Sportsnet

• 1. Introduction

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  Sportsnet launched on the 9th of October 1998, and within months it had done something few newcomers manage: it pulled the National Hockey League away from TSN, the network that had long held those national cable rights. For a channel that did not yet exist when the decade began, that was a striking opening move. The questions worth carrying into this story are how a joint venture between a Canadian broadcaster, an American cable giant, and a media company became the dominant sports television presence in Canada, and what it took to stay there.

• 2. A Joint Venture Is Born

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  The CRTC approved the network in September 1996, at that point carrying the tentative name S3. Baton Broadcasting held a 40% controlling interest from the start, with Rogers Media and Liberty Media each holding 20% minority stakes. Liberty itself was a spin-off of TCI, an American cable-television group, and it also owned some of the Fox Sports Net operations in the United States after which the channel was eventually named.

  The structure the founders proposed was built around regional programming, with four feeds designed to serve different parts of the country. That regional emphasis was not incidental. The CRTC had licensed TSN at the time as a national sports service, restricted to only limited regional variations. Sportsnet's category A licence as a group of regional networks gave it a different mandate and different rules, a distinction that would shape every rights negotiation that followed.

  CTV, Rogers, and Liberty brought the channel to air in 1998, and its first live sports event was an NHL opening night telecast between the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers. The national cable rights to the league that Sportsnet had secured from TSN lasted through the 2001-02 season, before returning to TSN. Sportsnet kept regional broadcast rights to most Canadian NHL teams.

• 3. Forced Sale, New Owner

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  When CTV purchased NetStar, the former parent company of TSN, in 2000, the CRTC stepped in with an instruction: CTV could not hold a stake in both competing sports networks. CTV chose TSN and put its Sportsnet stake up for sale. The other shareholders held first right of refusal, and Rogers was the only interested party. Rogers acquired CTV's stake in the summer of 2001, renaming the channel Rogers Sportsnet.

  During the transition period, a brief window of regulatory peculiarity opened. CTV was permitted to control programming on both networks simultaneously, and some content that had been scheduled for tape delay on TSN, including figure skating, was redirected to Sportsnet. In 2004, Rogers completed its ownership picture by purchasing the remaining 20% stake held by Fox.

  Physical proximity added its own texture to the rivalry. TSN's operations moved to CTV's suburban Toronto complex at 9 Channel Nine Court, the very building where Sportsnet had been based from the beginning. The two competing sports networks wound up separated only by a parking lot, a situation both channels found worth joking about. On the 30th of April 2008, Sportsnet moved its broadcast operations from that address to the Rogers Building in the Mount Pleasant-Jarvis Street area of Downtown Toronto.

• 4. The $5.2 Billion Deal

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  On the 26th of November 2013, Rogers Communications announced a 12-year agreement to become the exclusive national rightsholder for the National Hockey League, again displacing TSN and this time also displacing CBC. The deal, valued at $5.2 billion and covering both television and digital media rights, surpassed the value of the NHL's most recent U.S. rights agreement with NBC. It took effect with the 2014-15 season.

  Under that contract, Sportsnet began airing Scotiabank Wednesday Night Hockey alongside games carried during Hockey Night in Canada. The regional rights Sportsnet already held to the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks, and a split arrangement for the Toronto Maple Leafs continued alongside those national broadcasts.

  On the 2nd of April 2025, Rogers Communications announced a new 12-year extension valued at $11 billion, stretching the agreement through the 2037-38 season.

• 5. Building the Brand

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  On the 14th of August 2010, Rogers launched Sportsnet One, a national companion channel promising 800 hours of live events per year. Part-time feeds accompanied it to handle overflow from regional NHL coverage. Then, in January 2011, two sports radio stations carried by Rogers, CJCL in Toronto known as The Fan 590 and CFAC in Calgary known as The Fan 960, were rebranded under the Sportsnet Radio name. Critics suggested the timing was connected to reports that TSN was preparing to launch its own sports radio network.

  In July 2011, Rogers announced it would rebrand Setanta Sports Canada as Sportsnet World, with the changeover happening on the 3rd of October 2011. The same month, on the 29th of September, Rogers published the first issue of Sportsnet Magazine, a bi-weekly publication positioned for Canadian sports fans and covering professional sports from a Canadian perspective. Sports writer Stephen Brunt left his position at The Globe and Mail to become the magazine's back page columnist.

  That same day, the 3rd of October 2011, Sportsnet underwent a visual overhaul, introducing a new logo and image campaign titled "Fuelled By Fans", developed with Troika Design Group. Research conducted by Rogers had found that the previous logo's player emblem did not resonate with viewers. The redesign was overseen by Dean Bender, who had served as the network's creative director at its original launch as CTV Sportsnet, bringing the brand's visual identity full circle through the hands of the person who first shaped it.

• 6. Expanding the Rights Portfolio

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  On the 25th of August 2012, Rogers announced it would acquire the television assets of Score Media, the company behind The Score Television Network, in a transaction valued at $167 million. Score Media's digital assets, including its website and mobile apps, were spun off into a separate company called theScore Inc., in which Rogers Media retained a 10% interest. The Score's television properties went into a blind trust under trustee Peter Viner while the CRTC reviewed the deal.

  The acquisition received CRTC approval on the 30th of April 2013. The channel was renamed Sportsnet 360 on the 1st of July 2013. As of 2014, Sportsnet was reaching 8.2 million Canadian homes.

  Sports rights accumulation ran across multiple disciplines. Sportsnet has been the exclusive broadcaster of the Toronto Blue Jays, which Rogers also owns, airing all games apart from Friday Night Baseball games exclusive to Apple TV+. The network signed a multi-year deal with Tennis Canada in February 2011 for early round rights to the Rogers Cup, then secured sole rights to that tournament beginning in 2016. In February 2013, Sportsnet became the official Canadian broadcaster of the IndyCar Series in a five-year deal, with Canadian driver Paul Tracy joining as an analyst. Coverage that season included the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, the Indianapolis 500, and the Honda Indy Toronto, with commentary from Bill Adam, Todd Lewis, and Rob Faulds.

• 7. Four Regions, One Network

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  Sportsnet Pacific covers British Columbia and Yukon, carrying regional Vancouver Canucks games. Sportsnet West serves the Prairies along with the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and airs Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers games, with the exception of Manitoba, where those games are blacked out. That Manitoba blackout became a feature after the Winnipeg Jets returned to the league in 2011, even though Sportsnet West is technically the local feed for that province.

  Sportsnet Ontario serves most of Ontario, and Sportsnet East covers Eastern Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada. All four feeds carry some programming in common and can simulcast major national events, but each also operates independently for regional content. In January 2014, Sportsnet lost regional rights to the Ottawa Senators to TSN, which acquired a 12-year English and French deal beginning in the 2014-15 season. Sportsnet then picked up regional English-language rights to the Montreal Canadiens that same September under a three-year arrangement, replacing the Senators slot on Sportsnet East.

  On the technical side, all four feeds carry both standard and high-definition signals. Sportsnet launched its first high-definition feed on the 1st of September 2003, initially a national simulcast of Sportsnet Ontario. A second HD feed was added in 2007 to carry selected regional NHL games, and on the 26th of January 2009, regional HD feeds replaced the single national feed entirely. On the 14th of January 2016, Sportsnet broadcast the first NBA game produced in 4K, a Toronto Raptors game against the Orlando Magic at the O2 Arena in London, produced in cooperation with BT Sport and also the first live 4K sporting event in Canadian broadcasting history.