EXCLUSIVE: CBC replaces Hockey Night in Canada with cricket
CBC went into its first NHL season in 74 years without broadcasting Saturday-night NHL, choosing cricket for its primetime sports lineup on opening weekend instead.
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It’s Saturday night in Canada. The NHL season is underway.
And the CBC is broadcasting cricket.
While NHL teams hit the ice across Canada on Saturday night, CBC’s primetime lineup featured the Canada Super 60 Cricket League.
CBC aired Super 60 cricket at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. ET — in the Saturday-night window long associated with Hockey Night in Canada.
The NHL slate included the Ottawa Senators visiting the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens taking on the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Seattle Kraken facing the Edmonton Oilers, and the Calgary Flames visiting the Vancouver Canucks.
But none were on the CBC.
The Canada Super 60 is a professional T10 cricket competition, with each team batting for 10 overs, or a maximum of 60 legal deliveries. Its second season features six franchises playing 24 matches over six days at BC Place in Vancouver.
CBC became the league’s official broadcastand streaming partner, with every match available nationally on CBC Gem and select matches airing on CBC television.
CBC spokesperson Chuck Thompson told Juno News that Super 60 fit the broadcaster’s strategy of showcasing a wider range of high-performance sports.
“As a new Olympic sport, with a major event being held in Canada, the Super60 was a strong option for us to consider in our schedule as we bridge from summer to winter sports,” Thompson said.
“The Canada Super 60 was a unique and rare opportunity for us to offer live, world-class cricket, played in Canada on the public broadcaster.”
CBC said its sports programming will vary from week to week rather than revolve around a single Saturday-night property.
“As the public broadcaster and Canada’s Olympic broadcaster, we want to provide the biggest and brightest stage possible for Canadian athletes and major events held in Canada,” Thompson said.
“We will be live on CBC Sports Prime Time as much as possible.”
But cricket’s arrival in CBC’s traditional Saturday-night hockey window marks a dramatic break with Canadian broadcasting history.
CBC began televising Hockey Night in Canadain 1952, with the institution tracing its roots to radio broadcasts in the 1930s.
Its NHL run continued even after Rogers secured Canada’s national NHL rights in 2014. Rogers sub-licensed Saturday-night games to CBC, allowing Hockey Night in Canada to remain on the public broadcaster for another 12 seasons.
That arrangement ended following the 2025-26 season.
CBC confirmed to Juno News that it and Sportsnet tried but failed to reach a new agreement.
“With respect to your questions about NHL hockey, despite best efforts, CBC and Sportsnet could not reach an agreement that worked for both parties,” Thompson said.
Rogers’ new 12-year, $11-billion national NHL rights agreement began this season and runs through 2037-38 — more than double the $5.2-billion value of its previous deal.
Sportsnet now carries the Saturday-night NHL package without CBC, while Prime Video has acquired the exclusive Wednesday-night national package through a separate sub-licensing agreement with Rogers.
The distinction matters: CBC did not simply choose cricket over NHL games it otherwise had the right to broadcast. Its agreement with Rogers expired, and efforts to reach a new one were unsuccessful.
CBC did not disclose how much it is paying for Super 60 broadcast and streaming rights or provide an expected audience figure when asked by Juno News.
CBC/Radio-Canada received $1.4 billion in parliamentary appropriations in 2024-25, according to federal government figures, while reporting another $588.7 million in earned revenues.
The end of Saturday-night NHL broadcasts closes a remarkable chapter for CBC.
And Hockey Night in Canada wasn’t exactly struggling to find viewers.
When Rogers and CBC extended their partnership in 2017, Rogers said HNIC was reaching an average of 7.5 million Canadians each week and was the most-watched program in Canada every Saturday night that season.
CBC isn’t abandoning hockey altogether.
The public broadcaster, which owns the Hockey Night in Canada trademark, is bringing the name back this season in partnership with the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
On December 5, Montréal Victoire will face expansion club PWHL Hamilton in what the league says will be the first women’s hockey game ever featured on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada.
The PWHL is billing it as the 90th consecutive season of the iconic Saturday-night broadcast.
That means Hockey Night in Canada will continue on CBC — just without the National Hockey League.
The cost of NHL rights, meanwhile, has exploded.
When Rogers first secured the national rights in 2013, then-CBC president Hubert Lacroix said the NHL had high financial expectations, and CBC was “not in a position to spend taxpayers’ money on this game of high stakes.”
Thirteen years later, Rogers’ national package is worth $11 billion.
Whether CBC’s new Saturday-night sports strategy can replicate anything approaching HNIC’s reach remains to be seen.
But on the first Saturday of CBC’s post-NHL era, the contrast was impossible to miss.
NHL teams were playing across the country.
The CBC was showing cricket.
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