Regional sports network

The most important programming on a regional sports network (RSN) consists of live broadcasts of professional and collegiate sporting events, as those games generate an overwhelming percentage of an RSN's advertising income, in addition to viewership. During the rest of the day, these channels show other sports and recreation programming (such as news programs covering local and national sports; magazine and discussion programs relating to a team or collegiate conference; fishing and hunting programs; and in-studio video simulcasts of sports radio programs); rebroadcasts of sports events that aired as late as the day prior and paid programming may also be shown. These channels are often the source content for out-of-market sports packages. In the United States, DirecTV offers all regional sports networks to all subscribers across the country, however games and select programming is blacked out outside their home markets.

Regional sports networks are generally among the most expensive channels carried by cable television providers, due to the expense of rights to the local sports they carry; these higher subscriber fees received by television providers through retransmission consent carriage agreements coupled with percentages of other forms of revenue are used to pay local and regional teams for the right to broadcast their games. A typical RSN, as of 2012, carries a monthly retransmission fee of $2 to $3 per subscriber,[1] lower than the rates providers charge to carry ESPN and premium channels but higher than the rates for other cable networks. These high prices are supported by demand for the often-popular local sports teams they carry (particularly those that are member franchises of larger sports leagues such as Major League Baseball,[2] the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, as well as college teams that have large and loyal fanbases); carriage disputes between distributors and RSNs are often controversial and protracted. The expense of the per subscriber rate led some major providers such as Charter Spectrum and Verizon FiOS to begin incorporating a fixed "regional sports network fee" as a separate surcharge within its billing statements as early as 2013.[3][4]

Most regional sports networks in the United States are either affiliated with Bally Sports or the NBC Sports Regional Networks, which produce and distribute supplementary programming – including professional and college sports events involving out-of-market teams, and sports-centered reality and documentary series – for their individual owned-and-operated member networks and any RSNs not under common ownership that receive their "nationally" distributed programming through affiliation agreements. in the past, some RSNs also carried supplemental programming from networks such as America One, AMGTV or ESPNews, though vertical integration and the impact of streaming services removing game broadcasts from low-tier broadcast networks has effectively ended this practice.

In Canada, Sportsnet operates four regional sports networks, and the otherwise nationally distributed TSN also maintains some regional operations. This differs from the operational structure of RSNs in the United States, which are independently operated from national sports networks.

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 an individual network or a group, such as Bally Sports. 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 broadcasts stay with the team. The owned-and-operated RSN model generally works best in the largest markets where advertising and cable revenue is larger; in smaller or fringe markets, the sale of rights fees is more lucrative.

For example, the New York Rangers and New York Knicks have long co-owned their RSN, MSG; however, they also have purchased the rights to their rivals, the New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils. MSG also owns the rights to the Buffalo Sabres, however the team and ownership controls game production and that has since evolved into a separate MSG sub-channel for the Sabres market called MSG Western New York which is dual-controlled and programmed by MSG and Pegula Sports and Entertainment, owners of the Sabres effectively making it an owned and operated RSN. The Sabres had moved to MSG after the closure of their former home, Empire Sports Network, in the wake of the financial collapse of its owner Adelphia Communications Corporation.[5][6]

The first regional sports network is considered to be the Madison Square Garden Network. An early unnamed version of that network started broadcasting Knicks and Rangers to a small number of subscribers in Manhattan in May 1969.[7] By the late 1970s another version of this network would launch and be made available to other cable systems in the metropolitan area and it would finally receive the name Madison Square Garden Television in 1980. Another early network considered by many to be an RSN is Philadelphia's PRISM which launched in 1976 offering coverage of three of the city's major sports teams and movies.

In 1976, Cablevision launched a new service providing coverage of Long Island sports (originally called Cablevision Sports 3). This channel would be renamed SportsChannel New York in 1979 and became the first channel to resemble a modern regional sports network. Other SportsChannels were launched in different cities and in 1988, they were formally organized into a group that shared programming and national TV rights.

Nearly all regional sports networks broadcast all content in high definition as of 2016, with only the lowest-cost programming or high school sporting events produced locally for regional broadcast now only available in standard definition. Bally Sports and the NBC Sports Regional Networks owned-and-operated networks and affiliates maintain dedicated HD channels, which are used to broadcast both local and national HD programming, mainly game telecasts. All Bally Sports affiliates transmit HD programming in their native 720p resolution format; all NBC Sports Regional affiliates and independent channels transmit in 1080i.

Some telecasts (especially in U.S. college sports) are broadcast by ad-hoc syndicated packages, which can be picked up on a network of broadcasters that may consist of either individual over-the-air stations, regional sports networks, or a mixture of both.

Jefferson-Pilot Communications and Raycom Sports were well-known as syndicators of college sports on broadcast television, having previously held agreements with the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and Southeastern Conference (SEC). By the late-2000's. both packages began to wind down after ESPN acquired the media rights to both conferences; ESPN initially maintained a syndicated package known as "SEC Network", while Raycom was given a sub-license to continue its syndication package (subsequently renamed "ACC Network").[32][33] Both packages ended when ESPN launched dedicated cable channels for both conferences.

ESPN was originally intended to focus on sports in Connecticut, but chose to broadcast nationally when it debuted in 1979 when it was discovered by the network's founders that it would be less expensive to broadcast nationwide on satellite as opposed to regionally through microwave transmission.[34] ESPN formerly served as a college sports syndicator via ESPN Regional Television—formerly branded on-air as ESPN Plus, but later using conference-oriented brands such as SEC Network (not to be confused with the SEC Network cable channel which served as its de facto replacement), and Big East Network. The SEC Network package was a successor to the previous Raycom Sports-produced SEC package.

In 2014, television station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group established its own sports syndicator known as the American Sports Network (ASN), primarily syndicating broadcasts of college football and basketball from mid-major conferences (some of which were previously associated with ESPN Plus) to stations that it owns and operates.[35][36] In 2015, Sinclair also acquired regional rights to Major League Soccer's Real Salt Lake, with ASN handling production and distribution of team telecasts within its designated market.[37] ASN later began to operate a dedicated channel (which, in contrast to other sports channels, was distributed free-to-air via digital subchannels, and eventually subsumed its syndication of individual telecasts), and In 2017, was replaced by Stadium as part of a joint venture with Silver Chalice—which carries a larger focus on streaming distribution alongside digital subchannels.

• Sports channel
• Broadcasting of sports events

• Kaiser's Blog – Info on RSN history and some regions.