Fox Sports Net - Definition and Overview

The Fox Sports Regional Networks, or simply Fox Sports Net, are cable TV networks that were originally owned by separate companies. In addition, Fox Sports Net broadcasts sports news and talk across a range of radio affiliates. The most notable were the SportsChannel networks, which went on the air in 1977 with the original SportsChannel (now Fox Sports New York), and the Prime Sports Networks, which went on the air in 1983 with the charter member being Prime Sports Southwest (now Fox Sports Southwest).

During the 1990s, News Corporation, which launched the Fox Network in 1986, bought both the Prime Sports and SportsChannel regional sports networks.

Starting in September 2004, Fox Sports Net became known simply as FSN.

Fox Sports Net is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, just south of Westwood. The company's ownership structure is quite tangled and is often used by law professors to demonstrate how lawyers can make even simple companies look complicated. At the top, it is 50% owned by News Corp's Fox Entertainment Group, while the other half is owned by Cablevision through Rainbow Media Group.

Regional networks

• FSN Arizona
• FSN Bay Area* (San Francisco Bay Area)
• FSN Chicago*
• FSN Detroit
• FSN Florida*
• FSN Midwest (St. Louis area, with a sub-feed for Indiana)
• FSN New England* (New England)
• FSN New York*
• FSN North (Minnesota/Wisconsin split feed)
• FSN Northwest (Oregon/Washington)
• FSN Ohio* (several different feeds depending on where you live in Ohio)
• FSN Pittsburgh
• FSN Rocky Mountain (Colorado, with a sub-feed for Utah)
• FSN South (U.S. South)
• FSN Southwest (Texas area)
• FSN West/West 2 (Los Angeles area)

Asterisk denotes stations owned by Cablevision through Rainbow Media Group

The major regional sports networks that are not part of Fox Sports Net are:

• Sunshine Network (Florida, although it is owned by Fox)
• NESN (New England Sports Network), which is owned by the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins
• Empire Sports Network (upstate New York)
• YES (Yankees Entertainment and Sports) which is owned by the New York Yankees
• MSG (Madison Square Garden Network) (New York), owned by Cablevision, NewsCorp's partner in FSN, through Rainbow Media Group
• Comcast Sports Net in Philadelphia, PA, and including a station formerly known as Home Team Sports (HTS), based in Washington, DC; Comcast acquired all partnership interest from Viacom (Fox being a limited partner) in 2000 along with all of Midwest Sports Channel in Chicago, IL, which also had a station in Milwaukee, WI (Source: American Business Journals). Fox then initiated a lawsuit, and won MSC's Milwaukee station, which is now FSN North.
• Victory Sports One (Minnesota, folded shortly after founding in 2004)
• Comcast Sports Net Chicago, starting October 1, 2004
• Altitude Sports (Denver and Rocky Mountain sports), starting September 1, 2004.

External links

• FOX Sports website (http://www.foxsports.com/)