Yes, Sportsnet is raising prices again, but did you know TSN did too?

Дата публикации: 24-07-2026 23:15:53

Sportsnet announced this week that the cost of its annual premium subscription plan is going up by $20.

Основное содержимое страницы с новостью.

Yep, Sportsnet did it again. They have increased the price of their streaming app.

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Cue the understandable and predictable outrage.

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You want to relax and watch sports, not feel gouged. It’s bad enough facing down the escalating cost of groceries — but the cost of your leisure time going up too? Enough already.

This is not a column to make you feel better. In many ways, it’s becoming something of an annual ritual. Call it my ‘The Future Actually Sucks’ column.

And this isn’t even talking about wildfires, climate change or tariffs. This is just about daily life.

Sportsnet announced this week that the cost of its annual premium subscription plan is going up by $20. We notice this because the network carries the thing that Canadians still care the most about: NHL hockey. It costs a large premium to be able to watch all the games, even if I’m not convinced that anyone beyond a few dozen ink-stained wretches have any interest in that volume of hockey.

But what many viewers didn’t realize was that TSN also jacked its prices earlier this year, raising the annual cost of their TSN+ service by $50, to about $250. Now, TSN does not have hockey-broadcast rights outside the respective home regions of Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg, so it’s a different package really, and their price is about $100 lower than Sportsnet’s, but it should not go without noting that the price hike did kick in before the World Cup.

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We remain in a strange world, where you can watch plenty of stuff for much less if you hang onto your cable package. For example, take my recently renewed deal with Telus, with all its various loyalty credits, which costs me just $46 per month. I get the standard TSN and Sportsnet channels, plus some other specialty networks. Yes, quickly do the math on what an annual subscription to both TSN and Sportsnet will run you per month — $48.50, give or take. That’s a lot of sports, if you want it.

When you pay for just the old-fashioned cable package, you don’t get all-you-can-eat hockey or football or soccer or golf or F1, but really, do you need all those?

The big networks are trying to convince you that you need it all. Obviously, there are some pretty cool offerings available on streaming — DAZN and Fubo have strong offerings, and last year teamed up to offer bundles with each others’ rights packages. If you really want English, German or Italian soccer, they’re the only place to go — but you’ll pay for it. They have priced themselves the same as TSN and Sportsnet — they want a big commitment from you because they can.

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That’s the mentality that Bell and Rogers are banking on. That you’ll just feel left out. That not being able to watch the Mammoth take on the Predators on a random Thursday next March will be something you’ll regret.

It’s hard to fathom that this is the future we built. Sure, it wasn’t always ideal being limited to whatever was on when you flipped on the TV, but at least you knew what the options were, and in relative terms the price was right.

Now you are being asked to pay for a slew of programming you didn’t even know was an option, and won’t ever watch.

We’re being drowned by content, and I’m not sure anyone other than the owners of the various media outlets are happy.

So zoom out and ask yourself, in between scrolling past endless videos that only fill your time and don’t actually add anything to you life, do I really need all this? Or is there a better way to spend my time and money?

pjohnston@postmedia.com

Read More

1. 

   Sportsnet 650, News1130 shuttered as Rogers makes big radio cuts in Vancouver

2. 

   Don Taylor on Toronto head office shuttering Sportsnet 650: 'They come across as horrible, horrible people'

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