Hummel signs sponsorship agreement with the NSL

Under a multi-year agreement, Denmark-based sportswear apparel brand Hummel has become the official kit provider of the Northern Super League (NSL), Canada’s professional women’s soccer league.

Hummel will supply custom-designed playing and training gear for the six NLS clubs. The brand designers are working in collaboration with the clubs and NSL staff in the design process for each club’s kits, developing customized uniforms with unique designs, according to the company. The Hummel logo will appear on all league kits and team apparel.

The partnership marks Hummel’s first sponsorship of a women’s professional league, underscoring the brand’s commitment to advancing women’s sports and its focus on expanding into the North American market, the company said. Its portfolio of apparel partnerships includes European teams such as the Denmark national team, Real Betis of Spain’s La Liga, and Werder Bremen from Germany’s Bundesliga.

Meanwhile, the NSL partners with Hummel after naming Canadian Tire as a founding partner ahead of its inaugural season in 2025. The league launched this year with DoorDash, CIBC and Air Canada as partners. It also partnered with Bell Media and CBC/Radio-Canada to broadcast live games on TSN and RDS. The second NLS season will kick off on April, with six dynamic clubs representing major Canadian markets, such as Halifax Tides FC, Montreal Roses FC, Ottawa Rapid FC, AFC Toronto, Calgary Wild FC and Vancouver Rise FC.

Best Buy Ads partners with e-commerce company Rokt

Rokt, the e-commerce technology company focused on enhancing the online customer experience, has partnered with Best Buy Ads Canada ahead of the holiday season to deliver selected transaction experiences to the company’s online customers.

Rokt uses machine learning and AI to present relevant offers to each shopper in the final stages of the e-commerce transaction. Best Buy Ads will use Rokt’s technology on its website to drive highly relevant messages from third-party brands whose products and services it does not sell directly.

Tara Wilkinson, Best Buy Canada’s director of strategy, said the partnership allows the company to make the online customer experience more engaging by presenting customers with offers and messages that are relevant to them, all at a time when ad personalization is critical to attracting new online shoppers. Best Buy ad partners, including Sirius XM, HelloFresh and DoorDash, will benefit from the association, and will be able to drive customer loyalty.

According to Rokt, its e-commerce network powered more than 4.6 billion transactions this year across more than 20,000 leading businesses. This news follows its recent announcements of partnerships with Ulta Beauty, Just Eat Takeaway.com and Macy’s.

Pluto TV marks two years in Canada with a growth in its offering

Pluto TV is marking two years in Canada with strong growth. The FAST streaming service has seen a growth of up to 1.7 billion total viewing minutes (TVM) per month, with an average monthly increase of 40% over last year. The growth, according to the streamer, is due to the distribution partnerships it has closed, with 13 distribution partners and 108 new full-time channels added in the past year.

This year, the streamer increased its content offering with partnerships with NBCUniversal, Global TV Distribution, FIFA+, IndiaCast, CBC, A+E Networks and Fremantle. It also added three new CBC News channels (CBC News Toronto, CBC News BC and Radio-Canada Info) to its CBC News Explore offering, as well as the MTV On Tour! Channel, which features Taylor Swift music videos spanning all her Eras.

This Christmas, Pluto is launching holiday channels such as Christmas 365 and More Christmas 365 that include movies like Inventing the Christmas Prince, A Little Christmas Charm, and Christmas at Dollywood. The company will also launch a pop-up channel to offer popular movies, featuring popular actors.

Pluto’s offerings currently include 243 FAST channels and more than 50,000 hours of movies, shows, documentaries, news and music, available both live and on-demand.

And Finally, Bell rebrands its specialty channels

Come January 1, many of Bell’s specialty channels will look a little different. As a result of losing key brands when Rogers made a deal with Warner Bros Discovery earlier this year, Bell is rebranding a number of its specialty channels. Investigation Discovery is changing to Oxygen True Crime, Animal Planet to CTV Wild Channel, Discovery Science will become CTV Nature Channel, Velocity will be called CTV Speed Channel, and finally Discovery Network will become USA network in Canada.

Bell Media recently secured a major content and licensing agreement with NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution that brings the USA Network and Oxygen True Crime brands to Canada.