Bally Sports Kansas City
Bally Sports Kansas City (BSKC) is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts coverage of professional, collegiate, and high school sports events both within and outside the Kansas City area. It maintains offices at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
 | |
| Type | Regional sports network |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Broadcast area | Kansas City metropolitan area Kansas Nationwide (via DirecTV; games only) |
| Network | Bally Sports |
| Headquarters | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Picture format | 720p (HDTV) 480i (SDTV) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Diamond Sports Group |
| Parent | Sinclair Broadcast Group & Entertainment Studios Networks |
| Sister channels | Bally Sports Midwest Bally Sports Indiana |
| History | |
| Launched | March 31, 2008 |
| Replaced | Fox Sports Midwest (within designated broadcast area) |
| Former names | Fox Sports Kansas City (2008–2021) |
| Links | |
| Website | www |
| Availability (some events may air on overflow feed Bally Sports Midwest Extra due to event conflicts) | |
| Streaming media | |
| Bally Sports app | www.ballysports.com (U.S. cable internet subscribers only; requires login from participating providers to stream content; some events may not be available due to league rights restrictions) |
| DirecTV Stream | Internet Protocol television |
| FuboTV | Internet Protocol television |
Bally Sports Kansas City is available on cable providers throughout western and central Missouri, Kansas, eastern Nebraska, and Iowa; it is also available nationwide on satellite via DirecTV.
History
Originally operating as a subfeed of Fox Sports Rocky Mountain, then Fox Sports Midwest in 1998, the network formally announced that it would spin-off Fox Sports Kansas City as a separate channel on January 24, 2008, after Fox Sports Midwest signed an exclusive long-term broadcast agreement with the Kansas City Royals. The agreement was struck following the dissolution of the Royals Sports Television Network, a regional network formed in 2003 to broadcast games and analysis programs for the Major League Baseball franchise, which distributed its event telecasts to broadcast and cable affiliates throughout the Midwestern and South Central United States.[1] Specifically, Fox Sports Kansas City was created to avoid scheduling conflicts with coverage of St. Louis Cardinals games televised by Fox Sports Midwest.
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 Kansas City. 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.[2] The deal closed on August 22, 2019.[3] 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.[4] On March 31, 2021, coinciding with the start of the 2021 Major League Baseball season, Fox Sports Kansas City rebranded as Bally Sports Kansas City, resulting in 18 other Regional Sports Networks renamed Bally Sports in their respective regions.[5]
On March 14, 2023, Diamond Sports filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.[6]
Programming
Bally Sports Kansas City holds the exclusive regional cable television rights to the Kansas City Royals, and produces the Major League Baseball team's pre-game and post-game show Royals Live and the weekly magazine program Royals Insider. Starting with the 2017 season, the channel holds the exclusive regional television rights to Sporting Kansas City broadcasts.[7] Because there can be Royals and SKC programming at the same time, Bally Sports Kansas City is provided to cable operators as two separate channels, which normally carry identical programming.
During the college football season, the channel broadcasts Kansas Jayhawks and Kansas State Wildcats games in different time slots to avoid scheduling conflicts; the channel also broadcasts Kansas State Wildcats basketball and volleyball and baseball from the Wildcats and Kansas Jayhawks.
The channel also carries select events televised by Bally Sports Midwest including games from the St. Louis Blues (NHL); basketball, volleyball, baseball and wrestling events from the Missouri Tigers, with the university's college football games televised on an alternate feed.[1] The Blues games are only shown within the Kansas City metropolitan area, as a separate feed exists for the rest of the state of Kansas.[8]
Other sports programming on the network includes Big 12 Conference regular season women's basketball and baseball games, and championship matches from both conference-sanctioned sports; regular season and championship basketball games from the Missouri Valley Conference; college coaches' shows; football and basketball championships from the Missouri State High School Activities Association; and NBA games from the Oklahoma City Thunder televised by Bally Sports Oklahoma.[1] In addition select Minnesota Timberwolves (produced by Bally Sports North) are shown outside of the Kansas City metropolitan area.
| Region served | MLB | NBA | NHL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas City Royals | Minnesota Timberwolves (Bally Sports North) |
Oklahoma City Thunder (Bally Sports Oklahoma) |
St. Louis Blues (Bally Sports Midwest) | |
| Kansas City, St. Joseph, Lawrence |  |  | | |
| Rest of Kansas | | | | |
Notable on-air staff
Kansas City Royals
- Ryan Lefebvre – play-by-play commentary
- Jake Eisenberg – fill in play-by-play commentary
- Rex Hudler – analyst
- Jeff Montgomery – analyst
- Joel Goldberg – in game reporter
- Mike Sweeney - Fill in studio analyst
- Jeremy Guthrie - Fill in studio analyst
Sporting Kansas City
- Nate Bukaty - play-by-play commentary
- Jacob Peterson - color analyst
- Carter Augustine - sideline reporter
References
- "FSN Announces Launch of FSN Kansas City". Fox Sports (Press release). January 24, 2008.
- Littleton, Cynthia (May 3, 2019). "Sinclair Clinches Disney-Regional Sports Networks Deal, Byron Allen Joins as Partner". Variety. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
- "Sinclair completes acquisition of regional sports networks from Disney". Bloomberg. August 22, 2019. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
- Novy-Williams, Eben (November 19, 2020). "Bally's Buys Sinclair RSN Naming Rights As Part of Sports Betting Push". Sportico.com. Retrieved March 31, 2021.
- "Bally Sports, Coming March 31". YouTube (Fox Sports Midwest). March 17, 2021. Retrieved March 17, 2021.
- Bouma, Luke (March 14, 2023). "Bally Sports Just Declared Bankruptcy – The Death of RSNs?". Cord Cutters News. Retrieved March 14, 2023.
- "FOX Sports Kansas City and Sporting KC announce multi-year TV agreement beginning in 2017". Sporting Kansas City (Press release). December 20, 2016.
- "FOX Sports Midwest TV listings". FOX Sports. March 22, 2019. Retrieved March 16, 2021.