Local professional sports teams have relied on the Regional Sports Networks (RSN) since the late 1970’s, but in a few weeks, that model will change and no longer exist. Main Street Sports Group, the parent company of the Fanduel Sports Networks, has said that it will fold up shop and cease to exist in mid May, corresponding to the end of the first round of the NHL Playoffs. Main Street has been battling financing for several years, dating back to when the company was known as Bally Sports Network, and was owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. Now, 13 NBA teams, and eight NHL teams will look for new broadcast partners for the 2026-27 season. Eight Major League Baseball teams decided to go with their own station (Atlanta Braves, Anaheim Angels) or go with the League and their new streaming packages, where the league will help the teams with their production.
The traces of the RSN dates back to 1979, when Sportschannel was created in the New York market. In 1985, Dr. Jerry Buss, owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, created Prime Ticket to house all of the Laker games throughout the Los Angeles market and beyond, making it the first RSN to make the channel as a basic cable channel. In 1996, Fox Sports bought Prime Channels as well as all of the Sportschannels (with the exception of Sportschannel Florida and the original Sportschannel in New York, which later became a Fox Sports Net in 1998) to create Fox Sports Networks, a new RSN with one branding under the FOX umbrella.
In 2019, FOX would sell many of their assets, including their studio and the RSN’s to Disney. However, Disney had to sell off the RSN’s to Sinclair in order to receive government approval for the other assets. Sinclair would take over in 2020, and Bally Sports Net would come true. Sinclair would go on to have many financial problems with the networks, with many Major League Baseball teams started to leave the network following missed payoffs in 2023. Sinclair would file for bankruptcy, and ultimately, would see Sinclair end their naming convention with Ballys, and switch over to Fanduel. What started off as a promising partnership, started to go south once again in 2025.
Reports in mid 2025 had streaming service DAZN as a potential buyer of the Fanduel Networks. DAZN wanted to take the networks, but give teams a lower payout. When the networks would not go with that, DAZN pulled out, with the fate of Fanduel and Main Street Sports up in the air. In the early part of April of this year, Main Street sent out a notice to their employees under the WARN Act, that the network would be shutting down at the conclusion of the first round of the 2026 NHL Playoffs.
Social media has been buzzing since the word of DAZN possibly buying the Networks.
Recently as early as middle of April, Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal sent out a tweet about FUBO (which is coincidentally owned by Disney now) possibly coming to an agreement with the 13 NBA teams about possibly streaming their games next season.
There has been a solution in Detroit for the Tigers (and subsequently, the Red Wings) as the Illict family, which owns the Tigers, entered into an agreement with MLB to create the Detroit SportsNet, with the network also being the home of the Red Wings under a special agreement with the Tigers and the NHL team.
While these new agreements have solidified homes for many teams, it is truly the end of an era where the RSN’s where the only place to watch local teams. With the advent of streaming, many have cut the cord and streaming has been the only type of viewing, in which many teams have adapted. But for almost five decades, the Regional Sports Networks have been the catalyst of how many viewed their team. With the end of the RSN’s, a new era now begins for fans of local teams.