Sportsnet+ is about to get more expensive

The cost of Sportsnet+ will soon increase.

On Reddit and X (Twitter), several Canadians who are subscribed to the sports streaming service shared emails from Rogers notifying them of an impending price hike at the start of the new year. Per the emails, the following new prices go into effect on January 6th, 2025:

Monthly memberships: $24.99 (up from $19.99)
Annual memberships: $199.99 (up from $179.99)

The emails don’t provide a reason for the increase, with Rogers simply directing people on how to modify or cancel their accounts instead. Rogers confirmed with MobileSyrup that the price increase will affect all Standard subscribers in January.

Notably, Rogers just spent $4.7 billion to acquire Bell’s 37.5 percent stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) and is also working on a deal to sell a portion of its wireless network backhaul for $7 billion, which it plans to use to pay down debt from acquiring Shaw in 2023.

Of course, any subscription price increase sucks, and that’s especially true for hockey fans, given that Sportsnet+ isn’t the only service in Canada for NHL content. For instance, while the Rogers service streams the majority of Toronto Maple Leafs games in Canada, you still need subscriptions for Bell’s TSN ($20/month) and Amazon’s Prime Video ($9.99/month, plus $2.99/month to remove ads) to watch the remaining games.

In other words, Canadians will have to fork over at least $55/month come January to watch all of the Leafs games. Amazon’s deal with the NHL spans two years, too, so every Monday night hockey game will be on Prime Video Canada for the foreseeable future. And, of course, this is only for hockey; Sportsnet+ alone also streams a variety of games from the likes of MLB and the NBA.

Source: Rogers subreddit, X (Twitter)

Update: 05/11/2024 at 3:42pm ET — Added context from Rogers.