BCSN is a

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. ...

founded in 2003 (and first went on the air on January 7, 2004) to carry sports broadcasting, which had previously been aired on fellow cable-only station WT05.

Overview

The station airs

Toledo Mud Hens The Toledo Mud Hens are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. They are located in Toledo, Ohio, and play their home games at Fifth Third Field. A Mud Hens team has played in ...

games, BGSU ice hockey and other BGSU sports,

University of Toledo The University of Toledo (UToledo or UT) is a public research university in Toledo, Ohio. It is the northernmost campus of the University System of Ohio. The university also operates a Health Science campus, which includes the University of T ...

sports,

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

sports including the Northwest Hockey Conference,

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

, and other sports games. The network also had broadcast rights to carry the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...

. Previously BCSN carried Toledo Storm hockey games from 2004 to 2007 and starting in 2009, the network began carrying every home game of the

Toledo Walleye The Toledo Walleye are a professional ice hockey team based in Toledo, Ohio. The Walleye are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the ECHL. The Walleye were founded in 1991 as the Toledo Storm and play their home games at ...

ECHL hockey team. On April 14, 2011, BCSN began broadcasting some of its sports games in

1080i 1080i (also known as Full HD or BT.709) is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the screen. ...

high definition. All Toledo Mud Hens and Toledo Walleye games are broadcast live in high definition. On August 23, 2012, BCSN began broadcasting its standard-definition channel in a 16:9

letterboxed Letterboxing is the practice of transferring film shot in a widescreen aspect ratio to standard-width video formats while preserving the film's original aspect ratio. The resulting videographic image has mattes (black bars) above and below ...

format. Several Toledo Rockets football games broadcast on BCSN since 2009 have also been broadcast on

WXYZ-TV WXYZ-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Detroit, Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Independent station (North America), independent st ...

, Channel 7, in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

as lead-in to ABC's college football coverage. Starting in 2014, additional Rockets football games broadcast on BCSN will also be broadcast on

WMYD WMYD (channel 20) is an independent television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV (channel 7). Both stations share studios at Broadcast House on 10 Mile Road i ...

due to that station becoming sister to WXYZ-TV. On December 13, 2012, BCSN ended a media partnership with

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

-affiliate

WTOL WTOL (channel 11) is a television station in Toledo, Ohio, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc., which provides certain services to Fox affiliate WUPW (channel 36) under a joint sales agreement (JSA) with American Spirit ...

because of the level of service performed by the two stations. On January 7, 2013, BCSN launched BCSN 2. Beginning in fall 2013, BCSN began a media partnership with

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

-affiliate

WTVG WTVG (channel 13) is a television station in Toledo, Ohio, United States, affiliated with ABC and The CW. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studios on Dorr Street (Ohio State Route 246, SR 246) in Toledo, and its transmitter is loc ...

, resulting in the largest television sports team in the Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan viewing area. The partnership also includes BCSN using the WTVG studios for some of its on-air sports shows. In 2016, BCSN 2 got regional rights for

Columbus Crew SC The Columbus Crew, formerly known as Columbus Crew SC, is an Soccer in the United States, American professional soccer club based in Columbus, Ohio. The Crew competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference ( ...

soccer games because of the limited distribution of

Spectrum Sports Ohio A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...

in the Toledo market. That agreement ended after the 2018 season, and all regionally televised Crew games now can be seen in Toledo via

Bally Sports Ohio Bally Sports Ohio is an American regional sports network owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group and is operated as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts regional coverage of sports events in the state of Ohio, with a focus on professio ...

and

Bally Sports Great Lakes Bally Sports Great Lakes is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel, which is a sister network to Bally Sports Ohio, broadcasts statewide coverage of professional, ...

On-Air Shows

* Sports Nightly * Local Catch * Monday Night at the Races * Your Shape Up * Rocket Roundup * BG All-Access

References

External links

Official website
Sports television networks in the United States Television channels and stations established in 2004 College basketball on television in the United States 2004 establishments in Ohio Sports in Ohio {{US-bcast-stub