Type | Regional sports network |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Broadcast area |
|
Network | Bally Sports |
Headquarters | Phoenix, Arizona |
Programming | |
Language(s) | English |
Picture format | |
Ownership | |
Owner | Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios |
Parent | Diamond Sports Group |
History | |
Launched | September 7, 1996 |
Closed | October 21, 2023 |
Former names |
|
Bally Sports Arizona (BSAZ) was an American regional sports network (RSN). The channel broadcast professional, collegiate and high school sports events, with a primary focus on Phoenix-area teams. It was available on most cable providers throughout Arizona and available nationwide on satellite provider DirecTV.
The network was launched as Fox Sports Arizona on September 7, 1996, through a partnership between News Corporation and Liberty Media. It was the first regional sports network branded as Fox Sports after the creation of Fox Sports Net from what had been the Prime Network group of RSNs. Fox Sports Arizona was the cable television home of the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League when they began play that October and of the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball when that team began play in 1998. In addition, Fox Sports Arizona carried college sports as well as Arizona high school sports. The Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association moved their cable games to the network in 2003 after 22 years of association with Cox Communications and its predecessors and their RSN, the Arizona Sports and Programming Network (later renamed Cox Sports, Cox 9, Cox 7, and YurView Arizona).
On March 31, 2021, the network was rebranded Bally Sports Arizona after the network was purchased by Diamond Sports Group, a joint venture between the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios. Diamond filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2023. The Arizona RSN lost money for Bally, which opted to drop all three professional teams. Under new Suns and Phoenix Mercury team owner Mat Ishbia, both the Suns and Mercury signed a deal to move their games to broadcast stations owned by Gray Television on April 20, 2023. [1] While this deal was stayed by a bankruptcy judge for the Suns (the Mercury were unaffected by the judge's ruling [2] ), Bally ultimately cut ties with the Suns after failing to match Gray's offer on July 14. [3] On July 18, Major League Baseball took over production and distribution of telecasts for the Diamondbacks after Diamond missed a second payment for the Diamondbacks during the 2023 season. [4] On October 4, Bally Sports cut ties with the Coyotes; [5] the team signed a deal with Scripps Sports a day later, ahead of the start of the 2023–24 season. [6]
Bally Sports Arizona signed off for the final time on October 21, 2023.
On March 21, 1996, two new teams in the market, the expansion team the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball and the relocating original Winnipeg Jets of the National Hockey League (to become known as the Arizona Coyotes) announced ten-year deals with Fox/Liberty Sports. The partnership between News Corporation and Liberty Media had been formed several months earlier. [7] The name for the new network was to have been Prime Sports Arizona, but following the announcement to rebrand Liberty's Prime Sports Networks and form Fox Sports Net, the name was changed to Fox Sports Arizona (FSAZ). [8] [9] The network would be the first to use the new Fox Sports name.
Fox Sports Arizona was launched on September 7, 1996, with the first game on the network being Arizona State University's 45–42 win over its Pac-10 rival, Washington. [10] [11] The first Coyotes game was broadcast on October 18, and the Diamondbacks would join the network a year and a half later for their inaugural 1998 season. [10] The network also televised high school football and basketball state championships. [11] In 2003, Fox Sports Arizona acquired rights to the Phoenix Suns, which had been televised by Cox Communications on its sports network since 1981. [12]
On December 14, 2017, as part of a merger between both companies, The Walt Disney Company announced plans to acquire all 22 regional Fox Sports networks from 21st Century Fox, including Fox Sports Arizona. However, on June 27, 2018, the Justice Department ordered their divestment under antitrust grounds, citing Disney's ownership of ESPN. On May 3, 2019, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios (through their joint venture, Diamond Sports Group) bought the Fox Sports Networks from The Walt Disney Company for $10.6 billion. The deal closed on August 22, 2019. [13] On March 31, 2021, coinciding with the start of the 2021 Major League Baseball season, Fox Sports Arizona was rebranded as Bally Sports Arizona, as part of a branding agreement with commercial casino operator Bally's Corporation. [14] [15]
On October 13, 2023, after losing the rights to Suns, Diamondbacks and Coyotes, Bally Sports Arizona posted on social media that it no longer held the rights to any local professional teams and would begin to wind down with the natural expiration of its carriage agreements. [16]
On February 15, 2023, Diamond Sports Group, the owner of Bally Sports Arizona, failed to make a $140 million interest payment, instead opting for a 30-day grace period to make the payment. [17] On March 14, 2023, Diamond Sports Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. [18]
During its bankruptcy, Diamond has missed a payment to the Arizona Diamondbacks. [19] On April 5, 2023, the Diamondbacks filed an emergency motion asking the bankruptcy judge to order Diamond to pay the Diamondbacks fully or give its media rights back to Major League Baseball. Diamond argued that because of cord-cutting the contract rate for the media rights of the teams was too high. A hearing on the matter was set for May 31, 2023. [20] As an interim, on April 19, the bankruptcy judge ordered Diamond Sports to pay 50% of what the Diamondbacks were owed. [21] On June 1, 2023, after a two day long hearing, the bankruptcy judge ordered Diamond to pay the Diamondbacks fully within five days. [22]
On April 28, 2023, the Phoenix Suns announced that it had signed an agreement with Gray Television to put its regional games on broadcast television, under a five-year agreement for the Suns and a two-year agreement for the Phoenix Mercury, replacing Bally Sports Arizona for their upcoming seasons. [23] Diamond subsequently accused the team of breaching its contract and bankruptcy law. [23] On May 10, 2023, the bankruptcy judge voided the Suns contract with Gray, ruling that the Suns violated Bally Sports Arizona's contractual right of first refusal. He ordered the parties into arbitration. The Phoenix Mercury's deal was not affected by the ruling, meaning they were allowed to air games onto KTVK and KPHE-LD for their 2023 season. [24] On July 14, the Suns announced that the Gray deal would go ahead, as Diamond Sports Group declined to match the contract. [25] Regular season games that are not nationally aired will be broadcast by 3TV, the Arizona's Family Sports channel brand throughout the state of Arizona, and KOLD-TV in the Tucson region only.
On June 22, 2023, Diamond Sports announced its intention to reject Bally Sports Arizona's contract with the Diamondbacks on June 30, 2023. [26] On July 18, 2023, Diamond was granted a motion to decline its contract with the team. Major League Baseball subsequently took over production and distribution of Diamondbacks telecasts (not unlike its takeover of a fellow Bally Sports property, the San Diego Padres, in May). [27] During the rest of the Diamondbacks' 2023 regular season period, their games were aired on local cable providers alongside YurView Arizona for those that had Cox Communications in the Phoenix and Tucson regions.
On October 4, 2023, Diamond Sports announced its intention to reject Bally Sports Arizona's contract with the Coyotes, with the Coyotes signing a new contract with Scripps Sports the next day. [28] Under the Scripps Sports umbrella, the Coyotes will air regular season games throughout both the states of Arizona and Utah. This move meant that Bally Sports Arizona no longer held the broadcast rights to any professional sports teams. [29]
On October 21, Bally Sports Arizona signed off for the last time, stating on-screen: "No Longer In Operation. Thank you for your loyal viewership over the years. Please check your local listings to access your favorite Arizona teams." The shutdown of the network leaves the Phoenix metropolitan area without a regional sports network for the first time since 1996, and becomes, to date, the only large United States market without one. [30] [31]
Bally Sports Arizona held the broadcast rights to three of the four major professional sports franchises in the Phoenix area, the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, the Arizona Diamondbacks of MLB, and the Arizona Coyotes of the NHL.
Fox Sports Arizona formerly held the broadcast rights to select Arizona Wildcats sporting events from its inception until the spring of 2009; the University of Arizona shifted these event telecasts to the Arizona Wildcats Sports Network, beginning in August 2009, which were simulcast on FSA from 2010 until 2012, upon the launch of the Pac-12 Network and its dedicated "Pac-12 Arizona" subfeed network devoted to Arizona and Arizona State University sports. The network also broadcast football and basketball from the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks and New Mexico State Aggies.
Fox Sports Arizona launched an alternate feed, Fox Sports Arizona Plus, on April 25, 2008. Created as an overflow active only during instances in which a sporting event that Fox Sports Arizona holds rights to overlaps with another game being broadcast on the primary channel, it was established to resolve scheduling conflicts involving game 3 of the first-round matchup between the Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs during the 2008 NBA playoffs and a scheduled Arizona Diamondbacks regular-season game on that date. It was available on most cable providers, and otherwise aired national Bally Sports content when not needed.
The Bally Sports Arizona Extra brand name was first in use on an additional overflow channel that was used for at least three Diamondbacks games. [32] [33]
In the Southern Arizona region only, including Tucson, Bally Sports Arizona Extra aired San Diego Padres games and related programming produced by its sister-network Bally Sports San Diego to select cable providers in that region until MLB took over that team's broadcast rights. [34]
The Arizona Diamondbacks are an American professional baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Diamondbacks compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) West Division. The franchise was established on March 9, 1995, and began play in 1998 as an expansion team. The team plays its home games at Chase Field. Along with the Tampa Bay Rays, the Diamondbacks are one of the newest teams in the MLB and are the youngest team to win a World Series.
FanDuel Sports Network Ohio is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group and is operated as an affiliate of FanDuel Sports Network. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of sports events in the state of Ohio, with a focus on professional sports teams based in Cleveland and Cincinnati, which are broadcast on separate programming feeds, as well as Columbus.
FanDuel Sports Network Great Lakes is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of FanDuel Sports Network. The channel, which is a sister network to FanDuel Sports Network Ohio, broadcasts statewide coverage of professional, collegiate and high school sports events throughout northern Ohio, including the Cleveland area.
A regional sports network (RSN) in the United States and Canada is a television channel that presents sports programming to a local media market or geographical region. Such channels often focus on one or a few teams who currently play in Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, Major League Soccer. Minor league sports, College sports, and High school sports, may also be shown on such networks and are less commonly a focus of a channel such as the Longhorn Network and a few defunct Spectrum Sports channels such as Spectrum Sports and Spectrum Sports (Wisconsin).
Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) is a broadcast television network in Arizona, United States. It is owned by Gray Television as part of the Arizona's Family group of stations, based in Phoenix, alongside CBS affiliate KPHO-TV and independent station KTVK. Its programming consists primarily of sports events and news simulcasts. It is broadcast by low-power station KPHE-LD and on a subchannel of KPHO-TV in Phoenix from transmitters atop South Mountain; in Flagstaff on KAZF, with transmitter on Mormon Mountain; in Yuma on KAZS, with transmitter on Black Mountain in Imperial County, California; and in Tucson as a subchannel of Gray-owned KOLD-TV.
FanDuel Sports Network Florida is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group as an affiliate of FanDuel Sports Network. The channel broadcasts local sports coverage in the state of Florida, with a focus on professional sports teams based in Miami, Tampa and Orlando.
FanDuel Sports Network North is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as a FanDuel Sports Network affiliate. The channel broadcasts coverage of sporting events involving teams located in the Upper Midwest region, with a focus on professional and collegiate sports teams based in Minnesota.
FanDuel Sports Network Southwest is a Texas-based regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of FanDuel Sports Network. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional, collegiate and high school sports events throughout the South Central United States. The network is headquartered in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Irving, Texas, with master control hubbed at FanDuel Sports Network's operations center in Atlanta, which houses master control operations for its regional networks in the Southeastern United States.
Most Major League Baseball games not broadcast exclusively by its media partners are televised by regional sports networks, which present sports programming of interest to their respective region. Most MLB broadcasters are members of chains such as NBC Sports Regional Networks and FanDuel Sports Network, although several teams are broadcast by regional networks that are independent of these chains. Some teams own partial or majority stakes in their regional broadcaster.
FanDuel Sports Network SoCal is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, a joint venture between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios, and operated as part of FanDuel Sports Network, along with its sister network FanDuel Sports Network West. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional and collegiate sports events in California, focusing primarily on teams based in the Greater Los Angeles area. Bally Sports SoCal is available on cable providers throughout Southern California, the Las Vegas Valley and Hawaii; it is also available nationwide on satellite via DirecTV.
Bally Sports San Diego was an American regional sports network owned as a joint venture between Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. Prior to the team parting ways with the network in 2023, the San Diego Padres owned a 20% stake. It was launched on March 17, 2012. The network was liquidated in April 2024.
Bally Sports New Orleans was an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operated as an affiliate of Bally Sports before it got renamed into the FanDuel Sports Network on October 21, 2024. Before the channel shut down in relation to Bally Sports' rebranding, the channel broadcast local coverage of professional and collegiate sports events within New Orleans and the state of Louisiana.
YurView Arizona is an American cable television channel serving Phoenix, Arizona, United States. The station is owned by Cox Communications. The station's studio facilities are located on the northwest end of Phoenix. The transmission signal is available to Cox cable television subscribers in central and southern Arizona, which includes the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas. It is on channel 4 on Cox's Phoenix-market systems and channel 7 on Cox's systems in southern Arizona.
Diamond Sports Group LLC is an American media and entertainment company operating as a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, and partnered with Allen Media Group. The company operates FanDuel Sports Network, a group of regional sports channels that was formerly known as the Fox Sports Networks and Bally Sports. The company also has a stake in YES Network.
FanDuel Sports Network is a group of regional sports networks in the United States owned by Diamond Sports Group. The networks carry regional broadcasts of sporting events from various professional, collegiate, and high school sports teams. Through its owned-and-operated networks and several other affiliates, its programming is available to all or part of at least 33 states.
The 2023 Major League Baseball season (MLB) began on March 30. The 93rd All-Star Game was played on July 11, hosted by the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Washington, with the National League winning, 3–2. The regular season ended on October 1, and the postseason began on October 3, and ended with Game 5 of the World Series on November 1. This season saw the introduction of several rule changes: in an effort to create a quicker pace of play, a pitch clock was introduced along with other minor changes, while limits on defensive shifts and larger bases were also introduced.
The following is a general overview of Major League Baseball on television in the 2020s. During the 2020s, Major League Baseball announced its first exclusive television contract with a paid streaming service. Due to the bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group, MLB took over the production of the local broadcasts of the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.
The following is a general overview of the National Basketball Association (NBA) on television in the 2020s. There have been no new national media contracts during this period. Locally three NBA teams, the Los Angeles Clippers, Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns, moved all or some of their games from regional sports networks to over-the-air television networks.
MLB Local Media is a division of Major League Baseball that produces and distributes regional television broadcasts for various MLB teams. Established prior to the 2023 season, the division has primarily served teams who no longer had a broadcaster due to business issues affecting their regional sports network rightsholders, including the ongoing bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group—owner of FanDuel Sports Network, and the closure of AT&T SportsNet in 2023. MLB Local Media broadcasts are distributed via ad-hoc agreements with television providers in each team's home market, as well as over-the-top (OTT) subscription packages hosted by MLB.tv.