Sportsnet

Sportsnet

Sportsnet's logo used since October 3, 2011.
Country	Canada
Broadcast area	National
Headquarters	Rogers Building, Toronto, Ontario
Programming
Picture format	1080i (HDTV) (HD feed downgraded to letterboxed 480i for SDTVs) 4K (UHDTV) (part-time, selected broadcasts)
Ownership
Owner	Rogers Sports & Media[1]
Sister channels	TV: Sportsnet One Sportsnet World Sportsnet 360 WWE Network Sportsnet Radio: CJCL, CFAC and CISL
History
Launched	October 9, 1998; 26 years ago (1998-10-09)
Former names	CTV Sportsnet (1998–2000) Sportsnet (2000–01 and 2011–present) Rogers Sportsnet (2001–2011)
Links
Website	sportsnet.ca
Availability
Streaming media
Sportsnet Now	watch.sportsnet.ca (Canadian television subscribers only; requires login from pay television provider or OTT subscription to access content)

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 CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then was required to divest its stake in the network 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.^[1][2]

The Sportsnet license comprises four 24-hour programming services; Sportsnet was originally licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as a category A service, operating as a group of regional sports networks offering programming tailored to each feed's region (in contrast to TSN, which was licensed at the time to operate as a national sports service, and could only offer limited regional opt-outs).^[3] 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 (subject to blackouts for some out-of-market teams).

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 (and partial regional rights to one) of the league's Canadian franchises. It is also the national rightsholder of Major League Baseball in Canada (although most of ESPN's MLB broadcasts are sub-licensed to rival network TSN), 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 own a joint majority stake in the teams' parent company.

The Sportsnet brand has since been extended beyond the original regional channels, now encompassing the national channels Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet One (and its regional part-time companion channels), and Sportsnet World; Sportsnet Radio stations in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary; and Sportsnet Magazine. With these brand extensions, Rogers now generally uses "Sportsnet" (by itself) 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" (or "main") 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 (or the specific regional channel available locally on analogue cable).