Sportsnet announced Tuesday that its NHL broadcast partnership with CBC is ending, which means NHL games will no longer air on CBC after this season.
Sportsnet said it will carry all Saturday games going forward under its new 12-year NHL rights deal that starts next season.
That is the big hockey headline in Canada. CBC's role in Hockey Night in Canada stretches back to 1952, and the cross-licensing arrangement with Sportsnet had kept games on the public broadcaster since the 2013-14 season.
But the Blue Jays side is a lot simpler. This NHL change does not take Blue Jays games off Sportsnet. Rogers Sports & Media said in March that Sportsnet remains “Canada's home of the Blue Jays” across TV, streaming, and audio for the 2026 season.
That distinction matters because CBC is not part of the Blue Jays' regular TV package. The current Blue Jays broadcast setup is built around Sportsnet and Sportsnet+, with Dan Shulman, Jamie Campbell, Hazel Mae, Arden Zwelling, and the rest of the network's baseball coverage team.
So while hockey fans are seeing the end of one familiar Canadian TV arrangement, Blue Jays fans are not looking at the same kind of shakeup. The baseball side is staying where it already lives.
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The NHL split changes hockey nights, not Blue Jays nights
That is the cleanest way to read this. Sportsnet's statement on the NHL side called the CBC deal “a terrific partnership,” while also making clear that Sportsnet will continue carrying Saturday games on its own.
CBC, meanwhile, said it is moving toward a new sports programming strategy after the Milano/Cortina Olympics. That is a major shift for hockey viewers, but it says nothing about Blue Jays broadcasts because CBC was not the core home for them in the first place.
For Toronto baseball fans, the practical takeaway is easy. Blue Jays games remain on Sportsnet's platforms, just as Rogers laid out before the 2026 season began.
That means the network's full Blue Jays coverage plan stays in place, from the TV booth to Blue Jays Central to Sportsnet 590 The FAN and the network's streaming coverage.
So yes, this is a big Canadian sports media story. It marks the end of Sportsnet and CBC sharing NHL broadcasts, and it closes another chapter in Hockey Night in Canada history.
It just is not a Blue Jays broadcast crisis. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., John Schneider, and Toronto's 50th season are still staying right where Blue Jays fans already expect to find them: on Sportsnet.
Will the end of the Sportsnet-CBC NHL partnership feel strange to Canadian sports fans?
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