Rogers Sportsnet

Rogers Sportsnet is a Canadian sports specialty channel, operating four regional feeds. Each regional feed is geared to a particular portion of the country. Analog cable providers only carry their regional feed, but digital cable and satellite subscribers can watch all four feeds. The network is owned by Rogers Media, a division of Rogers Communications, which also owns the Toronto Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre.

The network was founded in 2001, when Rogers Communication bought out the fledgling Canadian Television (CTV) cable sports network. CTV's parent company, Bell Globemedia, had just bought the country's two main all-sports networks, The Sports Network (TSN) and Réseau des sports (RDS), giving it a virtual monopoly on sports broadcasting in Canada. As a condition of the sale, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) forced Globemedia to divest itself of the CTV sports network, offering Rogers an opportunity to get into the business. Ironically, for a number of years, the two rival networks shared a single broadcasting complex until Rogers Sportsnet moved to a downtown Toronto, ON location.

The network is the primary home of the Blue Jays on television in Canada, airing most Jays' home and away games. The games are broadcast nationally. The network also carries other baseball games, and carries the World Baseball Classic, and the World Series in Canada.

In addition to baseball, the network bought the rights to most National Hockey League broadcasts in Canada in 2013, taking away from its rival TSN its most valuable property and dethroning it as the leading sports broadcaster in Canada.

External Links

• Sportsnet website