RUMOR! 15 Canadiens games (exclusively) on Crave starting next year

Last month, Bell Media announced – on a Friday PM – that 45 regional French-language Canadiens games would be broadcast on RDS over the next few seasons. The duration of the new contract between the Habs and RDS has not yet been revealed, but behind the scenes, there's talk of a deal lasting more than five, possibly even 10.

Officially, we still don't know where the Habs' remaining 15 regional and 24 national games(plus the NHL playoffs) will be televised next year.

But now Max Lalonde has dropped a media bombshell on BPM Sports. According to his information, Crave will broadcast 15 regional French-language Canadiens games as early as the 2025-26 season. And it will be the RDS staff that will work and produce these 15 games.

Pierre Houde and Marc Denis are expected to respectively describe and analyze these 15 Habs games. Jobs won't be lost, which is excellent news.

According to Max Lalonde, the announcement could come as early as next week.

Let's not forget that France Margaret Belanger opened the door to Crave being the Habs broadcaster next year on October 14 on 5 à 7.

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Crave and RDS: the package
For several weeks now, Bell Media has been offering an RDS + Crave package to its subscribers. Everything' is in everything', as the saying goes..

A subscription to Crave with ads costs $12 a month. Without ads? $22.

A package with RDS? $27 (with ads) and $33 (without ads).

In short, at about two games a month on Crave, we're talking about $6 a game if you only subscribe to Crave. Why take the ad-free version when there are scheduled downtimes and intermissions?

Will you subscribe to Crave to watch the 15 Habs games that won't be on RDS or TVA Sports? Will you choose to watch them in English on TSN (which has the rights to those 15 games)? Because from now on, Habs fans will have to subscribe to a streaming service to make sure they don't miss a single game in French.

Extension

– I may beoverthinking things, but we're seeing more and more traditional media trying to find solutions to get around the 1001 constraints imposed by the CRTC. Qub Radio with WKND… Bell Media with Crave..

The future isn't looking any brighter for traditional media..

– What's happening with the 24 French-language national matches (rights currently held by TVA Sports)? From what I'm told, “TVA Sports” could still present these matches… but it wouldn't be impossible to see this channel being sold to Rogers beforehand.

Apart from a few executives who would be replaced by people from Rogers, the TVA Sports staff would keep their jobs. Can't wait to see this corridor noise become reality..

– Unlike MLS and CF Montreal, the Canadiens won't be broadcast exclusively on a streaming site that's not very popular in Quebec. #AppleTV #MLSSeasonPass