Spectrum Sports is an American

regional sports In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics ( physical geography), human impact characteristics ( human geography), and the interaction of humanity an ...

cable and satellite television network owned by Charter Communications. The channel mainly serves the

Kansas City metropolitan area The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...

;

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...

; and the state of Nebraska. In addition to being carried on Charter Spectrum systems in the Kansas City area, it is currently available on cable providers such as

Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...

and MIDCO in metropolitan Kansas City, Lawrence, and areas of Nebraska. As of March 31, 2011, it was available in approximately 500,000 households.

Background

The channel was launched on December 12, 1996 as Metro Sports, and was founded by Time Warner Cable. It has produced live sporting events for collegiate athletic conferences such as the Big 12 Conference, Missouri Valley Conference, the Summit League, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and their individual members. The channel's other hallmark programming is its coverage of local Kansas City high school athletics, including its " HyVee High School Game of The Week" featuring top local teams in

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, wrestling, volleyball, baseball,

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

and other sports. Metro Sports also broadcast five games of the Missouri Mavericks of the Central Hockey League during the 2010-2011 Central Hockey League season. In March 2009, Metro Sports produced and televised live all 31 games of the

2009 NAIA Division I men's basketball tournament The 72nd Buffalo Funds - NAIA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament was held from March 18 to 24 at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The 72nd annual NAIA basketball tournament featured 32 teams playing in a single-elimination for ...

, which was held in Kansas City, Missouri. Metro Sports formerly produced live sporting events for professional sports teams such as

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

Kansas City Wizards Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the team clubhouse and ...

(including a Spanish language audio simulcast transmitted over a secondary audio program channel during its final two seasons of coverage, before the Wizards declined to renew their broadcasting contract), and the Kansas City Brigade of the Arena Football League, before the league was liquidated and reincarnated. Metro Sports also produced and televised

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 ...

games from

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, after which it lost the rights to FSN Midwest. Metro Sports has published a book, ''More Than The Score: Kansas City Sports Memories''. On March 1, 2010, Metro Sports launched Metro Sports HD, a

high definition High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *HD DVD, discontinued optical disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tape * HiDef, 24 frames-pe ...

simulcast feed of Metro Sports, and a secondary channel, Metro Sports 2. In September 2013, the channel was renamed as the Time Warner Cable SportsChannel, with its spin-off channel becoming known as Time Warner Cable SportsChannel 2; at that time, it adopted a logo similar to that implemented by Time Warner Cable SportsNet in Los Angeles when it launched the year prior. Following the provider's acquisition of Time Warner Cable in May 2016, the Time Warner Cable SportsChannel services were rebranded under the Spectrum Sports banner in September 2016, as part of Charter's phaseout of the TWC brand. The channel's weekly fantasy football program ''Fantasy Huddle'' is also distributed to other Charter Spectrum systems formerly operated by Time Warner Cable systems nationwide.

Programming

On June 26, 2013, KU Athletics, IMG College and Time Warner Cable Sports announced that TWC would broadcast live coverage of the University of Kansas events. This includes the

, men's basketball,

women's basketball Women's basketball is the team sport of basketball played by women. It began being played in 1892, one year after men's basketball, at Smith College in Massachusetts. It spread across the United States, in large part via women's college compet ...

, volleyball, baseball, softball, soccer and the track and field events.KU Athletics, IMG College and Time Warner Cable Sports Announce TV Agreement
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Notable current on–air staff

Richard Baldinger Richard L. Baldinger (born December 31, 1959 in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina) is a former professional American football player. An offensive lineman, he played twelve seasons in the National Football League, mainly for the Kansas City Chiefs. Si ...

– football analyst * Danan Hughes – football analyst * Brian McRae – baseball analyst * Jayice Pearson – football analyst

Notable former on–air staff

Danyelle Sargent Danyelle Sargent-Musselman (born May 7, 1978) is a former American sports television reporter. Biography Education and early career Sargent is a graduate of Florida State University and began her television career at WGXA, in Macon, Georgia. P ...

– anchor/reporter (2002–2004)

References

External links

* – Spectrum Sports Kansas City * – Time Warner Cable {{Time Warner Cable

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

Television channels and stations established in 1996