Origins In 1986,
Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) and the
Utah Jazz formed a joint-venture to broadcast 20 Jazz games during the 1986-87 season to cable subscribers in five western states starting. The channel, named
Jazz Cable Network was ad-supported and offered as a basic service. In addition to the 20 live games, 4 classic games were also aired. Due to a lack of other sports content, the channel was part-time and only operated during the basketball season. The number of games were increased to 25 and then 26 for the 1987–88 and 1988-89 seasons respectively. In 1989, TCI announced a partnership with
Bill Daniels to combine the two companies regional sports offerings into the
Prime Sports Network.
Network history The network launched in November 1989 as
Prime Sports Network Utah; owned by TCI's
Liberty Media, it served as an owned-and-operated outlet of the Prime Network group of regional sports networks. In its first year, the network carried 25 Utah Jazz games. In 1996,
News Corporation, which formed a sports division for the
Fox network two years earlier after it obtained the broadcast rights to the
National Football Conference, acquired a 50% interest in the Prime Network from Liberty Media. On November 1, 1996, News Corporation and Liberty Media relaunched the Prime Network affiliates as part of the new
Fox Sports Net group, with the Salt Lake City-based network officially rebranding as
Fox Sports Utah. The channel was rebranded as
Fox Sports Net Utah in 2000, as part of a collective brand modification of the FSN networks under the "Fox Sports Net" banner; subsequently in 2004, the channel shortened its name to
FSN Utah, through the networks' de-emphasis of the "Fox Sports Net" brand. On December 22, 2006, News Corporation sold its interest in FSN Utah and sister networks
FSN Pittsburgh,
FSN Northwest and
FSN Rocky Mountain to Liberty Media, in an asset trade in which News Corporation also traded its 38.5% ownership stake in satellite provider
DirecTV for $550 million in cash and stock, in exchange for Liberty Media's 16.3% stake in the company. On May 4, 2009, DirecTV Group Inc. announced it would become a part of Liberty's entertainment unit, part of which would then be
spun off into the separate company under the DirecTV name, in a deal in which Liberty would increase its share in DirecTV from 48% to 54%, with Liberty owner
John Malone and his family owning a 24% interest. DirecTV would operate its newly acquired FSN-affiliated networks through
DirecTV Sports Networks, a new division formed when the split off from Liberty Media was completed on November 19, 2009. On December 17, 2010, DirecTV Sports Networks announced that its four Fox Sports Networks-affiliated regional outlets – FSN Utah, FSN Pittsburgh, FSN Northwest and FSN Rocky Mountain – would be relaunched under the "
Root Sports" brand. The network officially rebranded as
Root Sports Utah on April 1, 2011. On April 8, 2016, DirecTV Sports Networks rebranded under the AT&T name as AT&T Sports Networks. On June 12, 2017, AT&T Sports Networks announced its networks would rebrand under the name AT&T SportsNet Utah, with all network programming and on-air talent remaining intact. On July 14, 2017, Root Sports Utah was merged into
AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, while a separate subfeed is still maintained, Utah is no longer part of the branding. ==Programming==