Prime Video and Rogers Communications this week announced a 12-year sublicensing agreement that hands Amazon's streaming service exclusive rights to broadcast Wednesday night National Hockey League games in Canada, beginning with the 2026-2027 season.

Announced in Toronto, the agreement expands a partnership that began two seasons ago under a far more limited arrangement. Prime Video will now exclusively stream Wednesday night regular-season national NHL games in both English and French, starting on Wednesday, September 30. At least 26 national regular-season games are guaranteed annually. Prime members in Canada will receive them at no additional cost beyond their existing subscription.

Exclusive rights to select Stanley Cup Playoff series in Canada are also part of the package. Two First Round series and one Second Round series will be included each year, giving Prime Video a recurring postseason presence rather than a one-off arrangement tied to a single series. It marks a meaningful expansion from the streaming service's previous NHL footprint, which had not included postseason exclusivity of this scope, and it puts playoff hockey - traditionally the most closely watched programming on Canadian sports television - onto a streaming platform on a guaranteed, annual basis for more than a decade.

What changes and what stays the same

Restructuring how NHL games move between Canada's dominant sports broadcaster and its streaming challenger, the deal leaves the underlying national rights framework untouched. Rogers continues to hold those rights outright, and Sportsnet - which the company describes as Canada's number one sports media brand - retains exclusive English-language rights to more than 500 national NHL games per season. Monday and Saturday night broadcasts fall under that total, as does the Stanley Cup Playoffs in full, except for the specific series now sublicensed to Prime Video.

Tony Staffieri, President and CEO of Rogers, framed the arrangement as an extension of an existing relationship rather than a new one. "Our partnership with Prime Video builds on the strong foundation we have established together and reinforces NHL hockey as the most valuable sports content in Canada," Staffieri said. He added that Rogers remains committed to "connecting more fans to more NHL hockey and delivering more national games with fewer blackouts on Sportsnet."

Jay Marine, Head of Global Sports at Prime Video, characterized the agreement as consistent with Amazon's broader sports strategy rather than an isolated hockey acquisition. "We're thrilled to expand our partnership with the NHL and Rogers in this landmark agreement, which brings even more premium live sports to Prime members in Canada," Marine said. He noted that the hockey package sits alongside other elements of the Prime membership, stating that "when combined with our hit original series, blockbuster movies, and fast, free shipping on millions of items, the Prime membership is more valuable than ever for Canadian customers."

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman also commented on the extended timeline, pointing to the streaming service's track record over the two prior seasons. "Over the past two years, Prime Video has been a valuable addition to the NHL's media lineup in Canada, joining Rogers in bringing marquee NHL games to Canadian fans," Bettman said. "We're excited that Prime Video and Rogers are deepening their relationship through this long-term agreement, reflecting our shared commitment to serving English and French-language hockey fans across Canada with premium NHL content for years to come."

The production side remains unsettled

Several operational details remain open, even though the rights allocation is now fixed for over a decade. NHL on Primewill continue delivering what the companies describe as world-class production, according to the announcement, supported by an on-air team providing analysis and play-by-play coverage. Talent and production specifics? Not yet released. The companies indicate those details will follow separately, at a later date.

The financial and structural backdrop

This sublicensing arrangement does not exist in isolation - it sits underneath a much larger transaction. Last year, Rogers and the NHL announced a 12-year agreement covering the national media rights to NHL games across all platforms in Canada, running from the 2026-27 season through 2037-38. Worth approximately 11 billion Canadian dollars according to reporting at the time, that overarching deal gave Rogers exclusive national rights across television, digital, and streaming for all national regular-season games, all playoff games, the Stanley Cup Final, and special events in both English and French. Crucially, it also preserved Rogers' option to sublicense specific packages, the mechanism now being exercised through the Prime Video agreement.

Understanding that structure matters for grasping what today's announcement actually represents. Rogers is not surrendering rights it holds broadly. Instead, it is exercising a sublicensing option that was built into the master agreement from the outset, one that establishes the framework within which today's Wednesday night package now operates. The prior 12-year national deal itself succeeded an earlier landmark agreement, which ran from the 2014-15 season through 2025-26.

Two years separate this agreement from where the Amazon-Rogers hockey relationship began. The Canadian NHL broadcast picture first included Prime Video through a two-year sub-licensing arrangement covering Monday night games, branded Prime Monday Night Hockey and launched with the 2024-25 season. Described at the time as the NHL's first exclusive broadcast agreement with a digital-only streaming service in Canada, that earlier deal was comparatively modest in scope: a single night of the week, no playoff component, and a two-season horizon rather than a multi-decade one. Now, the new 12-year agreement replaces it with a substantially longer commitment, shifts the exclusive night from Monday to Wednesday, and adds the playoff series component the original two-year deal did not include. The shift in night matters to scheduling, too, since Wednesday sits mid-week, away from the Saturday and Monday broadcasts that anchor Sportsnet's own programming calendar.

Scale of the media rights commitment

How does the Canadian NHL broadcast landscape now divide between the two companies? The numbers tell the story. Sportsnet's allocation of over 500 national games per season dwarfs the 26-game minimum guaranteed to Prime Video, a gap reflecting Rogers' position as the anchor rightsholder rather than an equal partner in the arrangement. Prime Video's playoff allocation - two First Round series and one Second Round series annually - similarly represents just a fraction of the full bracket. Sportsnet retains the remainder of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including the Final.

Notably, the 12-year duration aligns precisely with the term of the broader national rights agreement between Rogers and the NHL, both running through the 2037-38 season. This is no coincidence. Matching the sublicensing term to the master agreement removes a potential point of renegotiation partway through the underlying deal. Both Rogers and Amazon gain, as a result, a stable and multi-decade planning horizon for programming, production, and advertising sales tied to Wednesday night hockey.

Why this matters beyond hockey broadcasting

This agreement extends a pattern that has become increasingly visible across the connected television advertising landscape, for those tracking how streaming platforms build advertising businesses around live sports. Amazon has been vocal about positioning live sports as inseparable from its broader advertising strategy, treating it as far more than a standalone content acquisition. Alan Moss, Amazon Ads' Vice President of Global Advertising Sales, made this explicit earlier this year. He described how live sports, Prime Video, retail media signals, and AI-driven campaign tools now function as a single full-funnel advertising business rather than as separate lines of business. Under that framing, hockey rights acquisitions like this one become advertising infrastructure, not just content spend.

Measurement data throughout 2026 has reflected that positioning. Nielsen figures covering May 2026 showed Prime Video reaching a platform-best 4.5 percent share of total US television viewing as streaming overall captured 48.6 percent of watch-time. Live sports programming drove much of that gain, including a run of NBA Playoff games, rather than scripted entertainment carrying the load. Internationally, the same Amazon sports infrastructure extended its reach in June 2026, when Prime Video carried the NBA Finals exclusively to more than 17 countries, the culminating event of the platform's first full season under its 11-year NBA broadcasting agreement.

Consolidation moves elsewhere echo the same logic. Fox Corporation's agreement in June 2026 to acquire Roku for approximately 22 billion dollars combined live sports and news programming with a leading streaming distribution platform - pairing premium live content with scaled reach, much as Rogers pairs the NHL's broadest national Canadian rights with a sublicensing partner. Rather than keeping all inventory in-house, Rogers continues to hand specific packages to a streaming partner whose advertising ambitions keep growing.

Context for advertisers and rights holders

A case study emerges here in how legacy broadcasters and streaming platforms divide premium live sports inventory rather than compete for it outright. Rogers retains the bulk of NHL programming and the associated advertising inventory that comes with over 500 annual games. At the same time, it carves out a defined, contractually stable slice for a partner whose advertising business increasingly depends on live sports to demonstrate reach and engagement to marketers. Guaranteed Wednesday night exclusivity across a 12-year term gives Prime Video something valuable: the kind of programming certainty that supports long-term advertising sales commitments, upfront negotiations, and creative planning tied to a fixed night of the week, rather than a rotating or short-term arrangement.

Advertising rates? Sponsorship packages? Measurement partnerships specific to the Wednesday night NHL package? Neither company has detailed any of it yet. Those commercial details typically follow rights announcements by weeks or months, particularly when production and talent arrangements - explicitly left open in today's announcement - remain unresolved.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Rogers Communications, Prime Video, and the National Hockey League, along with Canadian hockey fans and Prime members who will access the new programming.

What: A 12-year sublicensing agreement granting Prime Video exclusive rights to broadcast Wednesday night regular-season NHL games and select Stanley Cup Playoff series in Canada, in English and French, while Rogers' Sportsnet retains the bulk of national NHL programming.

When: Announced today, July 28, 2026, with the new arrangement beginning with the 2026-2027 NHL season and the first Wednesday broadcast scheduled for September 30, 2026. The agreement runs through the 2037-38 season.

Where: Canada, covering both English and French-language broadcasts nationally, building on a broadcast structure established through Rogers' original 2013 rights deal with the NHL.

Why: The agreement extends Amazon's expanding live sports and advertising strategy in Canada while allowing Rogers to maintain its position as the NHL's primary national rightsholder, illustrating how legacy broadcasters and streaming platforms are increasingly dividing premium live sports inventory through structured, long-term sublicensing arrangements rather than competing for exclusive rights outright.