Bally Sports Wisconsin

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Bally Sports Wisconsin
History
LaunchedApril 1, 2007 (16 years ago) (2007-04-01)
ReplacedFSN North (in broadcast area only)
Former namesFSN Wisconsin (2007–2012)
Fox Sports Wisconsin (2012–2021)
Links
Websiteballysports.com/wisconsin
Availability
(some events may air on overflow feed Bally Sports Wisconsin Extra due to event conflicts)
(Spectrum systems auto-tune to the standard definition channel position in high definition using their cable boxes and streaming platforms)
Internet Protocol television

Bally Sports Wisconsin (BSWI) is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. Operating as the "Wisconsin" sub-feed of Fox Sports North until 2007, the channel was known as Fox Sports Wisconsin until 2021. It broadcasts regional coverage of sports events throughout the state of Wisconsin, with a focus on professional sports teams based in Milwaukee, namely the Milwaukee Brewers of Major League Baseball and the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association. It primarily operates from a studio/office facility in downtown Milwaukee, with secondary offices and production studio/office hub based in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Bally Sports Wisconsin is available on

satellite via DirecTV
.

Bally Sports Wisconsin broadcasts 2,600 hours of locally produced programming per year and reaches more than 1.7 million homes.[1]

History

Origins

The first effort to air the Bucks and Brewers on cable,

WCGV-TV
, which was hampered by the two teams limiting their schedule to mainly road games.

Westinghouse).[3] Shortly afterward, MSC became an affiliate of the fledgling Fox Sports Net
in the fall of 1996.

From then on until 2007, Wisconsin was served by one of three regional subfeeds of MSC/FSN North; the other two being a feed for the

Twin Cities metropolitan area and a feed for the rest of Minnesota (as well as Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota). CBS sold the network to News Corporation in 2000, ultimately rebranding as FSN North in April 2001. Despite being well out of the station's market area, MSC's late night encore of WCCO's 10:00 p.m. newscast also aired on the Wisconsin network until the Fox purchase. The network then began maintaining offices at the studios of Fox owned-and-operated station WITI (channel 6, now an affiliate of the network) in the Milwaukee suburb of Brown Deer
, along with sharing limited programming with that station.

Wisconsin gets its own channel

FSN North converted the Wisconsin feed into a separate channel, FSN Wisconsin. The channel launched on April 1, 2007, coinciding with the start of the

University of Wisconsin athletic events, WIAC events, and WIAA high school sports, including live telecasts of the annual football championships. At launch FSN Wisconsin was available to more than 1.5 million homes and produced nearly 2,600 hours of local programming.[4]

After Fox Television Stations sold WITI to Local TV in 2008, FSN Wisconsin relocated its operations to facilities in downtown Milwaukee. As part of the national rebranding of the Fox Sports Networks in 2012, FSN Wisconsin was rebranded as Fox Sports Wisconsin.

On December 14, 2017, as part of a merger between both companies,

WMSN.[6] On November 17, 2020, Sinclair announced an agreement with casino operator Bally's Corporation to serve as a new naming rights partner for the FSN channels. Sinclair announced the new Bally Sports branding for the channels on January 27, 2021.[7] On March 31, 2021, coinciding with the 2021 Major League Baseball season, Fox Sports Wisconsin was rebranded as Bally Sports Wisconsin, resulting in 18 other Regional Sports Networks renamed Bally Sports in their respective regions.[8]

In February 2021, the Brewers and Sinclair announced a new contract that gave the Brewers a minority share in the network. The deal is reportedly worth around $34 million per year for four years.[9] The network also originated the official team coverage of the Bucks' 2021 championship parade.

On March 14, 2023, Diamond Sports filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.[10]

Programming

Bally Sports Wisconsin holds the regional cable television rights to Major League Baseball games from the Milwaukee Brewers, NBA games from the Milwaukee Bucks (whose telecasts became exclusive to the network starting with the 2007–08 season) and since 2000, simulcasts most of the NHL games from the Minnesota Wild televised by Bally Sports North (usually through Bally Sports Wisconsin Extra), as well as pre-game, post-game and fan shows for all three teams. In 2018, simulcasts of Major League Soccer's Minnesota United FC matches were added to Fox Sports Wisconsin after Fox Sports North assumed that team's rights.

The channel also carries high school sports competitions sanctioned by the

NCAA competitions from the Big East Conference, Big Ten Conference and the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, and a limited schedule of Marquette men's games through a sub-licensing deal with sister network Fox Sports 1 in which some games not of national interest are distributed to their regional sports network partners, CBS Sports Network and the ESPN family of networks as part of the "new" Big East's television contract[11] (Bally Sports Wisconsin acquired the partial rights to Marquette sports events from Time Warner Cable Sports
(the now-defunct Spectrum Sports), a regional network available only on Time Warner systems in eastern Wisconsin, which had been carrying the games since 2006 until 2013).

From 2007 to 2011, Bally Sports Wisconsin sub-licensed a package of fifteen Milwaukee Brewers games for broadcast on Milwaukee

Me-TV owned-and-operated station WBME-CD); the Fox Sports-produced broadcasts aired outside of the Milwaukee market on Bally Sports Wisconsin, while WMLW owner Weigel Broadcasting sold advertising for those telecasts.[12] The deal was discontinued after the 2011 season due to the Brewers wanting a schedule of games entirely in high definition (until a move of WMLW's schedule to a full-power signal in August 2012, this was impossible for them to do, along with multiplexing
limitations) and the launch of a secondary feed allowing live coverage of both Brewers and Bucks games, making the team exclusive to the network.

Team and conference coverage

Major League Baseball
NBA
NHL
Division I
athletics
NCAA
Division III
athletics
High school athletics
  • Allen Media Broadcasting
    and air over a local broadcast station network; tape-delayed replays air on Bally Sports Wisconsin)

Other services

Bally Sports Wisconsin HD

Bally Sports Wisconsin HD is a

letterbox on the channel's standard definition
feed, as had become standard for all of Fox's cable networks.

Bally Sports Wisconsin Extra

Bally Sports Wisconsin Extra is an overflow feed that launched on April 9, 2012, and is available in both high definition and standard definition on most cable and satellite providers.[13] The channel is mainly used to allow the network to air games that cannot air on Bally Sports Wisconsin due to events with conflicting scheduling – for example, when a Brewers game airs on Bally Sports Wisconsin, a Milwaukee Bucks game scheduled to start during the duration of the game is carried over Bally Sports Wisconsin Extra (this example often occurs from March to April (or as late as June), when the NBA and Major League Baseball (MLB) seasons overlap, although the reverse situation may occur whenever the Bucks are involved in a pre-Conference Final playoff game), along with Wild and Minnesota United games where scheduled. It also carried national college sports rights they held as FSN, such as the lower-interest Big 12 Conference matchups which were usually pre-empted locally, and were of spare interest to Wisconsin viewers.

Bally Sports Wisconsin Extra also airs Minnesota Wild hockey games simulcast from Bally Sports North that can be shown in-market when Bally Sports Wisconsin is airing a game of local interest. Due to blackout restrictions imposed by MLB and the NBA, Minnesota Twins and Timberwolves games are not broadcast on Bally Sports Wisconsin, although games from both teams are cleared to air via Bally Sports North in parts of Wisconsin. Some systems carry the Extra channel on a full-time basis, while others carry it only for game telecasts; non-game Extra programming contains a loop of national Bally Sports Networks programming such as the World Poker Tour.[14]

On-air staff

Current

Milwaukee Bucks telecasts

  • Lisa Byington – play-by-play announcer (primary announcer)
  • Steve Novak - color analyst
  • Marques Johnson - color analyst
  • Craig Coshun
    Bucks Live host
  • Stephen Watson – Bucks Live host (mostly for road games)
  • Melanie Ricks – sideline reporter

Milwaukee Brewers telecasts

  • Jeff Levering - lead play-by-play announcer
  • Brian Anderson – alternative play-by-play announcer
  • Bill Schroeder – color analyst
  • Chris Singleton - alternative color analyst
  • Craig Coshun
    – Brewers Pregame/Postgame host, field reporter, and alternative play-by-play announcer
  • Stephen Watson – Brewers Pregame/Postgame host (mostly for road games)
  • Sophia Minnaert – field reporter
  • Tim Dillard – Brewers Pregame/Postgame analyst
  • Vinny Rottino – Brewers Pregame/Postgame analyst

Wisconsin Badgers telecasts

  • Matt Lepay – host of syndicated Badger Sports Report, for Wisconsin Badgers athletics

Former

References

  1. ^ "Milwaukee Bucks post highest rating ever on FOX Sports Wisconsin". Fox News. 19 April 2017.
  2. ^ Brown, Rich (May 13, 1996). "Filling the cracks of regional sports" (PDF). Broadcasting. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  3. ^ Kleinmaier, Bryan (April 12, 1997). "Football springs into action". Wisconsin State Journal. p. 2D. Retrieved 20 April 2021.
  4. ^ "FSN North relaunched as FSN Wisconsin". Sports Video Group. April 2, 2007. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  5. ^ Littleton, Cynthia (3 May 2019). "Sinclair Clinches Disney-Regional Sports Networks Deal, Byron Allen Joins as Partner". Variety. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
  6. ^ "Sinclair completes acquisition of regional sports networks from Disney". Bloomberg. 22 August 2019. Retrieved 23 August 2019.
  7. ^ Novy-Williams, Eben (2020-11-19). "Bally's Buys Sinclair RSN Naming Rights As Part of Sports Betting Push". Sportico.com. Retrieved 2021-03-31.
  8. ^ "Bally Sports Wisconsin FAQ". FOX Sports. FOX Sports Wisconsin. 17 March 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  9. ^ Kirchen, Rich (May 7, 202). "Milwaukee Brewers take minority ownership stake in Bally Sports Wisconsin". Milwaukee Business Journal. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  10. ^ Bouma, Luke (14 March 2023). "Bally Sports Just Declared Bankruptcy – The Death of RSNs?". Cord Cutters News. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
  11. ^ Rich Kirchen (September 19, 2013). "Buzz Williams show, MU games exit Time Warner SportsChannel". The Business Journal of Milwaukee. American City Business Journals. Retrieved September 22, 2013.
  12. ^ "HR for Brewers' viewers". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Journal Communications. February 15, 2007.
  13. ^ "Bally Sports Wisconsin announces Milwaukee Bucks 2022 first-round playoff broadcast schedule". Bally Sports. Bally Sports Wisconsin staff. 25 April 2022. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  14. ^ "FS Wisconsin to Broadcast Milwaukee Brewers". Fox Sports Local. April 5, 2012.

External links