Rogers Quebecor NHL deal secures 12-year French-language rights for TVA Sports

This long-term sublicensing agreement provides critical stability for Quebecor’s media assets as the Canadian market shifts toward hybrid linear-streaming models. By securing 350 games annually, including a larger slice of the Montreal Canadiens schedule, Quebecor protects its TVA Sports Direct and illico+ platforms against churn in a region where hockey is the primary subscription driver. For Rogers, the deal offloads the complexities of regional language requirements while maintaining its dominant position as the NHL's primary Canadian partner. The industry should watch for how this 12-year commitment influences future bidding wars for English-language regional rights as legacy contracts expire.

Quebecor has been building its hockey portfolio aggressively since first acquiring French-language NHL rights. The company launched TVA Sports Direct as a standalone streaming service in 2022, and Quebecor expanded its NHL coverage ahead of the 2025-26 season by adding more Montreal Canadiens games to its linear and digital lineup. Rogers, meanwhile, has held the NHL's national Canadian broadcast rights since 2014 under a 12-year agreement valued at approximately CAD 5.2 billion, and the company renewed its English-language national rights through the 2037-38 season in a deal announced in early 2026. The Rogers Quebecor NHL deal thus extends a sublicensing structure that has existed since 2014 but dramatically increases the volume of games Quebecor controls.

The business economics of Canadian sports rights are under pressure as linear viewership declines and streaming platforms compete for subscriber attention. Bell Media, which previously held French-language NHL rights through RDS, lost those rights to Quebecor in 2022 and has since restructured its sports division, cutting staff and renegotiating carriage deals. The NHL itself has signaled openness to multi-platform distribution strategies; commissioner Gary Bettman stated at the 2025 NHL All-Star Weekend that the league prioritizes maximum reach across linear and digital channels in every Canadian market. For Quebecor, the 12-year term locks in content costs at a time when sports rights inflation has outpaced advertising revenue growth, with Canadian sports media rights costs rising an estimated 8% annually between 2020 and 2025 according to a PwC Canada report.

On the technical side, Quebecor's illico+ platform has been scaling its live sports delivery infrastructure to handle concurrent NHL streams. Quebecor announced in March 2026 that illico+ had surpassed 2 million subscribers, driven in part by exclusive hockey content and bundled internet packages. The platform uses adaptive bitrate streaming with low-latency modes for live sports, and Quebecor partnered with Harmonic in 2025 to upgrade its video processing pipeline for 4K HDR NHL broadcasts on illico+. TVA Sports Direct, the standalone OTT service, reached approximately 400,000 subscribers by mid-2025, according to Quebecor's Q2 2025 earnings call where CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau cited hockey as the top acquisition driver. The 350-game annual commitment will test whether illico+ can sustain peak concurrent viewership during Canadiens playoff runs, a scenario that previously strained the platform during the 2024 postseason.