FanDuel Sports Network Detroit

FanDuel Sports Network Detroit is an American regional sports network owned by Main Street Sports Group (formerly Diamond Sports Group) and operated as an affiliate of FanDuel Sports Network. It provides coverage of local sports teams in the state of Michigan, primarily focusing on those in Metro Detroit. The network airs exclusive broadcasts of games involving the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Pistons, and Detroit Red Wings; repeats of Detroit Lions preseason games; and some high school sports.

FanDuel Sports Network Detroit is available on cable television throughout Michigan, as well as in northeastern Indiana, northwest Ohio and some portions of northeastern Wisconsin and nationwide on satellite via DirecTV. FanDuel Sports Network Detroit is available for streaming through DirecTV Stream and FuboTV. The network's production facilities and offices are based in Southfield, Michigan, with master control operations based at the Sinclair Broadcast Group Media Operations Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It also maintains dedicated remote sets in the concourses of Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena.

FanDuel Sports Network Detroit traces its origins to 1996, when News Corporation purchased 50% of the Prime Network, a group of regional sports networks owned by Liberty Media, and immediately rebranded them under the "Fox Sports Network" banner. At the time of the purchase, Post-Newsweek Stations (owners of Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV-TV, channel 4) owned the Detroit-based Pro-Am Sports System (PASS Sports), which served the local affiliate of the Prime Network. News Corporation announced plans to launch a Fox Sports Net affiliate in Michigan, and made a surprise bid for, and won, the local cable television rights to NBA games involving the Detroit Pistons.

When PASS Sports' respective National Hockey League and Major League Baseball broadcast rights to the Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Tigers franchises came up for renewal, Fox Sports Net made a bid for the contracts and won them both. Fox Sports decided to push the launch date of the new channel forward in time for the beginning of the 1997–98 NHL season and 1998 MLB season; Fox Sports Detroit began broadcasting on September 17, 1997. Post-Newsweek, meanwhile, concluded that its coverage area was not large enough to support two RSNs and sold the remainder of its Tigers and Pistons contracts, and the contract of sportscaster John Keating, to Fox Sports Detroit. Post-Newsweek shut down PASS Sports on October 31, 1997, leaving Fox Sports Detroit as the sole regional sports network in Michigan.

From its launch until January 16, 2008, Fox Sports Detroit broadcast its studio shows out of FSN Northwest's facilities in Bellevue, Washington. On October 1, 2009, the network unveiled a new all-digital high definition-capable studio in its Southfield headquarters dubbed the "Call Sam Studio", named after its sponsor, the Sam Bernstein Law Firm. It serves as the production base of the pre-game/post-game shows Tigers Live, Pistons Live and Red Wings Live, as well the magazine shows of all three teams and all of the channel's other local programming. It was expected that 80% of the shows produced from the studio would be produced and broadcast in HD. The first program to originate from the new studio was Wingspan, a special previewing the 2009–10 Red Wings season, on October 1.

The channel shared professional team coverage rights with some Detroit area broadcast television stations until the spring of 2008. In March 2008, the channel signed new long-term contracts with the Pistons, Red Wings and Tigers to broadcast more games than in previous years, becoming the exclusive local home of all three teams for the first time until at least 2018. This leaves only the NFL's Detroit Lions as the only local professional sports team in Detroit to have all of its games on broadcast television.

Around this time a 720p high definition simulcast feed of Fox Sports Detroit was launched. It telecasts all Detroit Pistons, Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Tigers games in HD, their respective pre-game and post-game shows and team magazine shows, as well as all college and high school games and programs. Wingspan became the first locally produced pre-recorded program to be broadcast in HD when it began in 2009. In 2010, Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) and MHSAA games began airing in HD. Today almost all programming is shown in HD.

On May 21, 2015, the Detroit Lions announced a multi-year broadcast partnership with Fox Sports Detroit and WJBK (Fox 2). Fox Sports Detroit produces the preseason game broadcasts with Fox 2 producing the pre-game and post-game segments. The games air live on Fox 2 and the rest of the Detroit Lions Television Network, with re-airings on Bally Sports Detroit. Bally Sports Detroit also airs Lions Live after regular season games, and Monday head coach press conferences.