Bally Sports Arizona

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. While this deal was stayed by a bankruptcy judge for the Suns (the Mercury were unaffected by the judge's ruling), Bally ultimately cut ties with the Suns after failing to match Gray's offer on July 14. 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. On October 4, Bally Sports cut ties with the Coyotes; the team signed a deal with Scripps Sports a day later, ahead of the start of the 2023–24 season.

Bally Sports Arizona signed off for the final time on October 21, 2023.

On March 21, 1996, two teams new to the market, the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball and the relocating original Winnipeg Jets of the National Hockey League (which became the Phoenix, later Arizona Coyotes), announced ten-year deals with Fox/Liberty Sports to telecast 60 baseball games and 40 hockey games a season. The partnership between News Corporation and Liberty Media had been formed several months earlier. Liberty owned the Prime Sports group of regional sports networks, whose programming was seen in Arizona on the Cox Communications–owned Arizona Sports Programming Network (ASPN). 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).

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. The first Coyotes game was broadcast on October 18; the Diamondbacks would join the network a year and a half later for their inaugural 1998 season. The network also televised high school football and basketball state championships. The other major team in the market, the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association, had been telecast by ASPN since 1981; the team remained with ASPN and its successors, Cox Sports and Cox 9, until 2003, when Fox Sports Arizona acquired rights.

A secondary feed, branded as FSN Arizona Plus, was first used in 2007 to manage conflicts between a Suns playoff game and a Diamondbacks game. It returned in 2008 for the same purpose. By 2011, it was a full-time channel on most cable providers. In 2021 and 2022, a third feed, known as Bally Sports Arizona Extra, was necessary due to overlapping NBA, NHL, and MLB games.

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. 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.