About Sportsnet

Sportsnet

Sportsnet is Canada's Rogers-owned English-language sports media brand, encompassing four regional television feeds, the Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 360 companion channels, the Sportsnet 590 The Fan radio station, the sportsnet.ca digital platform, and the Sportsnet+ streaming service. Headquartered in Toronto, the operation is the sports arm of Rogers Sports & Media and the national rightsholder for the NHL in Canada — a position secured by one of the largest broadcast rights deals in Canadian history.

Overview

Sportsnet's television service comprises four regional feeds — East, Ontario, West, and Pacific — that carry both national programming and regional NHL games tailored to their territories. Around the feeds, the brand includes the national Sportsnet One channel, the Sportsnet 360 companion service, radio, digital, and streaming, making it a fully integrated sports media operation. The rights portfolio is headlined by the NHL's Canadian national rights, held under a 12-year agreement that began in the 2014–15 season and was extended in a subsequent 12-year, $11-billion renewal, along with the Toronto Blue Jays (whose owner, Rogers, also owns Sportsnet), the NBA and Toronto Raptors, and a range of other properties.

Sportsnet's production is based at the Rogers Building in Toronto, with regional studios and broadcast teams across the country. The brand's identity — from the Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts it produces for CBC to its Blue Jays on Sportsnet telecasts — is woven into the daily sports conversation in English Canada.

History

Sportsnet was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture of Baton Broadcasting, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. When Bell Globemedia acquired CTV in 2000 and with it the competing TSN, regulators required the divestiture of one of the two sports networks; CTV chose to keep TSN and sell Sportsnet, and Rogers became the sole owner in 2004 after acquiring the remaining minority stake held by Fox. The channel was rebranded from CTV Sportsnet to Rogers Sportsnet and then simply Sportsnet.

The defining moment came in late 2013, when Rogers secured the NHL's exclusive Canadian national media rights for 12 years beginning in 2014–15, wresting the package from TSN and CBC. Rogers began producing Hockey Night in Canada for broadcast on CBC under a sub-licensing arrangement, and built its hockey coverage around national windows on Sportsnet and Citytv. Since 2011 the service has operated under deregulated Category C licensing, allowing multiple feeds without genre restrictions. In 2025–26, Rogers extended its NHL rights with a new 12-year, $11-billion agreement and sub-licensed French-language rights to Quebecor's TVA Sports for a further 12 years.

Programming

NHL hockey dominates: national games, regional telecasts on the four feeds, Hockey Night in Canada on Saturdays (produced by Rogers for CBC), Hometown Hockey, and extensive studio programming including Hockey Central. The Toronto Blue Jays are the summer centerpiece, with the full regular-season schedule televised and the team's games routinely among the most-watched sports broadcasts in the country. NBA coverage, including the Toronto Raptors, joins a lineup that has included Major League Baseball's other games, soccer, tennis, and combat sports.

Studio programming includes Sportsnet Central (the nightly news program), Tim & Friends (the daytime talk show), Baseball Central, and long-form features. The four-feed structure allows regional NHL games to air simultaneously in different markets, with national windows — particularly Saturday nights — carried across all feeds.

Coverage & Audience

Sportsnet's four regional feeds are available nationally on digital cable, IPTV, and satellite, with the appropriate regional feed offered in each market and all four accessible subject to blackout rules. Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 360 extend the television footprint, while Sportsnet+ streams the full portfolio to subscribers without cable. Sportsnet 590 The Fan, the Toronto sports radio station, simulcasts and extends the brand on AM radio.

The audience is the largest in Canadian sports television alongside TSN's: Blue Jays games and Saturday-night hockey routinely draw the country's biggest sports audiences, and the NHL rights have made Sportsnet the default destination for hockey from October through June. The brand's integration across television, radio, digital, and streaming gives it unmatched reach among English-Canadian sports fans.

Ownership

Sportsnet is owned by Rogers Sports & Media, the broadcast and sports division of Rogers Communications Inc. Rogers acquired full ownership in 2004 and has built the brand into the centerpiece of its sports strategy, alongside its ownership of the Toronto Blue Jays, its stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, and the Rogers Centre. The company's control of both the Blue Jays and their broadcaster creates a vertically integrated baseball operation unique in Canada.

Signature Programming and Properties

Sportsnet's programming is defined by its landmark rights properties. The network's NHL coverage — the national package secured in the landmark 2013 Rogers-NHL agreement — is the cornerstone of its schedule, featuring "Hockey Night in Canada" and comprehensive regular-season, playoff, and Stanley Cup coverage. The network's baseball programming — anchored by the Toronto Blue Jays, owned by Rogers — makes Sportsnet the year-round home of Canada's baseball team, with every game carried across the network's channels.

Beyond hockey and baseball, Sportsnet covers the NBA's Toronto Raptors, Major League Soccer, tennis majors, golf championships, and a range of international sports. The network's "Sportsnet Central" newscast provides the nightly sports news roundup, and its studio programming — debates, analysis, and interview shows — shapes the national sports conversation.

The network's multi-channel structure — Sportsnet, Sportsnet One, Sportsnet 360, and the regional feeds — allows it to program simultaneous events across its properties, a capacity essential to monetizing its rights portfolio. The 2013 NHL deal, among the largest sports rights agreements in Canadian history, transformed Sportsnet into the nation's hockey broadcaster and redefined the competitive balance with TSN.

Industry Context and the Bell Rivalry

Sportsnet's rivalry with Bell's TSN defines Canadian sports media. The networks compete for rights, talent, and audience across every major property, and their corporate parents — Rogers and Bell — extend the competition to telecommunications, wireless, and digital platforms. The rivalry has driven rights fees to record levels, enriched on-air talent markets, and given Canadian sports fans two comprehensive, competing sports networks.

Sportsnet's integration with Rogers' broader assets — the Blue Jays, the Toronto radio stations, Sportsnet.ca, and the Sportsnet+ streaming service — creates a vertically integrated sports operation unique in Canada. The network's digital platforms extend its reach to cord-cutters, and its streaming service positions it for the on-demand future of sports viewing.

The 2013 NHL Deal and Industry Transformation

The November 2013 announcement of Rogers' 12-year, $5.2-billion agreement with the NHL for Canadian national broadcast rights was the most consequential transaction in Canadian sports media history. The deal — which took effect with the 2014-15 season — made Sportsnet the national home of NHL hockey, including "Hockey Night in Canada," and fundamentally altered the competitive balance with TSN. The agreement's scale reflected both the NHL's value to Canadian broadcasters and Rogers' determination to anchor its sports strategy in hockey.

The deal's structure — national rights for Rogers, with regional components and sublicensing arrangements — reshaped how hockey airs in Canada. "Hockey Night in Canada," the CBC institution, continued under a sublicensing arrangement that preserved its public-broadcaster presence while moving production to Sportsnet. The transaction demonstrated the economics of modern sports rights: premium properties command sums that only vertically integrated media-telecommunications companies can afford, and the rights themselves become strategic assets that drive wireless, cable, and streaming subscriptions.

For Sportsnet, the NHL deal provided the marquee property around which the entire network is organized. The network's fall-to-spring schedule revolves around hockey; its studio programming, talent roster, and promotional machinery serve the hockey audience; and its digital platforms extend hockey coverage to streaming viewers. The investment's returns are measured not only in advertising revenue but in the subscriber and customer relationships that hockey drives across Rogers' businesses.

Blue Jays Integration and Baseball Coverage

Sportsnet's baseball identity is inseparable from the Toronto Blue Jays — the team Rogers has owned since 2000. The network carries the Blue Jays' complete regular-season and postseason schedule, with its own broadcast teams, pre- and post-game programming, and the year-round baseball coverage that serves Canada's baseball fans. This vertical integration — team ownership combined with broadcast rights — is unique in Canadian sports media and gives Sportsnet baseball authenticity that transcends conventional rights deals.

The network's baseball programming extends beyond the Blue Jays to the sport's broader landscape: playoff coverage, the World Series, and the analysis programs that serve the knowledgeable baseball audience. The network's broadcasters are among the most respected baseball voices in the business, and its production quality matches the major American networks' standards.

Digital Presence

Sportsnet's official website at sportsnet.ca is one of Canada's largest sports digital properties, offering news, scores, statistics, video highlights, podcasts, and streaming through Sportsnet+. The Sportsnet app provides mobile access with personalized team alerts, and the brand's social media accounts command large followings for breaking news, highlights, and debate. Podcasts — including baseball, hockey, and basketball shows — extend the brand into audio, and Sportsnet's YouTube channels distribute highlights and original features to millions of viewers.