North American ice hockey’s NHL and its digital broadcast rights partner Rogers Communications have signed an exclusive two-year streaming deal with retail giant Amazon.
Through the agreement, which covers the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, Amazon’s Prime Video service will stream Monday regular-season games in Canada.
The deal is the NHL’s first exclusive national broadcast agreement with a digital-only streaming service in Canada and will see 26 regular season games move from a traditional TV broadcaster – Rogers’ Sportsnet network - to Prime.
The ‘Prime Monday Night Hockey’ package, produced by Prime Video, will stream live and exclusively to Prime members in Canada.
The NHL's $5.2-billion, 12-year broadcasting agreement with Rogers is set to expire after the 2025-26 season, which will coincide with the end of the Prime deal.
Both Rogers and the NHL have existing partnerships with Amazon.
The league has worked with Amazon Web Services to deliver in-game analytics and video highlights while Sportsnet has been available through Prime Video since the start of the 2023-24 NHL season in October.
David Proper, NHL senior executive vice president, media and international strategy, said: “Amazon has a strong track record of presenting sports on Prime Video in a highly innovative and viewer-friendly manner.
“We are committed to serving hockey fans and reaching new audiences with our robust content distribution strategy that brings viewers exciting NHL content to a multitude of streaming services. With this groundbreaking partnership, we are continuing to stay true to that goal.”
Magda Grace, head of Prime Video in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, added: “We’re committed to driving more innovation for fans as we bring the NHL into more Canadian homes and across more devices on Monday nights than ever before.”
The deal expands Prime Video's portfolio of premium sports rights, which includes American football's NFL in the US and English soccer's Premier League in the UK.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Kraken team has also announced a multi-year streaming deal with Prime Video and a local TV deal with media group TEGNA.
From next season, Prime Video will stream all non-nationally televised games for Prime members in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, including pre-season, regular season, and the first round of the playoffs.
The Kraken are the first NHL team to partner directly with the streaming giant.
Meanwhile, Tegna’s television stations King 5 and Kong in Seattle will broadcast all non-nationally televised games – more than 70 in total – for free over the air.
King 5 becomes the official television partner of the franchise and will complement its live coverage with exclusive behind-the-scenes Kraken content.
Tegna replaces Root Sports, the regional sports network that has broadcast the NHL team’s games during their first three seasons after joining as an expansion franchise.
In addition, games will be broadcast free over the air on Tegna stations KGW, the NBC affiliate in Portland, and Krem, the CBS affiliate in Spokane.
Tegna will work with additional broadcast companies “in the coming weeks” to expand free over-the-air broadcast access to all available television markets in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska.
King 5, Tegna, and the Kraken will lead advertising and sponsorship sales for all local games.
