When I first moved to Canada from the UK three years ago, I knew sweet puck all about hockey. I didn’t know a Zamboni from Max Domi, and as a 25-year-old student that would baulk at spending hundreds of dollars on anything, let alone nosebleed Leafs tickets, I thought it would stay that way. It was only through casually watching CBC and stumbling across Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) that my love for the sport blossomed. Before long, I had gone from bored, channel-hopping viewing to solid fandom. (A Four Nations victory over the Yanks certainly helped matters too.)
The more time that I spent living here, the more engaged I became with the game. I’m never going to have Steve Dangles-levels of passion (or intonation), but my newfound familiarity with the game provided a fantastic means to immerse myself in Canadian culture. I came to feel a sense of belonging with this country and its people.
None of this would have happened without HNIC. So it was dispiriting to learn, in June of this year, that the show that turned me into a hockey head would no longer be aired free of charge. Despite the CBC wanting to keep it free, the show’s rights-holder, Rogers, asked for too much cash in return. As a result, HNIC now languishes behind a paywall, with myself and any would-be new fans stuck on the wrong side of it.
The majority of Canadians are now priced out of Canada’s game. But it doesn’t have to be like this: From Wimbledon to Gaelic Football, Aussie Rules to the Olympics, other countries have mandated that their sporting ‘crown jewels’ be made freely available. Canada should introduce similar ‘anti-siphoning’ laws to keep Hockey Night in Canada as the common property – and public good – it was always meant to be.
There’s a compelling case for intervention in the name of nation-building. Bringing our most important events into the homes of all Canadians helps foster shared sporting experiences, enhances our cultural heritage, and, in the case of HNIC, prevents Canada's game from becoming even more elitist than it already is.
HNIC is cultural Canadiana that predates the completion of Canada as we know it today. The show opens with a recording of former announcer Foster Hewitt welcoming “Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland,” a phrase from the show’s pre-1949 radio broadcasts, before the then-British colony joined Confederation.
The show was first broadcast on TV by the CBC in 1952, starting a long running tradition of bringing Saturday night hockey to Canadian living rooms. Satellite TV brought other competitors, and by 2013, Bell-owned TSN and the CBC were splitting NHL rights, paying $39.3 million and $103.3 million per season, respectively.
Would-be HNIC viewers must now fork out $35 a month for Sportsnet – up from $15 just three years ago.
In negotiations that year, however, Rogers blew the CBC-Bell bid out of the water, offering $355.4 million per season over 12 years for exclusive rights. It seemed like an impossible bid to beat. As the CBC said at the time, “there was no scenario that would have the public broadcaster writing a check for $5.2 billion.”
A deal was struck whereby Rogers’s Sportsnet would produce and air HNIC with the CBC broadcasting it simultaneously. That détente held until this past summer, when the CBC-Sportsnet sublicensing agreement expired, and negotiations for an extension fell through. The public broadcaster is now entirely out of the picture, leaving Rogers as the sole rights holder. Now, would-be HNIC viewers must fork out $35 a month (up from $15 just three years ago) for Sportsnet, or $45 a month for Sportsnet+ for streaming.
For dyed-in-the-wool hockey fanatics, with their pre-existing subscriptions, that wasn't particularly devastating. But it was a huge loss for the casuals, the new Canadians, and the next generation – the very people that those running the game should be looking to attract. Non-hockey heads are far more likely to spend their streaming budget on a Crave subscription that unlocks hundreds of shows and movies than shell out a similar amount to access Sportsnet. These days, it’s easier to stumble into hockey through Heated Rivalry than the NHL itself.
Cricket once dominated the summer conversation in the UK. After years behind a paywall, it now struggles for relevancy.
That could be bad for business, too. Consider a tale from overseas: In the summer of 2005, the Ashes (a cricket series between England and their biggest rivals, Australia) was essential viewing in the UK. More than 8 million people tuned into the free-to-air Channel 4 to see the match. When it ended with England’s first win over Australia in 18 years, about 25,000 people attended a victory parade in Trafalgar Square. The players were greeted by the Prime Minister at Downing Street, Royal Mail issued commemorative stamps, and the players all received royal honours. It was a Big Deal.
Then the powers that be signed a deal with satellite broadcaster Sky Sports, and the entire game of cricket moved behind a paywall. Cricket, with expensive equipment and a need for well-kept playing surfaces, has immediate barriers to entry that were only exacerbated by the lack of easy media access. Without an easy entry point to the game, cricket lost a generation of fans, some of whom might have gone on to become paying punters. Now the sport, which once dominated the national summer conversation, struggles for relevancy.
A similar fate could befall hockey in Canada. The Sportsnet paywall makes our national game that much less accessible. It’s more of a bellwether than a death knell, an indication of hockey’s increasing elitism and detachment from the country and society at large. Kids from poorer socio-economic backgrounds were already priced out from playing; now they can’t even live out their dreams vicariously through HNIC. It’s little wonder that soccer, which only needs a ball and a field, has overtaken hockey to become young Canadians’ favourite sport.
Anti-siphoning laws ensure that important events stay available through widely accessible TV services.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. The pressure group Friends of Canadian Media are campaigning for federal authorities to explore implementing an anti-siphoning list, a policy whereby important events stay available through widely accessible TV services. The UK’s version ensures the BBC and other free-to-air TV channels have the opportunity to bid for events “at a reasonable price” and not simply be outbid by subscription services.
Of course, Rogers would not be pleased to share coverage of HNIC if it were made publicly available. Nor would TSN, which – to select a random sample of Canadian sporting ‘crown jewels’ – could lose exclusivity over FIFA’s World Cups, the Grey Cup, the Canadian Grand Prix, and the Scotties.
Facing this threat, Rogers could argue they need the revenue from HNIC to compete with streaming giants like Amazon, which is also entering the sports space. But NHL teams play 84 regular season games, and it seems highly unlikely that the loss of exclusivity over two games per week (or 48 over the season) would be enough to move the dial. If anything, HNIC could be the perfect ‘gateway drug’ for new fans. After a taste of the game for free, some might be more willing to pay the Sportsnet premium for more access.
Hockey is not just a business in Canada: It’s part of who we are.
On a far more basic level, however, the federal government should not be afraid to wade into a market that has become oligopolistic – corporate sensitivities be damned. As much as the broadcasters and team owners may like it to be otherwise, hockey is not just a business in Canada: It’s part of who we are. It’s our shared cultural identity, our moments of inspiration, our catalyst for coming together. A thrilling, buzzer-beating goal is just as worthy of a Heritage Minute as any political meeting or military battle.
We should be extremely queasy at seeing our sporting culture sold to the highest bidder. Losing this vast Canadian audience is bad for hockey. And losing Hockey Night in Canada is a staggering blow for Canada.
