Comcast SportsNet

Origins

The origins of Comcast SportsNet are traced to Comcast's March 19, 1996 purchase of a 66% interest in Spectacor and its primary assets – the Philadelphia Flyers, The Spectrum and the then-recently completed CoreStates Center – for $240 million and the assumption of a collective $170 million in debt; the new Comcast Spectacor (which appointed the company's previous majority owner, Edward M. Snider, as its chairman) also immediately purchased a 66% interest in the Philadelphia 76ers.

Immediately after the purchase was announced, there was speculation that Comcast would let Spectacor's television contracts with two local premium services that had long been carrying their games – PRISM (which carried movies and specials, in addition to sports events) and the all-sports network SportsChannel Philadelphia (both owned by Rainbow Media) – run out and create a sports network of its own, buy the existing networks or reach a complex deal with Rainbow to have PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia retain the broadcast rights to the 76ers and Flyers. Comcast immediately approached the Philadelphia Phillies – whose contract with PRISM and Sports Channel Philadelphia ended after the 1997 season – about entering into a broadcast deal, indicating it would launch an RSN.

After short-lived discussions between Rainbow Media and Comcast about the latter possibly becoming a part-owner in PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia, on April 25, 1996, Comcast Spectacor formally announced plans to create a new Philadelphia-centric basic cable channel, which would carry sports events from the Flyers (whose contract with PRISM and SportsChannel was set to end that fall and was extended by one year on October 4, 1996, the day before its season home opener, after strained contract negotiations) and the Phillies. On July 21, 1997, Comcast acquired the local television rights to the Philadelphia 76ers, with the team opting out of its contract with PRISM and SportsChannel that was set to run until the 1999-2000 season.

The launch of the new network, Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, effectively shuttered PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia when it launched on October 1, 1997, with the network directly replacing the latter on Philadelphia area local cable systems;

Expansion into other markets

CSN began to expand with a series of acquisitions and new establishments: on July 11, 2000, Comcast acquired a 75% majority interest in Baltimore-area regional sports network Home Team Sports and Minneapolis-based network Midwest Sports Channel from Viacom for approximately $150 million. Minority owner News Corporation, which wanted to acquire full ownership of both networks to make them part of its Fox Sports Net group, sued Comcast and Viacom 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 to News Corporation in exchange for sole ownership of Home Team Sports. HTS was later relaunched as Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic on April 4, 2001.

On October 1, 2004, Comcast SportsNet Chicago was launched to replace FSN Chicago, as the local teams wanted to have editorial control over their broadcasts. Also in October 2004, Comcast SportsNet West was launched conjunction with Maloof Sports & Entertainment, owners of the Sacramento Kings. The channel was renamed Comcast SportsNet California in 2008.

On April 30, 2007, Cablevision Systems Corporation sold its 50% ownership interests in FSN Bay Area and FSN New England to Comcast for $570 million (the San Francisco Giants were added as a partner in FSN Bay Area, when the team acquired a 30% stake in the network on December 10); subsequently, FSN New England rebranded as Comcast SportsNet New England in July 2007, while FSN Bay Area was rebranded as Comcast SportsNet Bay Area on March 31 of that year.

As the result of the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast in February 2011, the operations of CSN, along with sister national sports networks Versus and Golf Channel, were integrated into the NBC Sports division. Plans called for NBC-related branding to be eventually incorporated by the Comcast SportsNet outlets, although plans to drop the brand entirely in favor of renaming the collective networks under the NBC Sports brand were shelved in favor of retaining the CSN brand. In September 2012, the CSN networks began adopting the NBC Sports graphics package designed by Troika Design Group (introduced as part of a rebranding of the division's on-air presentation in January of that year) for live game coverage and studio shows; the CSN logo was also updated to incorporate the NBC peacock. The networks' flagship program, "SportsNet Central", later adopted the NBC Sports logo and graphics in April 2014.

In April 2012, NBC Owned Television Stations took over responsibilities of selling national advertising on behalf of four CSN networks (New England, Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic, Comcast SportsNet Northwest and Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia). For "unwired sales", the Group will be continue to be represented by Home Team Sports. The arrangement is an extension of one that it had established with New England Cable News in 2011.

In early 2012, Comcast signed a contract worth $1 billion with the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets, which formed a new joint venture in which the two teams would own a 77.307% ownership interest in a new Houston-based sports network (with Comcast holding the remaining 22.693% interest); Comcast SportsNet Houston launched on October 1, 2012, assuming the rights to the Rockets and Astros from Fox Sports Houston, which shut down three days later. After filing an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition for the network on September 27, 2013, to "resolve structural issues affecting CSN Houston's partnership," DirecTV Sports Networks and AT&T acquired Comcast SportsNet Houston on August 6, 2014 as part of a reorganization plan (with DirecTV as majority owner at 60%). The network was then integrated into DirecTV-operated Root Sports group, which relaunched it as Root Sports Southwest on November 14, 2014.

In markets that did not have an affiliate of that group, Comcast SportsNet also carried national programming distributed by competing regional sports network chain FSN (which included various college sports and UEFA Champions League soccer), a relationship that traced back to the launch of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia (which took over the FSN programming rights from SportsChannel Philadelphia). CSN quietly dropped all FSN-supplied programming on August 1, 2012, after failing to reach an agreement to continue carrying FSN's nationally distributed programs. In the Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C./Baltimore markets, programming from Fox Sports Networks airs on local broadcast stations.

Other channels

New England Cable News, a regional news channel owned by Comcast, was operated as a part of Comcast Sports Group and CSN prior to Comcast's purchase of NBC Universal. In July 2013, as part of a corporate reorganization, NECN had its operations transferred to NBC Owned Television Stations (the unit of NBCUniversal Television Group responsible for running NBC and Telemundo's owned-and-operated stations).

Comcast also owned Comcast Local (CL), a Detroit-based sports network that was distributed throughout Michigan and central Indiana. The network provided coverage of local collegiate and high school sports events, as well as minor league sports throughout its broadcast area. Comcast Local ceased operations in February 2008, as every major professional or college team in the region had its programming tied to FSN Detroit and/or the Big Ten Network.

Comcast SportsNet HD

Comcast SportsNet HD is a high definition simulcast feed of select programs from Comcast SportsNet including live sports and series. Each regional channel (and in some cases, their alternate feed) has its own separate high-definition feed, with their own set schedules of programming – including live sports events as well as locally produced and CSN-distributed national programs and live studio shows – available in HD. Comcast SportsNet Northwest currently does not maintain a high-definition simulcast in the Seattle market.

Comcast SportsNet Plus

Most Comcast SportsNet outlets maintain alternate (or overflow) feeds under the Comcast SportsNet Plus brand (with the network's regional name suffixed preceding the "Plus" title) for the broadcast of two or more events involving teams the respective network holds the broadcast rights to carry. Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia maintains a different arrangement, using sister channel The Comcast Network to serve as a de facto overflow network in the event that two local games are scheduled to air simultaneously on CSN Philadelphia.

Programming strategy

Each of the Comcast SportsNet outlets have acquired the play-by-play broadcast rights to major sports teams in their regional market (exempting NFL regular season or playoff games, since the league's contracts require all games to be aired on broadcast television in each participating team's local markets). In addition to local play-by-play coverage, the CSN networks also produce and broadcast pre-game and post-game shows, and broadcasts weekly "magazine" shows centered on the teams that maintain rights with the individual network. In some markets, CSN competes directly with other regional sports networks for the broadcast rights to team-specific programming.

Live national play-by-play

Other sports