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Major League Baseball on SportsChannel refers to the now defunct SportsChannel's television coverage of Major League Baseball on its respective regional sports networks.
The network began in April 1982 as Sportsvision, a joint venture between then-new owner Chicago Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, his fellow White Sox co-owner, television sports producer and promoter Eddie Einhorn, and Fred Eychaner, then-owner of local UHF station WPWR (then on Channel 60, now Channel 50). Since the city of Chicago was one of the last major cities not fully equipped for cable television, Sportsvision was initially an over-the-air subscription service, broadcasting over WPWR during nights and weekends. Viewers had to purchase a set-top converter and pay a monthly fee to view the telecasts, which included Bulls, Blackhawks, and White Sox games, plus college sports of local interest. Some games / events were also on the ONTV channel at the same time. At this point, the Bulls and White Sox continued to broadcast a number of over-the-air games, while the Blackhawks moved all of their broadcasts to Sportsvision, after many years broadcasting over WSNS (Channel 44). Channel 44 also had ON TV at the time and Sportsvision and ON TV were a joint venture as well and there were set-top converters with a switch to view ON TV or Sportsvision. In 1984 SOX games were on ON TV as well.
The decision of moving most of the White Sox broadcasts to pay television led to longtime announcer Harry Caray to become the play-by-play voice of the rival Cubs, due to the limited exposure that the White Sox would get in having the majority of games being seen in fewer homes. Chicago was (and is still to this day) one of the very few television markets in the country where a very large percentage of the home baseball teams' games were available over-the-air. Until the mid-1990s, the Cubs still televised all of their non-national (ABC, NBC, and later CBS) games over WGN-TV and a regional network of stations throughout parts of the Midwest.
In October 2004, FSN Chicago lost broadcast rights to all of the professional sports teams in the Chicago area when the owners of the Bulls, the White Sox, the Blackhawks, and the Cubs decided to end their agreement with the network and partnered with Comcast to form Comcast SportsNet Chicago. This led to a number of cable/satellite providers dropping the network.
In addition to national SportsChannel programming, it also showed select New York Yankees, New York Mets and Chicago White Sox games which were produced by SportsChannel New York and SportsChannel Chicago.
In 1996, Wayne Huizenga purchased a 70% controlling interest in SportsChannel Florida from Rainbow Media (by that time, a joint venture between Cablevision and NBC). That led Huizenga to move his Florida Marlins from the Sunshine Network in favor of SportsChannel in 1997. In 1998, SportsChannel Florida gained rights to MLB expansion team Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
SCLA featured live play-by-play of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the California Angels.
New York Yankees and New York Mets games were shown on the network. The Yankees telecasts moved to the MSG Network in the 1989 MLB season (Cablevision did not own the MSG Network at that time).
The channel originally launched on February 9, 1989 and officially launched on September 1 of that year as SportsChannel Ohio, an affiliate of SportsChannel, a joint venture between Cablevision and NBC. It featured Cleveland Indians and select Cincinnati Reds games (produced by SportsChannel Cincinnati).
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The White Sox are owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and play their home games at Guaranteed Rate Field, located on the city's South Side. They are one of two major league clubs in Chicago; the other is the Chicago Cubs of the National League (NL) Central division.
Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company in March 20, 2019 following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox. A condition of that acquisition imposed by the U.S. Department of Justice required Disney to sell the regional networks by June 18, 2019, 90 days after the completion of its acquisition. Disney subsequently agreed to sell the networks to Sinclair; the transaction was completed on August 22, 2019. The networks continued to use the Fox Sports name only under a transitional license agreement while rebranding options were explored. A rebranding cross-partnership with Bally's Corporation took effect on March 31, 2021, and the networks were rebranded as Bally Sports, ending the Fox Sports Networks branding after 25 years.
The Yankee Entertainment and Sports Network (YES) is an American pay television regional sports network owned by Yankee Global Enterprises, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Amazon, and The Blackstone Group, RedBird Capital and Mubadala Investment Company, which each own 13%. Primarily serving New York City, New York and the surrounding metropolitan area, it broadcasts a variety of sports events, as well as magazine, documentary and discussion programs; however, its main emphasis is focused on games and team-related programs involving the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball, the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, the WNBA's New York Liberty and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. In addition, the network carries select programming from Bally Sports.
The MSG Network (MSG) is an American regional cable and satellite television network, and radio service owned by MSG Networks, Inc.—a spin-off of the main Madison Square Garden Company operation.
PRISM was an American regional premium cable television channel in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Launched in September 1976, PRISM was primarily distributed through area cable systems, although it was also available through a scrambled over-the-air signal on WWSG-TV from 1983 to 1985.
SportsNet New York (SNY) is an American regional sports network owned by Sterling Entertainment Enterprises, LLC, itself a joint venture between the Fred Wilpon Sterling Equities, Charter Communications through its acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016 and Comcast, through its NBC Sports Group subsidiary. The channel primarily broadcasts games and related programming involving the Mets, but also carries supplementary coverage of the Mets and the New York Jets as well as college sports events.
SportsChannel is the collective name for a former group of regional sports networks in the United States that was owned by Cablevision, which from 1988 until the group's demise, operated it as a joint venture with NBC.
In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region.
Bally Sports Florida is an American regional sports network owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts local sports coverage in the state of Florida, with a focus on professional sports teams based in Miami, Tampa and Orlando.
MSG Plus is an American regional sports network owned by MSG Networks; it operates as a sister channel to MSG Network. The network serves the New York City metropolitan area, whose reach expands to cover the entire state of New York, Northern New Jersey, Southwestern Connecticut and Northeastern Pennsylvania; MSG Plus carries sports events from several of the New York area's professional sports franchises, as well as college sports events.
MLB Extra Innings is an out-of-market sports package distributed in North America by satellite provider DirecTV since 1996 and by most cable providers since 2001. The package allowed its subscribers to see up to 80 out-of-market Major League Baseball games a week using local over the air stations and regional sports networks.
FSN Chicago was an American regional sports network that was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and was owned by Cablevision for most of its history. News Corporation acquired a minority ownership interest in the network in 1997, which Cablevision bought out in 2005. The network was affiliated with SportsChannel from 1987 to 1997, when it became an affiliate of Fox Sports Net.
NBC Sports Chicago is an American regional sports network that broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports teams in the Chicago metropolitan area, as well as college sports events and original sports-related news, discussion and entertainment programming. It is branded as part of the NBC Sports Regional Networks.
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, Bally Sports, and AT&T SportsNet, 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.
NBC Sports Boston is an American regional sports network owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, and operates as an affiliate of NBC Sports Regional Networks. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports events throughout New England with a major focus on Boston area teams, as well as several original analysis, magazine and entertainment programs. It is available on cable providers throughout Massachusetts, eastern and central Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island; it is also available nationwide on satellite via DirecTV.
Several Major League Baseball teams have historically carried their games on superstations, which are broadcast television stations that are distributed on a regional or national basis on cable and satellite television.
WGN Sports is the programming division of WGN-TV, an independent television station located in Chicago, Illinois, United States—which is owned by the Nexstar Media Group—that is responsible for all sports broadcasts on the station, some of which were previously also broadcast on its former national superstation feed, WGN America.
Major League Baseball on NBC Sports refers to Major League Baseball television coverage on the chain of NBC Sports regional networks.
Marquee Sports Network is a regional sports network operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group and the Chicago Cubs, launched on February 22, 2020. It is devoted exclusively to Cubs baseball, replacing a triad of channels as the exclusive broadcaster of Cubs games not shown on national TV.