Sportsnet+ Subscription Price Increase

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I always thought TV revenue for professional sports was ad driven in a large part though, which relies on ratings, which relies on having a large and growing number of viewers.

For a long time, TV revenue for professional sports was driven by regional sports networks. The managers of the RSNs perceived a need to have local major-league sports teams on their channels to drive demand to the point where cable companies would impose a fee on all subscribers to carry those channels. If your RSN is on basic cable, you're paying several bucks a month for it whether you ever watch it or not.

With the sheer volume of cable-cutters out there, this is no longer a viable business model. In a case like Rogers, where the same corporation owns both the RSN and the cable company, they lose business at both ends. If people won't subscribe to cable, they try to ding them hard for subscriptions to streaming services in order to make that alternative as unattractive as possible. Rogers doesn't want people subscribing to SN+. It wants people paying $150 a month for full cable.

I've seen this story play out repeatedly in other industries. If you try to make new products expensive and unattractive to preserve your market in the old products, you just end up losing the customer altogether.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by theslymonkey

Rogers increases the streaming package price by 30% and loses a couple randoms on a chat page. Yeah, I'm sure they don't care.

It's not just here. Reddit, youtube, everywhere I check for hockey content has people bitching and cancelling

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by btimbit

It's not just here. Reddit, youtube, everywhere I check for hockey content has people bitching and cancelling

It’s the third headline article on cbc…

[Paulie Walnuts]

Yeah this is getting a ton of media attention. When a monopoly like this tries to gouge people. #### Rogers

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by theslymonkey

Relax. I just find it silly to hear the call for "torch and pitchforks" over $75.

It's not over $75. It's actually over $125 in the last calendar year (there was a price increase earlier in 2025 from $200 to $250), and without a single improvement to the service in that time. There's no compelling reason to stick with Sportsnet+ if this is how they're going to operate.

[Shazam]

Honestly I'm surprised people that use Reddit subscribe to this thing.

[MegaErtz]

Originally Posted by Hells Bells

Where do you watch Jays games for free? NHL playoff games for free? I wish it took me all of seconds to find a quality stream on my TV for free.

Just google "dodgy box" and thank me later. You'll see plenty. I pay $12 a month for the plugins and get literally every tv channel in the world live, perfect quality stream.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/pir...e-tv-1.4098249

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by Hells Bells

Where do you watch Jays games for free? NHL playoff games for free? I wish it took me all of seconds to find a quality stream on my TV for free.

IPTV. Takes a few seconds to load up and connect. Been using this for the past 2 years without issue (other than the occasional lag).

You can also literally google "[sports team name] + online free" and there's a plethora of weblinks, if you want to do it that way. But I'll admit, that might take a few minutes to find a good connection.

[Mr.Coffee]

Nm

[Flamesguy_SJ]

As an out-of-market fan, and someone who was in on the ground floor when the NHL came out with GameCenter Live back in the day (I was in university, so I want to say 2009?), I truly can't believe how badly the NHL's streaming package has been fumbled.

I just checked my receipts and in 2013 the price was $150 for the year.

Wild!

[Mr.Coffee]

Nm

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Flamesguy_SJ

As an out-of-market fan, and someone who was in on the ground floor when the NHL came out with GameCenter Live back in the day (I was in university, so I want to say 2009?), I truly can't believe how badly the NHL's streaming package has been fumbled.

I just checked my receipts and in 2013 the price was $150 for the year.

Wild!

NHL centre ice was the ####. I used to love the alternate camera angle options. For Home games, I’d watch the 3 view option that didn’t have commentary, just in arena microphones. The overhead net cams weren’t fun to watch, but it Felt like I was in the dome again, loved it.

[calumniate]

There needs to be a lawsuit here! CP lawyers please read

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Flamesguy_SJ

As an out-of-market fan, and someone who was in on the ground floor when the NHL came out with GameCenter Live back in the day (I was in university, so I want to say 2009?), I truly can't believe how badly the NHL's streaming package has been fumbled.

I just checked my receipts and in 2013 the price was $150 for the year.

Wild!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but GameCentre Live and Centre Ice were still only "out of market" services. They were add-ons to give you access to games that weren't otherwise available in your market, but didn't give you access to any in-market games.

In order to watch every NHL game, you would have still needed to have a separate subscription for nationally broadcast games (TSN and CBC in 2013), or regional games in your home region (every part of Canada is in at least one team's home region even if you don't live anywhere close to the team's city). Depending on where you lived, you would have required both TSN and SN subscriptions on top of GameCentre to watch every game.

IIRC at that time, I don't think TSN or SN had streaming-only subscriptions available, so you would have also needed a cable tv package that included the sports channels (this would have also given you access to CBC through your basic cable).




In 2013, just adding on the out-of-market NHL games cost you $150 per year. In 2025, the price difference between standard SN and premium SN is $50 per year before September 9 and $75 after. Premium SN gets you everything GameCentre used to give you plus some other international sports content that SN also has rights to (whether that's a benefit or not is up to you to decide). It also includes everything in the standard SN package, which was a separate subscription in 2013.

When you look at it that way, SN+ is a bargain.



To be clear, I'm not defending Rogers here, and a 30% price increase year-over-year is pretty bad, but it's important to compare apples to apples when looking at old prices. I also can't compare the streaming quality because I never watched GameCentre back then, and hardly ever watch streaming games on SN today because I'm old and still have a regular tv package.