Sportsnet

Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language discretionary sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between Baton Broadcasting, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. Bell Globemedia, the company that acquired CTV Inc. in 2000, was required to divest the channel following its 2001 acquisition of competing network TSN. Rogers then became the sole owner of Sportsnet in 2004 after it bought the remaining minority stake that was held by Fox.
The Sportsnet license comprises four 24-hour programming services; Sportsnet was originally licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission as a category A service, operating as a group of regional sports networks offering programming tailored to each feed's region. Since 2011, the service has operated under deregulated category C licensing, which allows Sportsnet to operate multiple feeds with no restrictions on alternate programming. In each region, only the local Sportsnet channel is available on analogue cable, but all four channels are available nationally via digital cable.
The four Sportsnet feeds air some common programming and simulcast major, national events, but are capable of airing programming autonomously—most prominently regional programming. Sportsnet is the national cable rightsholder of the National Hockey League, and also holds full regional rights to three of the league's Canadian franchises. It is also the national rightsholder of Major League Baseball in Canada, and the exclusive broadcaster of the co-owned Toronto Blue Jays. It splits regional coverage of the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs and national coverage of the NBA's Toronto Raptors with TSN; Rogers Communications and TSN's parent company Bell Canada previously owned a joint majority stake in the teams' parent company, which has since been acquired by Rogers.
The Sportsnet brand has since been extended beyond the original regional channels, now encompassing the national channels Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet One, and Sportsnet World; Sportsnet Radio stations in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary; and Sportsnet Magazine. With these brand extensions, Rogers now generally uses "Sportsnet" to denote its sports media properties as a whole, and on-air promotions for programs being carried nationally by these four regional feeds often list all four channels separately, or refer to the Sportsnet "regional" channels, to avoid any ambiguity. However, standalone mentions of "Sportsnet" in reference to a specific channel can still generally be assumed to be referring to the four regional channels.

History

Sportsnet was approved by the CRTC in September 1996 under the tentative name S3, with Baton Broadcasting Inc. holding a 40% controlling interest in the network, and 20% minority stakes held by Rogers Media and Liberty Media. The network proposed a structure with an emphasis on regional programming, operating four feeds to serve different areas of the country.
The network launched on October 9, 1998, as CTV Sportsnet, under the ownership of CTV, Rogers, and Liberty; the latter which owned some of the Fox Sports Net operations that Fox ran in the United States after which the channel was named.
The new network gained credibility before it went on the air, having acquired national cable rights to the National Hockey League from long-time holder TSN. From 1998–99 until 2001–02, Sportsnet aired NHL games to a national audience throughout the regular season, and covered first-round playoff series not involving Canadian teams. Its first live sports event was an NHL opening night telecast between the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers. The national cable rights to the NHL returned to TSN in 2002, though Sportsnet retained regional broadcast rights for most Canadian NHL teams.

Acquisition by Rogers

When CTV purchased NetStar, the former parent company of TSN, in 2000, the CRTC ordered CTV to sell either TSN or its stake in Sportsnet. CTV ultimately chose to retain TSN, and sell its stake in Sportsnet. The other shareholders had first right of refusal; as Rogers was the only interested party, it acquired CTV's stake in the summer of 2001, and soon after renamed it Rogers Sportsnet. During part of the transition period, during which time the channel was known as "Sportsnet", CTV was allowed to control programming on both networks, and some cross-affiliation and programs that were going to be tape-delayed on TSN, most notably figure skating, were given to Sportsnet. In 2004, Rogers then bought the remaining 20 percent stake from Fox.
While Sportsnet had been based there from the beginning, TSN's operations would move to CTV's suburban Toronto complex, 9 Channel Nine Court, following the acquisition. This led to some peculiarities related to the fact that the two rival sports channels were only separated by a "parking lot", leading to jokes and references from both networks. On April 30, 2008, Rogers Sportsnet moved its broadcast operations from 9 Channel Nine Court to the Rogers Building, a cluster of buildings in the Mount Pleasant-Jarvis Street area of Downtown Toronto.

Expansion

In 2010, Rogers began to extend the Sportsnet brand beyond the original regional networks with the August 14 launch of Rogers Sportsnet One – a national companion channel promising 800 hours of live events per year. The channel was also accompanied by additional part-time feeds to serve as overflow channels for its regional NHL coverage.
In January 2011, Rogers' sports radio stations, CJCL Toronto and CFAC Calgary, were rebranded as "Sportsnet Radio Fan 590" and "Sportsnet Radio Fan 960" respectively. Critics speculated that the Sportsnet Radio branding was intended to increase synergy with its television counterparts, upon rumors that TSN would be launching a sports radio network of its own.
In July 2011, Rogers announced that it would be rebranding its premium international sports channel Setanta Sports Canada as "Sportsnet World" on October 3, 2011 – a move that would allow the channel better opportunities for cross-promotion with other Sportsnet services. As part of the transition, Setanta Sports sold its minority ownership interest in the channel to MLM Management.
On September 29, 2011, Rogers published the first issue of Sportsnet Magazine, a bi-weekly sports magazine positioned "for Canadian sports fans", covering professional sports from a Canadian perspective. Sports writer Stephen Brunt left his position at The Globe and Mail newspaper to become the magazine's back page columnist.

"Fuelled By Fans" re-launch

On October 3, 2011, Rogers Sportsnet underwent a major rebranding, introducing a revamped logo and visual appearance designed in conjunction with Troika Design Group, and a new image campaign. Additionally, the network's official name was shortened to just Sportsnet. The new logo does not incorporate the previous "player" emblem that had been used in the network's branding since its original launch, as research performed by Rogers indicated that its association with Sportsnet did not resonate well with viewers. The redesign of Sportsnet was overseen by Dean Bender, who served as the network's creative director upon its original launch as CTV Sportsnet.

2013–2018

On August 25, 2012, Rogers announced that it would acquire the television assets of Score Media, owners of The Score Television Network, in a transaction valued at $167 million. The acquisition itself closed on October 19, 2012, at which point Score Media's digital assets were spun off into another company, theScore Inc., in which Rogers Media would retain a 10% interest. Score Media's TV properties were immediately placed into a blind trust, under trustee Peter Viner, pending final CRTC approval. Rogers plans to continue running the network as a sports news service.
The acquisition and Rogers' proposed amendments were approved by the CRTC on April 30, 2013; the same day, The Score also began to air more Sportsnet-produced programming, including a simulcast of CJCL's afternoon show Tim & Sid and Hockey Central Playoff Extra. However, the CRTC rejected the use of a proposed winter sports competition, the Sportsnet Winter Games, for its tangible benefits requirements.
On June 4, 2013, Rogers announced that The Score would be rebranded as a Sportsnet channel; the channel changed its name to Sportsnet 360 on July 1, 2013. As of 2014, Sportsnet is available in 8.2 million Canadian homes.
On October 2, 2018, Scott Moore, Rogers' head of Sportsnet and NHL properties, stepped down.

Regional feeds

Similarly to regional sports networks in the United States, Sportsnet is operated in four regional feeds. While the feeds carry national programming as well, they primarily broadcast sporting events tailored to the region they serve. The four regional feeds are listed in the table below.
All four feeds are available in both standard and high-definition formats. Although cable providers in Canada are permitted to carry only the local Sportsnet feed on analogue cable packages, all four feeds can be carried on digital television services. However, in some instances, programming on the out-of-market Sportsnet feeds, particularly regional NHL games, are blacked out due to league restrictions on teams' regional broadcast rights. Since the revival of the Winnipeg Jets in 2011, regional Flames and Oilers games on Sportsnet West have also been blacked out in Manitoba, despite it being the "local" Sportsnet feed for that province.

Channel	Description and programming	Broadcast area
Sportsnet Pacific	Regional feed for British Columbia and Yukon; airs regional Vancouver Canucks games.
Sportsnet West	Regional feed for the Prairies, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut; airs regional Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers games except in Manitoba.
Sportsnet Ontario	Regional feed for most of Ontario; airs regional Toronto Maple Leafs games.
Sportsnet East	Regional feed for Eastern Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.