In the United States of America, a regional sports network, or RSN, is a cable television station that presents sports programming to a local market. The most important programming on an RSN consists of live broadcasts of professional and college sporting events, as those games generate an overwhelming percentage of an RSN's advertising income. During the rest of the day, these stations show other sports and recreation programming. These channels are often the source content for out-of-market packages.
Most regional sports networks in the United States are either affiliated with Fox Sports Net or Comcast SportsNet, with supplemental programming from networks such as America One or ESPNEWS.
In Canada, Rogers Sportsnet operates four regional sports networks.
Fox Sports Net
For years, the default RSN for many markets was owned by Fox Sports Net, but an increasing trend is for the teams whose games make up the lucrative programming to own the RSN themselves. This serves two purposes: First, the teams make more money operating an RSN than they would collecting a licensing fee from, for example, Fox Sports Net.
Second, by owning their own RSN, teams that must share revenues with other members of their league can mask its broadcast-related profits. Under the old model, a team collects a large fee for licensing its games to the RSN. That fee would then be disclosed and shared with the other teams in the league. Under the new, team-owned RSN model, the team demands only a nominal fee, so the profits for local broadcasting stay with the team.
Current FSN affiliates
The current FSN affiliates are:
Former FSN affiliates
Some current networks were once FSN affiliates, and they all still show national FSN programs, since the markets they serve have no FSN affiliate. They are:
FSN sister channels
Some channels split local sports coverage with the FSN affiliate in their market. They are:
FSN in Los Angeles and Southern California
Since The Los Angeles Area and the rest of Southern California have so many sports teams, it has 2 FSN affiliates which split coverage of local sports: FSN Prime Ticket and FSN West. It is the only market that has two 24 hour, full time FSN affiliates. FSN Prime Ticket is also the only FSN affiliate not named after the city, region or state it serves, as well as the only affiliate that contains the name of its old incarnation.
FSN Subfeeds and Alternate feeds
Some FSN affiliates have subfeeds to eliminate conflicts when 2 teams that they have rights to are playing at the same time, so they can air both games at once. They are:
Some FSN affiliates have alternate (or overflow) feeds for the same purpose, named after the host network with "Plus" after it (i.e. FSN Detroit Plus).
Subfeeds and alternate (overflow) feeds are only used during live games, and are turned off the rest of the time.
Comcast SportsNet
Seeing an opportunity to serve sports fans on a more local level and generate profits, cable giant Comcast began creating their own RSN -- Comcast Sportsnet -- in the 1990s.
- Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast (CSS), based in Atlanta with sub-regional feeds available. Airs regional college and high school games and other sports. Owned jointly by Comcast and Charter Communications, and only distributed to cable systems. The Comcast 'crescent C' logo is used for the channel's logo despite Charter's co-ownership.
Alternate feeds on Comcast SportsNet
Just like FSN, most Comcast SportsNet affiliates have alternate (or overflow) feeds to avoid conflicts when 2 teams they have rights to are playing at the same time, so they can show both games at once. They are named after the host network with "Plus" after it (i.e. Comcast SportsNet Chicago Plus). The alternate (or overflow) feeds are only used during live games and are turned off the rest of the time.
Rogers Sportsnet
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Rogers Sportsnet, owned by Rogers Communications, is an RSN network serving Canada. It consists of four regional networks, and a national HD network:
- Rogers Sportsnet Ontario, which serves all of Ontario excluding the Ottawa region (the HD network for the most part mirrors the Ontario feed).
- Rogers Sportsnet HD, which is a high definition rebroadcast of the Ontario feed with regional variations when necessary.
Other RSNs
Current networks
- Madison Square Garden Network or (MSG) - The first regional sports network in The United States. It was launched in 1969 and serves the New York City Metropolitan Area. Its new sister channel is MSG Plus. The alternate (or overflow) feeds of MSG and MSG Plus are called MSG 2 and MSG Plus 2.
- Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), owned by the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals, televises every available game of both teams (320 games annually). Official Network of the Baltimore Ravens, Georgetown Hoyas, George Mason Patriots, UNC Wilmington Seahawks. Partnerships with Big South conference, BB&T Classic. Regional provider of the Big East Game of the Week (football, men's basketball). Televises more than 520 live major sporting events annually. MASN's alternate (or overflow) feed is called MASN2.
- Columbus Sports Network (CSN), broadcasting events, features, highlights and news on professional, collegiate, scholastic and amateur sports teams in the Columbus, OH area
One Conference College Networks
The Southeastern Conference explored starting its own network [1], but a recent deal by the University of Florida with Sun Sports, [2] and a long term deal between the SEC and the ESPN family of networks [3] have ended its likelihood.
Defunct networks
- Empire Sports Network (Upstate New York). Ceased broadcasting March 7, 2005 upon the collapse of its parent company Adelphia Communications and the sale of their principal customer, the Buffalo Sabres.
- Sports Time, which broadcast home games of the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, and St. Louis Cardinals in 1984 and 1985. Not to be confused with the current SportsTime Ohio.
- Sports View, which was the cable home of the Milwaukee Brewers for three seasons (1984-86).
- Carolinas Sports and Entertainment Television (C-SET), which broadcast Charlotte Bobcats games in the 2004-05 season.
- Arizona Sports Programming Network/"Cox 9": Named for the channel number on which it appeared on local cable systems, ASPN/COX 9 aired Phoenix Firebirds baseball games and Phoenix Suns home games throughout its long history. In 2003, the channel folded and FSN Arizona picked up the cable/satellite rights. ASPN was owned by Cox Communications, current owner of 4SD.
- BlazerVision: This network aired Portland Trail Blazers games on pay-per-view as late as 2000. It was then replaced by Action Sports Cable Network, which showed other sports events as well. The channel folded for good in November, 2002.
- SportsChannel Los Angeles: This network, formerly Z Channel, aired Los Angeles Dodgers, California Angels, and Los Angeles Clippers games from 1989 to 1993. Unlike other SportsChannel affiliates, it did not convert to FSN; instead, it folded outright.
- ESPN West: This network was to have shown games of the Anaheim Angels and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim; both teams and the network were then owned by the Walt Disney Company. It was announced in late 1997, but folded in 1998 without broadcasting a single show.
- Victory Sports One: Owned by the Minnesota Twins, it folded in 2004 after only three months on the air, due to the inability of the Twins to reach deals with any Twin Cities area cable system or satellite service. Twins games immediately returned to FSN North.
- Sportsvision: This network aired Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bulls, and Chicago Black Hawks games on pay-per-view television in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was once available by converter boxes tuned to channel 60, now WXFT. It then became SportsChannel Chicago and FSN Chicago before it folded in 2006.
- Home Sports and Entertainment: It carried many games of Texas-based baseball and pro basketball teams until it became Prime Sports; it is now FSN Southwest.
- PASS Sports: Detroit-based regional sports channel that presented coverage of professional and college teams in Detroit and Michigan; in 1997, the channel folded after FSN Detroit won the rights to the Detroit Pistons and bought the rights to the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings from PASS. Current FSN Detroit reporter John Keating was a reporter on PASS.
- SportSouth: Atlanta-based sports channel with professional and college sports coverage from Atlanta and other parts of the South. Originally run in part by Ted Turner, it was sold to Fox and became FSN South in the mid-1990s. As part of the sale, Turner was prohibited from owning another RSN, but used a loophole (by airing some non-sports programming) to launch Turner South, which, on October 13, 2006, was sold to Fox and became a new SportSouth.
- Grizzlies Regional Sports Network: This proposed network for the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies folded before its first scheduled game; the team re-signed with FSN South instead.
- Midwest Sports Channel: Became FSN North. See also WCCO-TV.
- Prism: This Philadelphia-based network was replaced by Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia.
- Home Team Sports: Became Comcast Sports Net
- Royals Sports Television Network (Kansas City, western Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Iowa), owned by the Kansas City Royals. After the 2007 MLB season, RSTN ceased operations and all Royals games will be broadcast on FSN Kansas City, a new spinoff of FSN Midwest.
- Comcast Local, also known as CL, aired from 2004–2008. It aired professional, collegiate and high school sports throughout most of Michigan and Indiana. They owned the rights to a number of Big Ten Conference and Mid-American Conference sports telecasts, as well as the Detroit Ignition of the MISL and Canadian Football League games. Merged into a similar channel Comcast Television in Michigan in March 2008.
High Definition
Some RSNs broadcast select content in High Definition. These channels are usually available as part of a cable company's service, however on satellite services such as DirecTV, HD games are available on dedicated channels, most the time free as part of an out of market package.
See also
External links
References
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