Bally Sports Oklahoma 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, t ...

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 d ...

), and operates 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 we ...

. The channel provides statewide coverage of sports events within the state of

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...

, namely the

Oklahoma City Thunder The Oklahoma City Thunder are an American professional basketball team based in Oklahoma City. The Thunder compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team plays i ...

, the state's major college sports teams, and high school sports. Bally Sports Oklahoma 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 Oklahoma, and nationwide 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 radioisotope ...

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. It ...

Background

Fox Sports Oklahoma (FSOK) launched on October 29, 2008 as a spinoff of

Fox 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 c ...

. It was created in order to serve as the cable broadcaster of the

, after Fox Sports Southwest acquired the broadcast rights to the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

franchise following its relocation to

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

that year from

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. It initially split the rights to Thunder game telecasts with

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...

KSBI KSBI (channel 52) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by locally based Griffin Media alongside CBS affiliate and company flagship KWTV-DT (channel 9). Both stations share s ...

(channel 52, now a

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...

affiliate), under an agreement in which Fox Sports Oklahoma would produce a limited schedule of regular-season games (most of which aired on weekends) for the station; the Thunder signed a new multi-year broadcast agreement with Fox Sports Oklahoma on August 3, 2010, rendering the team's games cable-exclusive beginning with the 2010-11 season. 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 conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

announced plans to acquire all 22 regional Fox Sports networks from

21st Century Fox Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., doing business as 21st Century Fox (21CF), was an American multinational mass media corporation that was based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was one of the two companies formed on June 28, 2013, f ...

, including Fox Sports Oklahoma. However, on June 27, 2018, the

Justice Department A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

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%). The ...

. On May 3, 2019,

and

(through their joint venture, Diamond Holdings) bought

Fox Sports Networks Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

from

for $10.6 billion. The deal closed on August 22, 2019, thus placing Fox Sports Oklahoma in common ownership with Sinclair stations KOKH-TV/

KOCB KOCB (channel 34) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Fox affiliate KOKH-TV (channel 25). The stations' studios and transmitter facilities ...

in the network's homebase of Oklahoma City, and

KTUL KTUL (channel 8) is a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. The station's studios are located at Lookout Mountain (near South 29th West Avenue, west of Interstate 244) ...

in Tulsa. It was subsequently renamed Bally Sports Oklahoma on March 31, 2021.

Programming

In addition to holding the regional television rights to Thunder's regular season and any early-round playoff games, Bally Sports Oklahoma also broadcasts sporting events from the

Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to a nickname given to the early participants in the Land Run ...

, including football, basketball, The channel also holds exclusive broadcast rights to state

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

and baseball championships held by the

Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association The Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA) is an organization which organizes secondary school athletics and activities competitions at the state level. Derald Glover is its president. The OSSAA is a member of the National Federat ...

. Bally Sports Oklahoma has broadcast Class A-6A Football Championship games and periodically runs ''OSSAA Championship Spotlight'', a magazine program that highlights various high school sports depending on the time of year. Bally Sports Oklahoma also broadcasts pre-game and post-game shows for the Oklahoma City Thunder (under the ''Thunder Live'' banner), and Oklahoma Sooners-related programs (such as coaches' shows and team magazine programs). Outside of programming exclusive to Bally Sports Oklahoma, the channel runs various programs supplied by Bally Sports Southwest (including sports interview, magazine and analysis programs focusing on

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

sports) as well as some game telecasts including Texas Rangers baseball and

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 (NHL), Central Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and were founde ...

hockey. From 2012 to 2022, it held tier 3 rights to the

of 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 ...

under the ''Sooner Sports TV'' branding, which gave it rights to one football game per-season, four men's basketball games per-season, and other selected athletics events. The football game was not aired on the channel itself, but distributed via

pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program guid ...

—an arrangement that proved controversial among fans. In 2022, the team signed with

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%). The ...

, which holds the tier 3 rights to all other Big 12 teams (besides the

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and a ...

, which have a separate deal with ESPN to run the regional sports network

Longhorn Network Longhorn Network (LHN) is an American regional sports network owned as a joint venture between The University of Texas at Austin, ESPN and Learfield (formerly IMG College), and is operated by ESPN (itself owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company a ...

Other services

Bally Sports Oklahoma Extra

Bally Sports Oklahoma Extra is an alternate feed of Bally Sports Oklahoma used to broadcast select events within the designated market that cannot air on the main feed due to scheduling conflicts. Bally Sports Oklahoma Extra primarily serves an overflow feed in the event that teams whose games Bally Sports Oklahoma has the right to broadcast play conflicting games simultaneously, mainly those that are televised on Bally Sports Southwest that may otherwise also air on Bally Sports Oklahoma (such as Texas Ranger Baseball or Dallas Star Hockey) are scheduled to be held at the same time as the scheduled telecast of a Thunder or Sooners game, or a high school or collegiate sporting event involving an Oklahoma team. On some cable systems in Oklahoma, Bally Sports Oklahoma Extra airs

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals hav ...

telecasts from

Bally Sports Midwest Bally Sports Midwest is an American 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 e ...

and select

Kansas City Royals The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team was founded as an expans ...

telecasts from

Bally Sports Kansas City Bally Sports Kansas City (BSKC) is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts coverage of professional, collegiate, and high school sports events both wi ...

to the fans of those teams living in Oklahoma who otherwise cannot receive Cardinals or Royals games on Bally Sports Midwest and Bally Sports Kansas City. In extremely rare times, telecasts from the 2 teams can possibly also air on Bally Sports Oklahoma as well depending on the schedule. Bally Sports Oklahoma Extra also carries select

Dallas Mavericks The Dallas Mavericks (often referred to as the Mavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Dallas. The Mavericks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference (NBA), Western Conferenc ...

telecasts from

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 c ...

except in the immediate Oklahoma City area.

On-air staff

Current

* Chris Fisher – Thunder play-by-play *

Michael Cage Michael Jerome Cage Sr. (born January 28, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player and current broadcast analyst for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Basketball career A 6'9" power forward/center from San Diego State, he is the Aztecs ...

– Thunder color commentator * Nick Gallo - Thunder Sideline Reporter * Paris Lawson - Thunder Sideline Reporter * John Rhadigan – ''Thunder Live'' studio host *

Nancy Lieberman Nancy Elizabeth Lieberman (born July 1, 1958), nicknamed "Lady Magic", is an American former professional basketball player and coach in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) who is currently a broadcaster for the Oklahoma City Thun ...

– ''Thunder Live'' studio analyst

References

External links

www.ballysports.com/southwest
– Bally Sports Southwest official website {{U.S. regional sports networks Television channels and stations established in 2008 Fox Sports Networks 2008 establishments in Oklahoma Bally Sports