Canadian phone giant BCE Inc. has signed a deal with rival telecom and cable giant Rogers Communications to sell its 37.5 percent stake in Maple Leafs Sports Entertainment for C$4.7 billion (US$3.46 billion).
The deal increases Rogers’ majority stake in MLSE, which includes the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors professional sports teams, to 75 percent. Subject to sports league and regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to close in mid-2025.
In addition to using the proceeds from the deal to pay down debt levels, BCE has also secured for its subsidiary Bell Media access to the content rights for Maple Leafs and Raptors games for TSN, its sports television channel, for the next 20 years.
The long-term rights deal with Rogers is aimed at bolstering TSN as a competitive Canadian sports TV channel. Live sports TV, once the glue holding the Canadian cable package together, has seen that grip loosen in recent years amid cable cancellations and as U.S.-based streaming giants increasingly snap up the expensive professional sports TV rights of Sportsnet, Rogers’ own sports TV channel, and TSN.
In a recent deal, Amazon Prime Video in Canada has struck a deal to become the exclusive Monday night home of National Hockey League games as the entertainment industry’s sports arms race spills over the U.S.-Canada border.
Terms of the two-year deal were not disclosed, but the U.S.-based streaming service reached an agreement with the NHL and Rogers Communications, the longtime rights holder to the league’s games in Canada. In 2013, Rogers and Sportsnet outbid Bell Media and TSN for the national rights to NHL games as part of a 12-year, $4.9 billion deal.
