Fox Sports Networks

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 on 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, ninety days after the completion of its acquisition. Disney subsequently agreed to sell the networks (excluding the YES Network, being reacquired by Yankee Global Enterprises) 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.

Each of the channels in the group carried regional broadcasts of sporting events from various professional, collegiate and high school sports teams (with broadcasts typically exclusive to each individual channel, although some were shown on multiple FSN channels or syndicated to a local broadcast station within a particular team's designated market area), along with regional and national sports discussion, documentary and analysis programs.

Depending on their individual team rights, some Fox Sports Networks maintained overflow feeds available via subscription television providers in their home markets, which provided alternate programming when not used to carry game broadcasts that the main feed could not carry due to scheduling conflicts. Fox Sports Networks was headquartered in Houston, Texas, with master control facilities based in both Houston and Los Angeles; FSN also maintained production facilities at Stage 19 at Universal Studios Florida (which formerly served as home of Nickelodeon Studios until its closure in 2005).

At the dawn of the cable television era, many regional sports networks (RSNs) vied to compete with the largest national sports network, ESPN. The most notable were the SportsChannel network, which first began operating in 1976 with the launch of the original SportsChannel (now MSG Sportsnet) in the New York City area and later branched out into channels serving Chicago and Florida; Prime Network, which launched in 1983 with Home Sports Entertainment (now Bally Sports Southwest) as its charter member network and later branched out onto the West Coast as "Prime Sports"; and SportSouth, an RSN operated by the Turner Broadcasting System.

On October 31, 1995, News Corporation, which ten years earlier launched the Fox Broadcasting Company, a general entertainment broadcast network that formed its own sports division in 1994 with the acquisition of the television rights to the National Football Conference of the National Football League, entered into a joint venture with TCI's Liberty Media, acquiring a 50% ownership interest in the company's Prime Sports affiliates Liberty in turn gained a stake in Fox's year-old cable channel FX. On July 3, 1996, News Corporation and Liberty Media/TCI announced that the Prime Sports networks would be rebranded under the new "Fox Sports Net" brand; the Prime Sports-branded affiliates were officially relaunched as Fox Sports Net on November 1 of that year. The first new network to come out of the partnership was Fox Sports Arizona which launched on September 7, 1996, nearly two months before the existing networks would be rebranded. That same year, Fox purchased SportSouth from Turner, and rebranded that network as Fox Sports South in January 1997.

On June 30, 1997, the Fox/Liberty joint venture purchased a 40% interest in Cablevision/NBC's sports properties including the SportsChannel America networks, Madison Square Garden, and the New York Knicks and New York Rangers professional sports franchises, a deal worth $850 million; the deal formed the venture National Sports Partners to run Fox Sports Net's national programming operations. In early 1998, SportsChannel America was integrated into the Fox Sports Net family of networks; SportsChannel Florida, however, remained as the lone SportsChannel America-branded network before it joined FSN as well in 2000 after News Corporation and Cablevision purchased Florida Panthers owner Wayne Huizenga's controlling interest in that network.

In 1999, Liberty Media (which had become a subsidiary of AT&T when AT&T acquired TCI earlier that year) sold its interest in Fox Sports Net and FX to News Corp. The sale was part of a complex transaction involving a stock swap that gave Liberty an 8% interest in News Corp, making it the second largest shareholder. News Corp became the sole owner of Fox Sports Net.

On July 11, 2000, Comcast purchased a majority interest in the Minneapolis-based Midwest Sports Channel and Baltimore-based Home Team Sports from Viacom. News Corporation, a minority owner in both networks, wanted to acquire them outright and integrate the two networks into Fox Sports Net. Home Team Sports had been affiliated with FSN since 1996. The company filed a lawsuit against Comcast ten days later on July 21, in an attempt to block the sale. On September 7, 2000, as part of a settlement between the two companies, Comcast traded its equity interest in Midwest Sports Channel (which became Fox Sports Net North) to News Corporation in exchange for exclusive ownership of Home Team Sports (which subsequently joined competing regional sports network Comcast SportsNet as Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic, now NBC Sports Washington).