The Canadian Football League has signed six-year media agreements that begin in 2027, keeping Bell Media as the league’s majority partner while bringing DAZN into the Canadian broadcast mix as a major rights holder.
Under the deals, DAZN will carry 21 regular-season CFL games in Canada and will exclusively present Saturday Night Football at 7:00 p.m. ET each week throughout the regular season, with that window extending into the first two playoff rounds. TSN will continue to be the league’s primary English-language home, broadcasting up to three regular-season games per week for a total of 60 games, and will carry six of the eight newly formatted playoff games plus the Grey Cup. RDS will remain the exclusive French-language broadcaster, carrying all Montreal Alouettes games, 25 marquee matchups, all playoff games and the Grey Cup. The Grey Cup and select games will be simulcast on TSN, CTV and Crave.
The CFL framed the package as the largest media rights deal in its history. Commissioner Stewart Johnston called the agreements “record-setting” and “a transformative moment for the CFL,” saying the partnerships will help unlock new audiences and accelerate the league’s momentum.
Those specifics change where Canadian viewers will find CFL games. DAZN’s weekly Saturday window at 7:00 p.m. ET establishes a consistent national stream outside the traditional TSN schedule, while TSN’s three-game weeks and playoff control keep a substantial slate on the incumbent linear and digital platforms. RDS’s continued exclusivity for French-language coverage preserves the league’s long-running francophone arrangements.
Context matters: TSN began airing CFL games in 1986 and RDS in 1989, and Bell Media has been the league’s exclusive broadcast and digital partner since 2008. The new six-year arrangements begin in 2027 and, the CFL says, bundle domestic and global rights into the league’s largest valuation to date.
But the announcement carries a clear friction point. Industry reports say Bell Media — while remaining the majority partner — is ceding meaningful Canadian inventory to DAZN for the first time since it secured exclusive rights in 2008. That reallocation is the most concrete shift in distribution in nearly two decades and will force fans and rights buyers to navigate a split schedule across streaming and linear channels.
The league did not disclose financial terms. Early industry chatter placed the possible total around half a billion dollars over six years, but the CFL has not confirmed any figures, leaving the actual valuation and the revenue split among partners as the central unknowns that will determine how significant the change is for team revenues and broadcast strategy.
The immediate consequence for viewers is practical: starting in 2027, some regular-season dates and a weekly Saturday primetime slot will move to DAZN, while most games and the bulk of the playoffs remain on TSN and RDS. For the league, the move is a bet on reaching new audiences through a global streaming partner without surrendering the broad national reach Bell provides.
The next hard fact to watch is the start of the rights window in 2027; the most consequential unanswered question is financial — how much the agreements are worth and how that money is divided between domestic and global partners. Until the CFL publishes the numbers, teams, broadcasters and rights observers will have to judge the deal by its schedule and platform changes rather than by its price.
