44% of Surveyed Canadian Sports Fans Say Subscription Sprawl Is Making Watching Games Frustrating

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Watching a big game used to involve finding the right channel. Increasingly, the challenge is figuring out which service has the rights that night. New Canadian fan research commissioned by IBM puts a number on that irritation: 44% of participating sports fans said managing multiple subscriptions for the sports they care about is frustrating.

The finding arrives as live sports moves deeper into a hybrid world of traditional television, subscription streaming, league apps and digital-only packages. Canadians have more ways to watch than previous generations did, but greater choice has not necessarily produced greater simplicity. For broadcasters, leagues and streaming platforms, that creates a delicate problem: premium sports rights remain enormously valuable, while the people paying to watch them are increasingly asking for a viewing experience that requires less searching, switching and account management.

The 44% Figure Points to an Access Problem, Not Just a Streaming Problem

IBM’s Canadian findings show that 44% of respondents were frustrated by managing multiple subscriptions to watch the sports they care about. That result is notable because the complaint is broader than whether streaming itself works well. A service can deliver a sharp picture with little buffering and still leave a fan annoyed if the game they expected to see requires another account. The inconvenience begins before the opening faceoff, kickoff or tipoff: finding the broadcaster, checking whether the event is included, remembering login credentials and determining whether a different package is required.

That experience helps explain why “subscription sprawl” has become such a useful description of modern sports consumption. Academic work on sports broadcasting has documented a longer-term shift in which rights, screens, platforms and distribution models have multiplied. The benefit is that leagues can reach fans through more channels and technology companies can compete for premium events. The downside is that committed fans, especially those following several leagues, may encounter more friction precisely because they want to watch more rather than less.

Streaming Is Growing, but Traditional Television Has Not Disappeared

The Canadian market is not making a clean switch from television to streaming. IBM found that linear broadcasting remained the most commonly selected platform for live sporting events among its Canadian respondents in 2026, at 37%. Subscription streaming, however, climbed to 24% from 20% in 2025. Social media also gained ground as a viewing destination, rising from 8% to 11%. Among respondents choosing digital platforms over traditional broadcasting, 46% identified convenience as the main reason.

Broader Canadian media habits point in the same direction. The CRTC’s latest public-opinion tracker found that 76% of Canadians surveyed in late 2025 subscribed to or had access to at least one video-streaming service. Online video streaming was also cited as a primary entertainment source by 46%, compared with 40% for regular television. That creates an increasingly mixed environment. A household may still maintain traditional TV while also paying for general-purpose streamers and sports-specific services. For fans, the transition can therefore add platforms before it removes old ones.

Hockey Shows How Rights Deals Can Put One Sport on Different Services

Few examples make the changing Canadian sports landscape clearer than hockey. Rogers holds Canada’s national NHL media rights under a 12-year agreement worth C$11 billion that begins with the 2026-27 season and runs through 2037-38. Yet those rights do not mean every major national game will necessarily appear in the same place. Rogers and Prime Video announced in July that Prime Video will exclusively carry Wednesday-night national NHL games in Canada under another 12-year arrangement.

Beginning with the 2026-27 season, that Prime package includes at least 26 national regular-season games per year, along with two first-round playoff series and one second-round series. Sportsnet, meanwhile, retains exclusive English-language rights to more than 500 national NHL games per season, including Monday and Saturday packages, plus the rest of the playoffs covered by its agreement. None of that makes the rights structure inherently bad for fans, but it illustrates the practical issue behind IBM’s 44% figure: even one favourite league can require viewers to understand where different nights and playoff rounds live.

Subscription Frustration Is Landing During a Wider Affordability Squeeze

Convenience is only part of the equation. The financial backdrop matters because Canadian households have been paying more for subscription content. Statistics Canada reported that prices for video and audio subscription services in 2024 were 21% higher than in 2019 and 52.7% higher than in 2014. Canadian households spent C$11.3 billion on cable, satellite and other program-distribution services, including streaming, during 2024. By May 2025, video and audio subscription prices were another 5.4% higher than a year earlier.

The CRTC’s Wave 5 research adds another layer. Forty-six per cent of Canadians in that study agreed that video-streaming subscription services had become less affordable over the previous year, while only 66% of people receiving video-streaming services expressed confidence that they could continue paying without making changes over the next three months. These figures are not sports-specific, but they help explain why another required service can generate disproportionate irritation. The problem is rarely one monthly charge in isolation; it is the cumulative household bill attached to entertainment, connectivity and several overlapping subscriptions.

A Significant Share of Fans Would Rather Have One Sports Hub

IBM’s Canadian respondents did not merely identify a problem; many also expressed interest in a simpler model. Thirty-six per cent said they would be likely to download a centralized sports app combining live streams, scores, statistics and related material in one place. That demand is particularly interesting because sports apps are already well established: 65% of Canadian respondents said they currently use them, up slightly from 63% in 2025.

A centralized app, however, does not automatically mean a single inexpensive subscription. It could function more like a universal front door, helping a fan locate a game, see whether an existing account includes it and move directly to the appropriate stream. Canada’s broader communications market demonstrates that consumers already understand bundling. The CRTC found that 54% of Canadians with multiple telecommunications or media services bundled at least two onto the same bill, while 44% did not. Sports companies therefore have several possible routes toward simplification, ranging from consolidated billing to common search tools, authentication systems and cross-platform guides.

MLS Offers a Different Example of What Simplified Access Can Look Like

Major League Soccer provides an instructive contrast. Beginning in 2026, every MLS match became available to Apple TV subscribers without the separate MLS Season Pass that had existed previously. The league said the package includes the regular season, Leagues Cup, the MLS All-Star Game and the MLS Cup playoffs. Matches remain available in one destination without blackouts, according to MLS.

For Canadian supporters of Toronto FC, CF Montréal or Vancouver Whitecaps FC, that structure removes one familiar source of confusion: wondering whether a particular league match moved to another national or regional outlet. It does not eliminate the cost of watching, and a fan who also follows hockey, basketball, baseball or football may still need several other services. Still, the model demonstrates the trade-off facing sports-rights owners. Dividing packages among multiple bidders can maximize competition and revenue, while consolidating an entire competition can make access easier to understand. IBM’s Canadian results suggest that a meaningful share of the audience increasingly notices that distinction.

AI and Better Apps Could Reduce Friction, but They Cannot Erase Rights Boundaries

IBM’s research also shows that Canadian fans are interested in technology that makes sports easier to follow. Sixty-eight per cent of respondents saw value in AI-powered sports features, while 75% selected at least one AI capability they believed could improve their viewing experience over the next two or three years. Real-time statistics and predictions ranked highest at 27%, followed by personalized content at 21%. More than half wanted faster event recaps, and 52% wanted greater access to favourite teams and players.

Those tools could help address parts of the fragmentation problem. A well-designed sports platform could alert a fan before puck drop, identify the correct authorized service, summarize a missed period and gather scores from several leagues without constant app switching. Research into live sports platforms has likewise found that digital features and viewer engagement can materially shape the perceived value of a streaming experience. But technology cannot make exclusive media rights disappear. An AI assistant may tell a fan exactly where the game is; it cannot grant access unless the viewer has the required service.

The 44% Finding Is Meaningful, but It Should Be Read With the Methodology in Mind

IBM commissioned Morning Consult to conduct the research online in June 2026. The international sample included 20,589 adults across 12 countries, with 2,047 respondents in Canada. Participants had to identify as at least average sports fans and follow one or more specified sports, including soccer, hockey’s broader peer sports such as basketball and baseball, tennis, golf, Formula 1, American football, swimming or the Olympics. IBM reports an approximate two-percentage-point margin for the Canadian results at the 95% confidence level.

There is an important qualification. The Canadian participants came from an online, non-probability panel, and IBM explicitly states that the findings describe those respondents rather than necessarily representing every Canadian sports fan or the population as a whole. That makes “44% of surveyed Canadian sports fans” more accurate than simply saying 44% of all Canadian fans. Even with that limitation, the result fits a broader body of evidence: government data show widespread streaming use and affordability concerns, while academic research describes sports broadcasting as increasingly shaped by platform competition and fragmented rights. The frustration is therefore difficult to dismiss as an isolated complaint.

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