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In North America, an out-of-market sports package is a form of subscription television that broadcasts sporting events to areas where the events were unable to be seen by viewers on other broadcast and cable television networks due to the games not being broadcast in their local market.
Many leagues with major television contracts establish elaborate rules regarding which games are broadcast in different regions (with local teams usually getting preference). For viewers who prefer to see a game other than the one being locally broadcast in their designated market area, the out-of-market package provides additional options.
*NFL Sunday Ticket is exclusive to YouTube in the United States, but in other countries (most notably Canada) it is available more broadly, on several cable providers.
Internet sports packages are primarily marketed directly to consumers and not through cable or satellite providers. Current Internet television and radio subscription or pay-per-view services include:
Major League Baseball and the National Football League are the only professional sports leagues to black out local affiliates' internet radio feeds. Ironically, while the NFL charges money for radio feeds, it sells the Internet television rights to other networks that make those games available online for free, the opposite model of the other U.S cities major sports leagues.
NFL Network is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NFL RedZone. Dedicated to American football, the network features game telecasts from the NFL, as well as NFL-related content including analysis programs, specials and documentaries. The network is headquartered in the NFL Los Angeles building located next to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and broadcasts its worldwide feed from Encompass Digital Media in Atlanta, Georgia. The network has secondary East Coast facilities in the NFL Films building in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.
NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through TNT Sports. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regular season and playoff game broadcasts from the NBA and related professional basketball leagues, as well as NBA-related content including analysis programs, specials and documentaries. The network is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The network also serves as the national broadcaster of the NBA G League and WNBA games. NBA TV is the oldest subscription network in North America to be owned or controlled by a professional sports league, having launched on November 2, 1999.
NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts National Football League (NFL) regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. It carries all the regional Sunday afternoon games produced by Fox and CBS. The package is marketed to, primarily, fans who are unable to see their team on local television because they do not reside in one of that team's markets, or sports bars who want to increase business by attracting fans of out of market teams. Beginning with the 2023 NFL season, for residential customers in the United States, NFL Sunday Ticket moved exclusively to YouTube TV, as well as to YouTube's recently launched Primetime Channels service as a standalone subscription option. The league then formed a new company called EverPass Media to distribute the package to bars, restaurants, and other commercial venues. From 1994 through the end of the 2022 NFL season, the package was distributed in the United States exclusively by DirecTV & NFLUHD.
In broadcasting, the term blackout refers to the non-airing of television or radio programming in a certain media market.
NHL Center Ice is an out-of-market sports package distributed by most cable and satellite providers in the United States and Canada. The package allows its subscribers to see up to forty out-of-market National Hockey League games a week using local and national television networks.
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.
A barker channel is a form of digital signage, operating in the form of a television channel that is entirely composed of sales promotion and advertising, usually marketing various features of the service carrying the channel. The name is derived from the circus barker, who stood outside a circus and shouted to passers-by to encourage them to enter to view the entertainment being provided by the attraction.
NHL Centre Ice is a Canadian digital cable subscription out-of-market sports package controlled and distributed by Rogers Communications through Rogers Cable as of 2014. It is offered by three national satellite television service providers, Bell Satellite TV, TELUS Optik TV, Telus Satellite TV, and Shaw Direct and many digital cable television providers such as Eastlink, Shaw, Cogeco and more.
NHL Network is an American sports-oriented cable and satellite television network that is a joint venture between the National Hockey League (NHL), which owns a controlling 84.4% interest, and NBCUniversal, which owns the remaining 15.6%. Dedicated to providing broadcast coverage of ice hockey, the network features live game telecasts from the NHL and other professional and collegiate hockey leagues, as well as NHL-related content including analysis programs, specials and documentaries.
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.
MLS Direct Kick was an out-of-market sports package distributed by most cable and satellite providers in North America. As of the 2011 season, package subscribers were able to watch up to 221 Major League Soccer regular season games as well as some MLS Cup playoff matches. The target market for this package is soccer fans who are unable to see games because they have moved out of that team's market. It has been superseded by MLS Season Pass.
DirecTV, LLC is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It also provides traditional linear television service delivered by IP through its U-verse TV brand and a virtual multichannel video programming distributor service through its DirecTV Stream brand. Its primary competitors are Dish Network, traditional cable television providers, IP-based television services, and other over-the-top video services.
NBC Sports Philadelphia is an American regional sports network owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by locally based cable television provider Comcast, and the Philadelphia Phillies. It is the flagship owned-and-operated outlet of NBC Sports Regional Networks. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports teams in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, as well as college sports events and original sports-related news, discussion and entertainment programming.
NBC Sports Northwest was an American regional sports network owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, as an affiliate of NBC Sports Regional Networks. The network broadcast regional coverage of professional sports events throughout the Pacific Northwest, focusing primarily on the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and college sports events involving the Oregon Ducks. It also covered other sports events involving teams within the northwestern United States, including those featuring college and high school teams.
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 Bally Sports, 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.
The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with TNT Sports, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox Communications having minority ownership.
Sports broadcasting contracts in Canada include:
NFL RedZone is an American sports television channel owned and operated by NFL Network since 2009. It is named after the term "red zone", the part of the football field between the 20-yard line and the goal line. As a "special" game-day exclusive, it broadcasts on Sundays during the NFL regular season from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern, or when the last afternoon window game ends. RedZone provides "whip around" simulcast coverage of all Sunday afternoon games airing in-progress on CBS and Fox.
A carriage dispute is a disagreement over the right to "carry", that is, retransmit, a broadcaster's signal. Carriage disputes first occurred between broadcasters and cable companies and now include direct broadcast satellite and other multichannel video programming distributors.
The National Hockey League (NHL) is shown on national television in the United States and Canada. With 25 teams in the U.S. and 7 in Canada, the NHL is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada that maintains separate national broadcasters in each country, each producing separate telecasts of a slate of regular season games, playoff games, and the Stanley Cup Finals.