By Adriano Marchese

Rogers Communications shares fell Tuesday morning after a report said that it was close to signing a $7.7 billion agreement to renew television rights with the NHL, nearly double its current deal.

Shares traded 6.1% lower at 36.07 Canadian dollars ($25.07).

The Canadian telco is close a deal that would renew its television rights for league games aired nationally in the country for 12 more years, according to a report by Sportico on Monday, citing multiple people familiar with the details.

Rogers wasn't immediately available for comment.

The new 12-year deal is a big step up in value from the league's current agreement with Rogers, which was agreed to in 2013 for about C$4.9 billion at the time, the report said. The old contract is set to expire next season, in the summer of 2026.

TD Cowen's Vince Valentini said that the higher price will raise some concerns among investors, but that the company will likely offload some of the burden onto other media companies.

"The reported headline contract value is sure to raise some eyebrows, but we fully expect Rogers to offload a meaningful portion of these NHL rights, similar to what they did with the last contract," Valentini said.

Valentini points to how the previous rights were distributed. He figures that of the price tag last time, Rogers likely ended up absorbing less than C$3 billion of operating expenses directly, largely because it sold French-language rights to Quebecor and certain other regional rights to TSN and Bell. Most recently they also sold Monday Night games to Amazon Prime, he noted.

"We fully expect a similar situation here, with the league wanting to feature the C$11 billion gross contract value, but what Rogers actually keeps and airs on its own networks should end up being materially lower than that," Valentini said.

Until there is better clarity on the deal, Valentini said there could be some uncertainty built into the stock price.

"Once the dust settles we do not expect this rights renewal to be either a negative for Rogers, nor an overly material event," he added.

Write to Adriano Marchese at adriano.marchese@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 01, 2025 10:34 ET (14:34 GMT)

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