Bally Sports New Orleans is an American

regional sports network In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...

owned by

Diamond Sports Group Diamond Sports Group LLC is an American media and entertainment company operating as a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, and partnered with Entertainment Studios. The company operates Bally Sports, a group of regional sports channels which ...

(a joint-venture between

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

and

Entertainment Studios Entertainment Studios, Inc., also known as Allen Media Group, is an American media and entertainment company based in Los Angeles. Owned and founded in 1993 by businessman Byron Allen, the company was initially involved in the production and ...

), and operated as an affiliate of

Bally Sports The Bally Sports Regional Networks are a group of regional sports networks in the United States owned by Diamond Sports Group, a joint-venture company of the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios. The naming rights to the network ...

. The channel broadcasts local coverage of professional and collegiate sports events within

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

and the state of

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. Bally Sports New Orleans is available on

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

providers throughout Louisiana,

East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that comprises most of 41 counties. It is primarily divided into Northeast and Southeast Texas. Most of the region cons ...

South Alabama South Alabama is the various parts of southern Alabama. Although it is not a strictly defined geographic region, it generally includes all Alabama counties south of the Black Belt (region of Alabama), Black Belt. In that view, ''South Alabama'' co ...

, the Florida Panhandle, and most parts of southern

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

(including Cox Communications,

AT&T U-verse U-verse TV is a DirecTV brand of IPTV service. Launched on June 26, 2006, U-verse included broadband Internet (now AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber), IP telephone (now AT&T Phone), and IPTV (U-verse TV) services in 48 states.Charter Spectrum Spectrum is a trade name of Charter Communications, used to market consumer and commercial cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the company. The brand was first introduced in 2014; prior to that, these ser ...

, Suddenlink Communications and Comcast), with an estimated regional reach of 2.5 million households with a pay television subscription; it is also available on

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

via

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

History

The formation of Fox Sports New Orleans was announced on June 25, 2012, after Fox Sports Networks signed a new long-term agreement with the New Orleans Hornets (now the New Orleans Pelicans) to broadcast the NBA team's games. Fox acquired the regional cable television rights to the Hornets after

Cox Sports Television Cox Sports Television ( a.k.a. CST; sometimes referred to as Cox Sports TV) was an American regional sports cable and satellite television channel owned by Cox Communications. The channel, which serves the Gulf South region of the United State ...

declined to renew its contract with the team. The channel launched on October 31, 2012, at the start of the New Orleans Hornets regular season that year; Fox Sports New Orleans broadcast 75 Hornets games during the first year of the team's agreement with the channel. On December 14, 2017, as part of a merger between both companies,

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...

announced plans to acquire all 22 regional Fox Sports networks from 21st Century Fox, including Fox Sports New Orleans. However, on June 27, 2018, the Justice Department ordered their divestment under antitrust grounds, citing Disney's ownership of

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

. On May 3, 2019,

and

(through their joint venture, Diamond Holdings) bought Fox Sports Networks from

for $10.6 billion. The deal closed on August 22, 2019. On November 17, 2020, Sinclair announced an agreement with casino operator

Bally's Corporation Bally's Corporation is a gaming, betting, and interactive entertainment company headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island. It owns and operates 15 casinos across ten states, a horse track in Colorado, and online sports betting operations in 14 st ...

to serve as a new

naming rights Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...

partner for the FSN channels. Sinclair announced the new Bally Sports branding for the channels on January 27, 2021. On March 31, 2021, coinciding with the

2021 Major League Baseball season The 2021 Major League Baseball season began on April 1, while the regular season ended on October 3. The postseason began on October 5. The World Series then began on October 26 and ended on November 2 with the Atlanta Braves defeating the Houston ...

, Fox Sports New Orleans was rebranded as Bally Sports New Orleans, resulting in 18 other Regional Sports Networks renamed Bally Sports in their respective regions.

Programming

In addition to carrying the Pelicans' exhibition, regular season and early-round conference playoff games, Bally Sports New Orleans also airs

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

games featuring the Texas Rangers and select broadcasts of the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

Dallas Stars The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference, and were founded during the 1967 NHL expansion as the Minne ...

televised by sister channel

Bally Sports Southwest Bally Sports Southwest is a Texan regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group (a joint-venture between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios), and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts regional ...

, as well as collegiate sporting events from the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

and

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...

. In 2014, Fox Sports New Orleans began airing select

Tulane Green Wave The Tulane Green Wave are the athletic teams that represent Tulane University, located in New Orleans, Louisiana. Tulane competes in NCAA Division I as a member of the American Athletic Conference (The American). There are 14 Green Wave intercol ...

college football games, beginning with the September 9 matchup against the

Duke Blue Devils The Duke Blue Devils are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Duke University, located in Durham, North Carolina. Duke's athletics department features 27 varsity teams that all compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association ...

. From its foundation, it also reported that the channel would negotiate for the television rights to the

New Orleans Saints The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the te ...

' team-related programs and events involving the

LSU Tigers The LSU Tigers and Lady Tigers are the athletic teams representing Louisiana State University (LSU), a state university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. LSU competes in NCAA Division I, Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Associat ...

. While they were successful in acquiring some LSU Tigers sports programming such as Tigers football, basketball, and volleyball, attempts to acquire Saints-related programming were unsuccessful. On June 16, 2018, FSNO carried a group-stage game in the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

between the

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

teams. Local

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

affiliate

WVUE-DT WVUE-DT (channel 8) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains primary studios on Norman C. Francis Parkway in the city's Gert Town sect ...

chose not to carry the game due to a

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

requirement to air E/I programs which it chose not to reschedule.

Notable on-air staff

Current

Paul Crane Paul Crane (January 29, 1944 – November 1, 2020) was an American football center for seven seasons for the New York Jets. Paul Crane graduated in 1962 from Vigor High School in Prichard, Alabama, near Mobile. He played college football for ...

– Pelicans host * Jen Hale – Pelicans sideline reporter *

Joel Meyers Joel Meyers is an American sportscaster who is the play-by-play announcer of the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He also is the lead host of "Above the Rim", which airs weekdays from 10am-1pm ET on SiriusXM N ...

– Pelicans play-by-play announcer *

Antonio Daniels Antonio Robert Daniels (born March 19, 1975) is an American former professional basketball player who played 13 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is currently the television color analyst for the New Orleans Pelicans on B ...

– Pelicans color commentator

References

External links

foxsports.com/southwest
– Fox Sports Southwest official website {{U.S. regional sports networks Fox Sports Networks Television channels and stations established in 2012 Television stations in Louisiana 2012 establishments in Louisiana Bally Sports