Bally Sports Wisconsin

The first effort to air the Bucks and Brewers on cable, Sportsvue in 1984, was hampered by multiple factors, including dispersed systems and uncabled parts of the state of Wisconsin (including Milwaukee itself), team nadirs for the Bucks and Brewers, and territory invasion by the Chicago Cubs via the distribution of WGN-TV throughout the state. Sportsvue was discontinued at the beginning of 1985 and resulted in the sale of the Bucks to future senator Herb Kohl. In the meantime, the Bucks and Brewers returned to a statewide broadcast network originated by Gaylord Broadcasting's WVTV, and later WCGV-TV, which was hampered by the two teams limiting their schedule to mainly road games.

Wisconsin Sports Network (unrelated to the current-day high school-focused sports publishing operation), a gametime-only network that broadcast Milwaukee Brewers baseball and Milwaukee Bucks basketball games. The channel was owned by Time Warner Cable's Milwaukee franchise and Group W.[2] In 1996, it was taken over by the Minneapolis-based Midwest Sports Channel (MSC), which was owned by CBS (as a result of CBS' 1995 merger with Group W's corporate parent 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.

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 2007 Milwaukee Brewers season, originating from facilities in Milwaukee. That year it aired 125 Brewers games and 70 Bucks games. Other programming included the Minnesota Wild (NHL), 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, The Walt Disney Company announced plans to acquire all 22 regional Fox Sports networks from 21st Century Fox, including Fox Sports Wisconsin. However, on June 27, 2018, the Justice Department ordered their divestment under antitrust grounds, citing Disney's ownership of ESPN. On May 3, 2019, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios (through their joint venture, Diamond Holdings) bought Fox Sports Networks from The Walt Disney Company for $10.6 billion.[5] The deal closed on August 22, 2019, thus placing Fox Sports Wisconsin in common ownership with the Milwaukee and Green Bay duopolies of WVTV/WVTV-DT2, WLUK-TV/WCWF and Madison Fox affiliate 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]

Major League Baseball

• Milwaukee Brewers

NBA

• Milwaukee Bucks

NHL

• Minnesota Wild (through Bally Sports North)

NCAA Division I athletics

• Wisconsin Badgers (via Fox/Big Ten Conference-owned Big Ten Network; BTN game rebroadcasts and coaches shows only)
• Big East, Big 12 and Pac-12 football and basketball (through Fox Sports 1 and ESPN Plus)
• Marquette Golden Eagles men's basketball (limited schedule via sublicensing by Fox Sports 1, holder of Big East Conference television rights)[11]
• WCHA Hockey.

NCAA Division III athletics

• Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

High school athletics

• WIAA Wisconsin State Tournaments (exclusive rights to all but the boys' and girls' basketball championships, whose rights are held by Bally Sports' part owner Allen Media Broadcasting and air over a local broadcast station network; tape-delayed replays air on Bally Sports Wisconsin)

Bally Sports Wisconsin HD is a 720p high definition simulcast feed of Bally Sports Wisconsin. All Bucks and Brewers games are broadcast in HD, as well as sports and magazine programs distributed nationally by Bally Sports. Depending on the market, Bally Sports Wisconsin Extra is also transmitted in high definition. Since 2012, the HD feed has been downscaled in letterbox on the channel's standard definition feed, as had become standard for all of Fox's cable networks.

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]

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

• 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

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

• Davey Nelson – Brewers Live analyst (deceased)
• Jerry Augustine – Brewers Pregame/Postgame analyst (moved to the Milwaukee Brewers Radio Network in 2021)
• Jon McGlocklin - Bucks color analyst
• Telly Hughes – Bucks & Brewers field reporter
• Jim Paschke - Bucks play-by-play announcer
• Katie George – Bucks sideline reporter
• Zora Stephenson – sideline reporter & fill-in play-by-play announcer