sold in a package to Apple TV+ for its Friday Night Baseball programs.