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.
The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any sport in the world. Television brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then, National Football League broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the financial fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights. This has raised questions about the impartiality of the networks' coverage of games and whether they can criticize the NFL without fear of losing the rights and their income.
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 ideal customer of this package is presumed to be a fan of a team who is 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. From 1994 to 2023, the package was distributed in the United States exclusively by DirecTV. The package is also currently offered in Canada on streaming service DAZN, in Mexico and Central America on Sky México, in South America and the Caribbean on Vrio, and several cable providers in The Bahamas and Bermuda.
Anti-siphoning laws and regulations are designed to prevent pay television broadcasters from buying monopoly rights to televise important and culturally significant events before free-to-air television has a chance to bid on them. The theory is that if such a monopoly was allowed, then those unable or unwilling to obtain access to the pay television service would be unable to view the important and culturally significant events. Generally the laws allow pay-TV to bid for such monopoly rights only if free-to-air television has declined to bid on them.
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 and NBCUniversal. Dedicated to 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.
NBA League Pass is the National Basketball Association's direct-to-consumer subscription-based product that gives basketball fans access to NBA games, live and on-demand, for the entire NBA season. League Pass is available to viewers in the United States and as an international package for all other countries. The pricing structure and services on offer are different, depending on where the viewer is located. A 7-day free trial is available for new subscribers everywhere.
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 will be 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.
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.
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.
The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox Communications having minority ownership.
This article refers to Sports broadcasting contracts in Canada. For broadcasting rights lists of other countries, see Sports television broadcast contracts.
Major League Baseball has several blackout rules. Games are blacked out based on two criteria:
NFL RedZone is an American sports television channel owned and operated by NFL Network since 2009. 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.
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.
