The first regional sports network is considered to be the
Madison Square Garden Network. An early unnamed version of that network started broadcasting
Knicks and
Rangers to a small number of subscribers in
Manhattan in May 1969. By the late 1970s another version of this network would launch and be made available to other cable systems in the metropolitan area and it would finally receive the name Madison Square Garden Television in 1980. Another early network considered by many to be an RSN is
Philadelphia's
PRISM which launched in 1976 offering coverage of three of the city's major sports teams and movies. In 1976,
Cablevision launched a new service providing coverage of
Long Island sports (originally called Cablevision Sports 3). This channel would be renamed
SportsChannel New York in 1979 and became the first channel to resemble a modern regional sports network. Other SportsChannels were launched in different cities and in 1988, they were formally organized into a group that shared programming and national TV rights. During the 1990s, some teams experimented with
pay-per-view or premium television broadcasts of games, which were generally unpopular. The
Portland Trail Blazers ran BlazerVision, which charged a fee for every game, and which blacked out
NBA on TNT coverage of Trail Blazer playoff games for fans within of Portland. The
Chicago Blackhawks broadcast games exclusively on
Hawkvision between 1992 and 1995. As sports fans began to prefer watching their favorite teams on television rather than in person, RSNs became a very important source of revenue for professional teams and collegiate conferences. By 2011, regional sports networks were integral to the financial health of many U.S. sports ventures. Teams in smaller media markets were often disadvantaged by their reliance on RSNs, whereas teams in larger markets could negotiate more lucrative media rights deals.
Impact of cord-cutting, shifts to free-to-air and OTT In the 21st century, the rise of
cord-cutting has led to decreasing cable and satellite television subscriber numbers in the U.S., which in turn has reduced the revenue that RSNs receive from television provider subscriber fees and advertising. These have resulted in an increasing erosion to the RSN market, and attempts to launch
over-the-top (OTT) services at RSNs. These services require broadcasters to obtain in-market streaming rights to teams, and have a high cost due to RSNs usually being subsidized by subscribers that are not interested in sports.
Major League Soccer, which previously broadcast most of its matches regionally on RSNs, switched to a centralized media rights model in the
2023 season; all match telecasts are now produced in-house and carried internationally on the
MLS Season Pass subscription service under a ten-year digital rights agreement with
Apple Inc.. In March 2023, Bally Sports parent company
Diamond Sports Group filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, while
Warner Bros. Discovery Sports (WBD) announced its intent to exit the regional sports market by divesting its
AT&T SportsNet channels. Major League Baseball established a
local media department prior to the 2023 season, using resources from
MLB Network, to produce telecasts for teams whose RSNs would become unable to broadcast their teams' games. In May 2023, when the rights to the
San Diego Padres reverted to the team after Diamond missed a payment, MLB Local Media took over the production of Padres regional games, distributing them via an in-market add-on to MLB.tv, and making agreements to carry the games on local access channels, such as
Cox Cable's
YurView California. The broadcasts maintain team-contracted staff, such as commentators. In July 2023, MLB Local Media took over the rights to the
Arizona Diamondbacks, after Diamond was granted a motion to decline its contract with the team. The Colorado Rockies also joined MLB Local Media for the 2024 season amid the closure of
AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain. In October 2024, MLB Local Media announced that it would begin producing and distributing broadcasts for the
Cleveland Guardians,
Milwaukee Brewers, and
Minnesota Twins beginning in the 2025 season, although the Brewers would later announce a return to Diamond Sports (since renamed Main Street Sports Group). Also in 2025, the
Diamondbacks,
Guardians,
Padres, and
Rockies would announce that they would simulcast a package of games on
Tegna stations in each team's home market; while the Twins would agree to deals with
Fox and
Gray Media. The
Texas Rangers' contract with Diamond expired after the 2024 season; the team would ultimately create the
Rangers Sports Network, which operates similarly to MLB Local Media, but with a direct-to-consumer package hosted by
Victory+ and a package of games syndicated on over the air stations within the Rangers' regional market. The
Atlanta Braves,
Cincinnati Reds,
Detroit Tigers,
Kansas City Royals,
Los Angeles Angels,
Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers,
St. Louis Cardinals, and
Tampa Bay Rays, while remaining with the Bally Sports RSNs (since renamed
FanDuel Sports Network), would also agree to syndicate packages of games on regional over the air stations as well. Towards the end of the 2025 season, the
Seattle Mariners announced that they would shut down
Root Sports Northwest; MLB Local Media would take over the team's distribution rights in 2026 after handling broadcast production in 2025. The Washington Nationals would also announce that MLB Local Media would take over the production and distribution of their games in 2026, having recently settled a long-running dispute with the
Baltimore Orioles and
MASN, who had been the previous carrier of Nationals games. During the same year, Main Street Sports Group's remaining MLB team contracts would be terminated in the face of continuing financial difficulties; MLB Local Media would later assume the rights to air at least seven of these teams and the NHL's
Detroit Red Wings, who share ownership ties with the Tigers. The Atlanta Braves would follow the Rangers' lead and launch a dedicated network called
BravesVision, which would include a streaming element handled by MLB Local Media, while the Los Angeles Angels would instead opt to buy out Main Street Sports Group's share of
FanDuel Sports Network West. Some NHL and NBA teams handled the AT&T SportsNet closure by abandoning the RSN model entirely, in favor of a mixture of regional syndication via free-to-air television (such as
E. W. Scripps Company's new sports division
Scripps Sports), and paid streaming services. The
Arizona Coyotes, whose games were formerly on
Bally Sports Arizona, signed a contract with Scripps, then deactivated as a franchise the following year and sold its hockey operations to the
Utah Mammoth expansion team. The Mammoth, first known as the Utah Hockey Club, produce and distribute games using an in-house media operation that was originally established for the
Utah Jazz. After also losing the
Phoenix Suns' rights to
Gray Television, Bally Sports Arizona shut down entirely in October 2023.
Florida Panthers (who signed with Scripps Sports), and the
New Orleans Pelicans (who signed with Gray to launch its
Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment Network). After the
Seattle Mariners acquired WBD's stake in
Root Sports Northwest, the
Portland Trail Blazers and
Seattle Kraken similarly exited the network, partnering on FTA/OTT models with Sinclair Broadcast Group and
Tegna Inc./
Amazon Prime Video, respectively. In June 2024, the
Blackhawks,
Bulls, and
White Sox would announce the creation of the
Chicago Sports Network with backing from
Standard General. While the channel was effectively a new RSN (replacing the teams' previous contracts with
NBC Sports Chicago), the channel would be available over the air in addition to offering its OTT service and carriage via various cable and satellite providers in the market (although the network would later scale back its FTA availability as a condition of a carriage agreement with Comcast). the
Anaheim Ducks would also join the Victory+ platform, and sublicensed FTA rights to
Fox Television Stations'
KCOP and
KTTV. Before the
2025–26 NHL season, the
Tampa Bay Lightning would leave FanDuel Sports Network and announce a deal with Scripps Sports. Several NBA and NHL teams that have remained on the FanDuel Sports Networks have sold packages of game simulcasts to OTA stations within their regional markets. While the FTA/OTT approach can improve viewership by making a team's telecasts more accessible to viewers, the team can lose out on the guaranteed revenue generated by a rights fee from an RSN: both the Jazz and Suns experienced a drop in revenue from their shift to OTA broadcasts. Jazz owner
Ryan Smith stated that he wasn't as concerned about the loss of RSN revenue, since he believed that the team's other revenue streams (such as sponsorships and ticket sales) benefited from the wider accessibility of the team's broadcasts. In the NBA, a reduction in RSN revenue can also be offset by contributions from the league's revenue sharing agreement. MLB reported in 2026 that among teams that had lost RSN deals, contracts with new broadcasters have paid about 50% of their former RSN rights fees on average, contributing to a disparity among teams' payroll totals. ==United States==