Inside Amazon's first year streaming the NHL and whether their Rogers deal will continue

When the NHL and Rogers announced last April that Amazon had signed a two-year deal to produce and stream Monday NHL games exclusively in Canada, it was reasonable to wonder about Amazon Prime Video’s long-term play.

Now that the league has announced a 12-year extension of Rogers’ exclusive Canadian broadcast rights — beginning at the end of next season, when the current deal expires — we have more insight into the future of hockey broadcasts on Canadian screens. Prime Video launched “Monday Night Hockey” this season by subletting one night’s worth of those rights from Rogers. It will continue next season, essentially giving Amazon a two-year audition for a larger portion of NHL broadcasting rights in the future.

If Prime Video pulled off “Monday Night Hockey” with any degree of success, could the streaming giant angle for a bigger piece of the Canadian NHL deal after its first two years are up?

Tony Staffieri, Rogers president and CEO, said on Wednesday that Rogers has every intention of subletting its exclusive rights.

“Yes, we’ll look to it — as a possibility and as a strong possibility,” Staffieri said. “Today, we sublicense French content as well as streaming with Amazon. Those have been terrific partnerships and as we look to the next 12 years, the agreement with the NHL is that we’ll look for opportunities to continue to sublicense where they make sense.”

Amazon declined to comment on how Rogers’ announcement affects the future of Prime Video and NHL broadcasts. Still, it has to be good news when the president of Rogers is asked about your existing sub-lease and says, “Those have been terrific partnerships.”

Rogers paid $11 billion for 12 years’ worth of exclusive Canadian rights starting in 2026-27. One way to recoup some of its investment — and spare itself from taxing Sportsnet staff with the heavy lift of broadcasting every Canadian game — is to continue those subleasing agreements, whether to Amazon, RDS or on new frontiers.

Whether Prime Video continues its Monday night broadcasts, picks a new night or expands to add a second night remains to be seen; what’s clear is that there is opportunity for it to grow its NHL footprint heading into 2026-27.

“There is nothing more valuable in this country from a media standpoint than having the rights to the NHL,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said at the joint news conference.

How much of that value will belong to Amazon? Now that Prime Video has completed most of its first season, we have insight into how they’ve approached it. There are elements of Amazon’s production during their Monday night broadcast (and in its behind-the-scenes documentary series “Faceoff”) that are resource-intensive. Prime Video has committed budget in the form of on- and off-air broadcasting talent that travels from one city to the next. It broadcasts with features like AI-enhanced slow-motion replays, Dolby 5.1 surround sound and warm-up footage, using a 1080p HD resolution other Canadian broadcasts don’t yet match.

In an effort to put a focus on the Canadian cities, the broadcast team is traveling from city to city for all 26 games. Prime Video’s goal is to make each city feel like a character in the broadcast — something they’ve achieved in part through that travel and in part through the collection of additional footage of each city. The other way Prime Video has made the most of its resources is hiring top on- and off-air talent, said Mark Shopiro, head of Prime Video Canada.

John Forslund was one of Prime Video’s key NHL hires, topping a talent list that includes Adnan Virk, Andi Petrillo, Thomas Hickey, Blake Bolden, Jody Shelley and Shane Hnidy. Forslund, whose nearly 40 years of play-calling experience include TNT, ESPN, NBC, and a host of other American broadcasts, recalls that Prime Video’s pitch to him was unique.

“In my career, no one’s ever asked me, ‘What’s your opinion on how to call a hockey game?’” Forslund said. Forlsund told his wife after the interview that it was the first time in his career that it felt like someone cared how he thought a hockey game should be presented. The feeling stuck with him.

Forslund said the beauty of an NHL game is that there are 20 players on each team who could become the story on any given night. He does his homework on each one, so that he’s ready no matter what happens instead of trying to shoehorn topics into the game in advance.

Shopiro also points to Prime Video’s hiring success behind the camera. Each Prime Video game is directed by Mark Askin, who produced Toronto Maple Leafs games for 36 years, including for “Hockey Night in Canada.” He was coaxed out of retirement. Seated at the front of the truck, watching the live action through all of Amazon’s angles simultaneously, Askin spends each broadcast calling out instructions to the team of technicians who turn live audio and video into the produced broadcast. Every time there’s a big play — or a subtle, important one — Askin calls cues to his crew, with staff responsible for preparing each color-coded feed in real time.

Is all of this investment working? Prime Video says it is.

Their “Monday Night Hockey” broadcast delivers significantly younger audiences than other broadcasts, according to data provided by Prime Video. The median age for their viewings is 43 years old, compared to 55 for last season’s Monday night games and 54 for “Hockey Night in Canada” this season, with growth in various demographic ranges from age 18 to 54. Prime Video’s analytics also show that the average length of a watching session has increased by 33 percent compared to last season.

Live sports are part of the next streaming boom, with Prime Video, Apple TV and others competing with each other for the eyeballs they don’t already get from film and TV series. Now that Rogers has secured another 12 years worth of broadcast rights, will Prime continue its partnership?

“I can’t speculate on future rights. I think what I can say is that we remain committed and focused to getting the game right in our first season of the deal that we’re on,” Shopiro said. “We’re always looking at opportunities for how we can bring value and enhance the Prime membership and believe that live sport has a big part to play in that.”

(Top photo of the Prime Video broadcast truck: Courtesy Kendra Hope Penner)