How has it come to be that they're exempted? That's a good question.
I'm most familiar with Nova Scotia, where over the course of the weekend in July the regulations of the province changed, and the province said the Canadian Hockey League, or some owners of teams, called them and asked them to do it. As it's reported, neither the league nor one single team was on the registry of lobbyists, so how did those conversations take place? I don't know the answer, but it certainly is suspicious, and one plus one often equals two.