If you are already a Sportsnet+ or Rogers cable subscriber, you're ok for now. But the pain is all around.
Sportsnet’s first season under its new 12-year NHL deal just made Monday night more expensive for Maple Leafs fans who do not already pay for Sportsnet+ or a cable package that includes Sportsnet.
On Wednesday the network confirmed that Monday Night Hockey will stream exclusively on Sportsnet+. That is the window that now holds 13 Toronto games.
For fans who already have Sportsnet through a non-Rogers cable or satellite provider, the extra charge is $12.99 a month after they log into Sportsnet+ with their TV credentials. That add-on goes on sale Sept. 15. Rogers Xfinity customers with Sportsnet in their package get it bundled at no extra cost. Everyone else is in a different boat.
Canadian fans with neither Sportsnet+ nor cable do not get a $13 upgrade path. They have to buy the full streaming service. Standard Sportsnet+ is $29.99 a month or $249.99 a year right now and rises Sept. 22 to $34.99 monthly and $269.99 annually. Premium, which adds out-of-market games, moves from $42.99 to $44.99 a month and from $324.99 to $344.99 a year. Over a seven-month regular season, that is well over $200 before tax just to keep those 13 Monday Leafs games on the screen, on top of whatever they already pay Amazon for Wednesday nights and TSN for other regional windows.
This is Year 1 of Rogers’ $11-billion, 12-year national contract, more than double the $5.2-billion deal that expired after last spring. Rogers has argued live sports keep rising in value and that NHL viewership grew 50 percent over the previous decade. The new rights also let Sportsnet lift blackouts on 150 regional games and push more Canadian-team matchups nationally. Monday night is the piece they parked exclusively on Sportsnet+.
The price hikes did not start this week. Earlier in the summer, Sportsnet sent notice to Sportnet+ subscribers that the subscription to Sportsnet+ would increase from $29.99 to $34.99 effective Sept. 22. This was one year after a 30 percent for the service.
If you don’t subscribe to Sportsnet+ and have a cable subscription with all of the Sportsnet regionals and TSNs, plus a subscription to Prime Video, that will not be enough to see all 84 regular season games.
The bottom line is your last bit of leverage when it came to cable subscriptions is essentially gone. For a while, you could bounce between Rogers or Bell or other TV providers to get the best price possible that had the sports channels required to access streaming services. Now Rogers is holding a $12.99 a month bounty to keep you as a customer. It’s another point of friction and it’s understandable why hockey fans in Canada are voicing complaints about it.
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