Country | United States |
---|---|
Broadcast area | Western, Central and Northwestern Pennsylvania West Virginia Eastern Ohio Western Maryland Southwestern New York Worldwide (via satellite) |
Headquarters | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
Programming | |
Language(s) | English |
Picture format | 720p (HDTV) 480i (SDTV) |
Ownership | |
Owner | Fenway Sports Group Pittsburgh Baseball, Inc |
Sister channels | NESN |
History | |
Launched | April 13, 1986 |
Former names |
|
Links | |
Website | sportsnetpittsburgh.com |
Availability | |
Streaming media | |
DirecTV Stream | Internet Protocol television |
FuboTV | Internet Protocol television |
SportsNet Pittsburgh is an American regional sports network serving Greater Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania. Jointly owned by Fenway Sports Group and Robert Nutting via the Pittsburgh Penguins and Pittsburgh Pirates, respectively. It serves as the main broadcaster of both teams. It is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with some of its operations handled from the facilities of sister network NESN in Watertown, Massachusetts.
The channel was first launched by Tele-Communications Inc in April 1986 as the KBL Entertainment Network, which featured a mixture of sports and entertainment programming. After being transferred to TCI subsidiary Liberty Media, KBL was rebranded as part of its Prime Sports chain of regional sports networks in 1994, and subsequently became a charter member of Fox Sports Net upon its establishment in 1996.
After a corporate restructuring that brought Liberty's networks under DirecTV, the channel was rebranded as Root Sports Pittsburgh in 2011, and then AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh under the AT&T SportsNet brand after DirecTV was acquired by AT&T. In 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it would sell or shut down its regional sports networks: in August 2023, it was announced that the Penguins would acquire the network and rebrand it as SportsNet Pittsburgh in October 2023, with NESN—a sister via the Penguins' parent company Fenway Sports Group—assuming day-to-day operations. Prior to their 2024 season, the Pirates also acquired a stake in the network.
As of August 2023[update], SportsNet Pittsburgh is available on cable providers throughout nearly all of Pennsylvania (outside the Philadelphia market), almost all of West Virginia, western Maryland, eastern Ohio, southwestern border areas of New York and Ashland, Kentucky, reaching more than 2.4 million homes; it is also available in the Columbus, Ohio, market through DirecTV Stream, though Penguins broadcasts are blacked out due to the presence of the Columbus Blue Jackets.[1] It is also available nationwide on satellite via DirecTV.