NHL on Rogers

[Neely2005]

York stadium looks like it was designed so it could be used for nothing else but track & field...so that ship has probably sailed. I believe the federal guidelines call for only one free pro-football stadium per 2-week soccer tournament...and Hamilton grabbed the brass ring with the Pan-Parapan Games, while TFC got the spoils from the youth soccer tourney. But now the soccer cupboard is bare?

Heritage Canada does give away billions every year for Canada's culture, including Rogers Media which received $22 million in federal subsidies in 2012 alone (adding to Rogers $12,400,000,000 in revenues that year.) Rogers has earmarked $250,000,000 to install grass at Skydome, lost $50 million on the failed NFL in Toronto series and will likely lose billions on their ridiculous NHL overbid. (TFC will reportedly lose money this year with the BJ's losing $300,000,000 in their first 8 years of Rogers ownership). But MLSE won't spend $20M to renovate BMO to accommodate Toronto's football team (money which would be paid back over the term of the first lease?)

At least MLSE did their little bit to help promote their potential BMO tenant in the media event this week: Phase 3: T.B.A (So you're saying there is a chance?)

It's doubtful that Rogers loses money on the NHL. They already sold the French Language Rights to TVA for $1.5 Billion:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/hockeys-french-connection/article15642270/

[Qman]

It's doubtful that Rogers loses money on the NHL. They already sold the French Language Rights to TVA for $1.5 Billion:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/hockeys-french-connection/article15642270/


They will especially in early years. Thats why Bell walked ... they didn't want the losses. Rogers is hoping the losses on NHL will be offset by raising prices for sportsnet (which is a significant discount to tsn in cable fees)

[Neely2005]

They will especially in early years. Thats why Bell walked ... they didn't want the losses. Rogers is hoping the losses on NHL will be offset by raising prices for sportsnet (which is a significant discount to tsn in cable fees)

Rogers is carrying more games than TSN or CBC ever did and they'll get all of that advertising revenue plus CBC's Hockey Night In Canada advertising revenue.

[argolio]

Rogers is carrying more games than TSN or CBC ever did and they'll get all of that advertising revenue plus CBC's Hockey Night In Canada advertising revenue.They'll also have more production costs, and those extra games will have fragmented audiences, which will mitigate ad revenue. I don't see how Rogers will make money from this deal.

[Neely2005]

They'll also have more production costs, and those extra games will have fragmented audiences, which will mitigate ad revenue. I don't see how Rogers will make money from this deal.

$1.5 Billion for the French Language rights, Advertising revenue, subscriptions to the Rogers channels, NHL Center Ice subscriptions, NHL Game Center subscriptions, increased Data usage for people streaming games on their phones, tablets and computers...

In a couple of weeks the NHL is going to bump Football down the Sports TV Ratings.

[AngeloV]

$1.5 Billion for the French Language rights, Advertising revenue, subscriptions to the Rogers channels, NHL Center Ice subscriptions, NHL Game Center subscriptions, increased Data usage for people streaming games on their phones, tablets and computers...

In a couple of weeks the NHL is going to bump Football down the Sports TV Ratings.

If anything, they will be showing more games on free tv, so wouldn't that hurt their centre ice subscription sales? If it was such a slam dunk that they would be making this money back, I think Bell would have put in a much more competitive bid than they did.

[Neely2005]

And so it begins.

The pumpkins are free of frost and the trees are still hanging on to their leaves, but hockey is back on television and showing that once again it's ready to dominate the ratings. The CFL and NFL, which have led the ratings for the past few months, can now prepare themselves to take a back seat to Canada's national obsession.

The NHL is ready to resume its rightful place as the king of Canadian sports.

A good indication of that came over the weekend when a meaningless pre-season exhibition between a replica of the Buffalo Sabres and a reasonable facsimile of the Toronto Maple Leafs managed to crack the top 10 on the ratings list. That Sunday night game drew an average of 472,000 viewers to Sportsnet, more than any of the Toronto Blue Jays final outings of the year and more than one CFL game (though the 455,000 who watched the Montreal-Ottawa football game didn't include those multitudes tuning into French-language RDS.)
Think about that for a second. A half-million Canadians had nothing better to do on a Sunday night but watch a hockey game that featured a lot of minor leaguers and meant absolutely nothing -- except to determine which fourth-liners might make the team.

This, of course, is great news for Rogers, which has sunk its entire sports future into hockey. Whether the ratings translate into enough revenue to justify the $5.2 billion price tag is yet to be determined, but there's no doubt that the audiences will be there.

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/eh-game/the-great-canadian-ratings-report-162215214.html


If anything, they will be showing more games on free tv, so wouldn't that hurt their centre ice subscription sales? If it was such a slam dunk that they would be making this money back, I think Bell would have put in a much more competitive bid than they did.

Hard to say for sure but I don't think so. For fans of out of market teams that want to watch all 82 Games they're still going to have to purchase NHL Center Ice and/or NHL GameCenter Live from Rogers in order to see all of the games.

As to Bell from what I've read they went in and made one take it or leave it offer to the NHL, thinking that no one else could match them on money or production, on air talent etc. That upset Gary Bettman and he took it as an insult and literally gave everything to Rogers when in the past the NHL had been reluctant to give all of the Canadian rights to just 1 company (TSN & CBC in the past). Bettman wanted to knock TSN off of their high horse and he certainly succeeded.