Regional sports network

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In the United States of America and Canada, 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.

Regional sports networks are generally among the most expensive channels on a cable television lineup, due to the expense of rights to the local sports they carry. A typical RSN, as of 2012, carries a retransmission fee of $2 to $3 per subscriber, lower than ESPN and premium channels but higher than all other cable networks. These high prices are supported by demand for the often popular local sports teams they carry; transmission disputes between distributors and RSNs are often controversial and protracted.

Most regional sports networks in the United States are either affiliated with Fox Sports or NBC Sports, with supplemental programming from networks such as America One, AMGTV or ESPNEWS.

In Canada, Rogers Sportsnet operates four regional sports networks, and TSN also has some regional operations.

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Fox Sports Networks [edit]

For years, the default RSN for many markets was owned by Fox Sports, 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. The name of the networks was shortened to Fox Sports (Region/City) with the start of the 2008 college football season as part of a rebranding effort. The Pittsburgh, Rocky Mountain, Utah and Northwest affiliates, owned by DirecTV Sports Networks, were rebranded as Root Sports on April 1, 2011. They still carry the same local teams and national FSN programs.

Current Fox Sports affiliates [edit]

The current Fox Sports affiliates and the major teams they carry are:

Former Fox Sports affiliates [edit]

Some current networks were once owned and operated by Fox Sports Net, and they all still show national Fox Sports Net programs and games, since the markets they serve have no FSN affiliate. They are:

Alternate feeds and channels [edit]

Fox Sports Ohio [edit]

Fox Sports Ohio is unique among the FSN affiliates because it actually has two full-time 24-hour feeds, one for Cleveland and one for Cincinnati (some television systems improperly call the latter 'Fox Sports Cincinnati' to avoid confusion among viewers). National programming is exactly the same. However, only the Cleveland feed carries the Cleveland Cavaliers while only the Cincinnati feed carries the Columbus Blue Jackets and Cincinnati Reds.

Reds games also air on Fox Sports Indiana.

Fox Sports Networks subfeeds and alternate / overflow feeds [edit]

Some Fox Sports affiliates have subfeeds to eliminate conflicts when two teams that they have rights to are playing at the same time, so they can air both games at once. They are:

  • Root Sports Rocky Mountain - has the subfeed Root Sports Utah
  • Fox Sports South - has the subfeeds Fox Sports Tennessee and Fox Sports Carolinas
  • Fox Sports Southwest - has the subfeeds Fox Sports Oklahoma and Fox Sports New Orleans

Some Fox Sports affiliates have alternate (or overflow) feeds for the same purpose, named after the host network with "Plus" after it (i.e. Fox Sports Detroit Plus).

Subfeeds and alternate (overflow) feeds are only used during live games, and are turned off the rest of the time.

Some affiliates were once subfeeds but are now full channels. Fox Sports Kansas City and Fox Sports Indiana were once subfeeds of Fox Sports Midwest, and Fox Sports Wisconsin was once a subfeed of Fox Sports North.

Comcast SportsNet - NBC Sports Regional Networks [edit]

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. With the January 2011 merger with NBCUniversal, NBC Sports has taken operational control of these networks and they are expected to become more acquainted with their sister national sports network, NBC Sports Network.

Future [edit]

Alternate feeds on Comcast SportsNet [edit]

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. Comcast SportsNet Chicago also has a 2nd alternate called Comcast SportsNet Chicago alternate or Plus 2.

The CSN alternate channels are also used to show FSN college football and basketball games.

Comcast SportsNet in the San Francisco Bay Area & Sacramento Valley [edit]

Since the San Francisco Bay Area and the rest of Northern California have so many sports teams, it has two Comcast SportsNet affiliates which split coverage of local sports: Comcast SportsNet California and Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. It is the only market that has two 24 hour, full-time Comcast SportsNet affiliates. Due to the territorial rules set by the National Basketball Association, Golden State Warriors games do not air in the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto television market on CSN Bay Area, while for the same reason, CSN California can not air Sacramento Kings telecasts in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose market.

Sportsnet [edit]

Main article: Rogers Sportsnet

Sportsnet, formerly known as CTV Sportsnet and Rogers Sportsnet, is owned by Rogers Communications, and is an RSN network serving Canada. It consists of four regional networks all available in HD.

TSN/RDS [edit]

The Sports Network (TSN) operates two regional sports networks:

  • Réseau des sports (RDS), serving Quebec. It is notable for all of its programming being in French, the predominant language in the province. The channel is available nationwide, but because of the limited reach of French outside Quebec, most of its sports coverage is centered around the province. This division also produces TSN Habs, a part-time network featuring English-language dubs of Montreal Canadiens games on a part-time basis, and RDS2, an overflow channel.
  • TSN Jets, a part-time network featuring the Winnipeg Jets, available in Northwestern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nunavut.

Independent regional sports networks [edit]

The following is a list of regional sports channels which are not part of a larger national network:

  • Time Warner Cable SportsNet and Time Warner Cable Deportes, networks (each in English and Spanish) that are joint ventures of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Southern California system cluster of Time Warner Cable. In an agreement signed on February 14, 2011, the Lakers and Time Warner Cable inked a 20-year, multi-million dollar agreement in which all Lakers games not designated for an ABC or TNT national telecast would be televised on two channels, each with English and Spanish-language broadcast teams on separate channels. These networks launched at the start of 2012–13 NBA season, and besides being carried on Los Angeles, Coachella Valley, and San Diego-area Time Warner systems (as Time Warner Cable is the primary cable operator in most of Southern California), the channels will be made available to other television service providers such as Cox Communications, Charter Cable, DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-verse, and Verizon FIOS.

College networks [edit]

  • Big Ten Network (BTN) airs sports involving Big Ten Conference universities exclusively. It is a joint venture between The Big Ten Conference, the conference's twelve schools, and the Fox Cable Networks division of News Corporation. Big Ten Network has four overflow feeds for football.
  • Pac-12 Network is the national network in a group of 7 American sports television networks dedicated to the Pac-12 Conference. The 7 networks, titled Pac-12 Networks, include the national network and 6 regional networks: Pac-12 Los Angeles (USC & UCLA), Pac-12 Washington (Washington & Washington State), Pac-12 Oregon (Oregon & Oregon State), Pac-12 Bay Area (Stanford & Cal), Pac-12 Arizona (Arizona & Arizona State), and Pac-12 Mountain (Utah & Colorado).[1] The national network was available in at least 48 million homes at time of launch,[2] while the regional networks are available in every home of their respective region in Pac-12 territory.[3] The Pac-12 Network will be the third network devoted to a specific conference after BTN and the now defunct Mtn. The networks will be the first owned fully by a conference without support from outside groups (BTN has Fox as a 49% owner and Mtn. had CBS and Comcast as partners).
  • byutv airs many sports involving the Brigham Young University Cougars, along with BYU-Idaho and BYU-Hawaii, including live and encore BYU football games under a unique rights deal with ESPN (the Cougar football team is currently a football independent). The network is owned by the university itself, though its main purpose since coming on-air in 2000 is to air programming and films pertaining to both BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nationally, with BYU sports serving as a secondary lure for viewers.
  • Longhorn Network is dedicated to the University of Texas at Austin, and is a joint venture between the school, ESPN, and IMG College, though this arrangement has proven controversial to other members of the Big 12 Conference and Texas A&M due to a perceived recruiting advantage. Proposals to air Texas high school football on the network were taken off the table due to these factors.

The Southeastern Conference explored starting its own 24-hour cable network,[4] but a recent content deal by the University of Florida with Fox's Sun Sports, [5] and a long term deal between the SEC and the ESPN family of networks [6] have ended its likelihood. ESPN Plus later reached a deal with the SEC for the syndicated SEC Network for football and basketball games, which is basically under the same arrangement as past SEC rights holders Raycom/Lincoln Financial/Jefferson-Pilot Sports.

Defunct networks [edit]

High Definition [edit]

Nearly all RSNs broadcast select content in High Definition. Fox Sports and Comcast SportsNet affiliates have dedicated HD channels, which are used for both local and national HD programming, mainly games. All Fox Sports affiliates use 720p and all CSN affiliates and independent channels use 1080i.

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Pac-12 Announces deal for national, regional networks, ESPN , retrieved 2011-07-27
  2. ^ "Pac-12 Networks: News and notes from the Stevenson teleconference". 2011-08-10. 
  3. ^ "Pac-12 creates its own network". 2011-07-28. 
  4. ^ SEC explores launching its own TV Network
  5. ^ Florida rights deal may rule out SEC channel
  6. ^ ESPN scores 15 year SEC rights deal

External links [edit]

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