Fox Sports Wisconsin

Fox Sports Wisconsin
Launched	2007
Network	Fox Sports Networks
Owned by	News Corp
Country	United States
Language	English
Broadcast area	Wisconsin; Eastern Minnesota; Western U.P. of Michigan; Northwestern Illinois; Iowa; Nationwide via satellite
Formerly called	Wisconsin Sports Network (1996–1998)
Replaced	Fox Sports North (in Wisconsin only)
Sister channel(s)	Fox Sports North
Website	foxsportswisconsin.com
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV	669 (SD); 669-1 (HD); 658 (+SD); 658-1 (+HD)
Cable
Available on most cable systems in Wisconsin; Eastern Minnesota; Northwestern U.P. of Michigan; Northwestern Illinois; Iowa	Check local listings for channels

Fox Sports Wisconsin is a regional sports network serving the state of Wisconsin. Originally the "Wisconsin" sub-feed of Fox Sports North, the network officially became Fox Sports Wisconsin on April 1, 2007 with its own feed originating from facilities in Milwaukee; the network had formerly been based at Fox O&O WITI (Channel 6)'s studios in Brown Deer before that station was sold to Local TV LLC in 2008. Fox Sports Wisconsin is an owned and operated affiliate of Fox Sports Networks. FS Wisconsin is the cable home of the Milwaukee Brewers and Milwaukee Bucks.

History[edit]

The first regional sports network in the state was a gametime-only network broadcasting Milwaukee Brewers baseball and Milwaukee Bucks basketball games called Wisconsin Sports Network. Its parent companies were Milwaukee's Time-Warner franchise and Group W. However, in 1996, it was taken over by the Minneapolis based Midwest Sports Channel, which was owned by WCCO-TV (Channel 4) in Minneapolis and CBS Cable after the merger between CBS and Westinghouse. Shortly thereafter, MSC became an affiliate of the fledgling Fox Sports Net in the fall of 1996, ultimately changing its name to FSN North after the network's sale to Fox in 2000, in time for the network's name to change in April 2001. Despite being well out of the station's market, the MSC late night encore of WCCO's 10pm newscast also aired on the Wisconsin network until the Fox purchase

From 1996–2007, Wisconsin was served by one of three regional subfeeds of FSN North; the other two being a feed for the Twin Cities metro area and a feed for the rest of Minnesota (as well as Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota). Fox Sports Wisconsin was launched on April 1, 2007, to coincide with the start of the Brewers season.

On April 9, 2012, the network launched a "Plus" feed in both HD and SD on most of FSN Wisconsin's cable and satellite providers, which will allow the network to air Brewers games on FSN Wisconsin, while Milwaukee Bucks games are carried over FSN Wisconsin Plus. Some systems will carry the Plus channel on a full-time basis, while others will carry it gametime-only; non-game Plus programming contains a loop of national Fox Sports Net programming such as the World Poker Tour.^[1]

Programming[edit]

Currently, Fox Sports Wisconsin's programming includes Brewers, Bucks, and Minnesota Wild pregame, postgame, and fan shows, along with some of WITI's Packer analysis shows and WIAA competitions, weekend outdoors programming, and many of Fox Sports' national programs. A reduced schedule of Wild hockey also airs Fox Sports Wisconsin through Fox Sports North. From 2007-2011, Fox Sports Wisconsin sub-licensed fifteen Brewers games to air on Milwaukee's WMLW-CA (Channel 41), producing the broadcasts and airing them on Fox Sports Wisconsin outside of the Milwaukee market, while WMLW sold ads on those telecasts.^[2] The deal was discontinued after the 2011 season due to the Brewers wanting a full-HD schedule of games, making the team exclusive to the network.

It also airs NCAA competitions of the Big East Conference, Big Ten Conference and the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The Milwaukee Time-Warner franchise has run Time Warner Sports Milwaukee since 2006, which competes with Fox Sports Wisconsin on Time Warner's Southeastern Wisconsin systems and is now the major rights holder to Marquette University sports. However while FS Wisconsin has almost universal statewide coverage across the major cable/satellite/telco TV providers, TWS Milwaukee is limited to only Time Warner systems at this time.