NBC Sports Bay Area

The Pacific Sports Network was launched in September 1989 as a joint-venture of TCI and Viacom. It initially held rights to the Golden State Warriors and various college sporting events, including those from Pac 10 conference through its associate with Prime Network. The network was available as a basic cable service.[1]

SportsChannel Bay Area was an owned-and-operated outlet of SportsChannel that launched on April 2, 1990, under the ownership of Rainbow Media, the broadcasting subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation. The new network was formed when both the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants reached an agreement with SportsChannel to televise their games. The Athletics' contract included 50 games and while the Giants' had 55 games, an increase of 20 games from the team's previous pay-per-view service GiantsVision. Both teams had also been in negotiations with the Pacific Sports Network, but didn't want their games shown on basic cable.[1] At launch, SportsChannel Bay Area was offered as a premium channel in-market and as a basic cable service in the outer market which included southern Oregon, Nevada, Hawaii, and Arizona. Other programming included SportsChannel's national programming which featured its NHL package. Additionally, SportsChannel Bay Area televised local college and high school sports, including the University of San Francisco, San Jose State, and California and Stanford games that were not part of Prime's PAC 10 package.[2]

The two networks merged on July 12, 1991, to become SportsChannel Pacific.[3] The combined network operated as a premium service until June 1, 1997 when it moved to basic cable.[4] In 1991, SportsChannel Pacific picked up rights to the new San Jose Sharks NHL team with a 10 game agreement.[5]

On June 30, 1997, News Corporation and Liberty Media – which formed Fox Sports Net the year prior through News Corporation's partial acquisition of the Liberty-owned Prime Network group of regional sports networks – purchased a 40% interest in Cablevision's sports properties including the SportsChannel networks (as well as Madison Square Garden and its NBA and NHL team tenants, the New York Knicks and New York Rangers);[6][7] the three companies formed the venture National Sports Partners to run the owned-and-operated regional networks. The channel was rebranded as Fox Sports Bay Area on January 28, 1998,[8] at which time most of the SportsChannel networks (with the exception of SportsChannel Florida, which did not join the network until 2000) underwent a near-groupwide rebranding as part of their integration into the Fox Sports Net family. Prior to the Cablevision decision to affiliate with Fox Sports, some FSN programming had been airing on BayTV, a local cable channel operated by KRON-TV and Liberty Media's sister company TCI; the deal which was signed in March 1997 was to last three years. Fox Sports News continued airing on BayTV until March 31, 1998, when it was moved to Fox Sports Bay Area. However, most of FSN's Pac-10 telecasts also remained on BayTV until the affiliation agreement expired in January 2000. Fox Sports Bay Area aired only a limited number of games featuring local and state teams (usually when there was a scheduling conflict). This led to viewers complaints since the better games were often on BayTV which had limited distribution.[9][10][11]

The channel was then rebranded as Fox Sports Net Bay Area in 2000, as part of a collective brand modification of the FSN networks under the "Fox Sports Net" banner; subsequently in 2004, the channel shortened its name to FSN Bay Area, through the networks' de-emphasis of the brand.

Comcast SportsNet Bay Area logo from March 2013 to April 1, 2017.

On April 30, 2007, Comcast purchased a 60% interest in FSN Bay Area, along with a 50% stake in FSN New England, from Rainbow Media for $570 million.[12] Then on December 10, the San Francisco Giants acquired a 30% stake in FSN Bay Area,[13] with News Corporation becoming a minority partner in the network. As a result of Comcast becoming the majority interest holder, the network (after the sale was finalized in February 2008) was integrated into the company's own regional sports network group Comcast SportsNet, rebranding as Comcast SportsNet Bay Area on March 31, 2008.[14] CSN Bay Area became the first Comcast SportsNet-branded network to use a logo style (utilizing Comcast's then-universal corporate logo), based on the logo for SportsNet New York, that was later adopted by all the other CSN regional networks on October 1, 2008. Shortly after the rebranding in April 2008, Fox agreed to sell its interest in CSN Bay Area to Comcast.[15]

Following Comcast's purchase of majority control of NBCUniversal, which already owned NBC owned-and-operated station KNTV (channel 11) and Telemundo O&O KSTS (channel 48), on April 19, 2011, the network announced plans to build an additional set specifically for use on sports segments seen on KNTV's newscasts. The revamp would also include in-depth interviews in addition to providing scores and highlights, and utilize CSN Bay Area's sports anchors and analysts.[16]

On March 22, 2017, Comcast announced that CSN Bay Area would be rebranded NBC Sports Bay Area on April 2, 2017, in a move meant to "better associate the prestigious NBC Sports legacy with the strength of our Comcast Sports Networks' local sports coverage in Northern California."[17]