The Sports Network was a

wire service A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, ...

providing

sport Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...

s information in real time. Based in

Hatboro, Pennsylvania Hatboro (known locally as the Boro) is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 8,238 at the 2020 census. History The town of Hatboro is located on land purchased from William Penn by the family of Nichol ...

, The Sports Network was especially noted for its coverage of the NCAA's

Football Championship Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly known as Division I-AA, is the second-highest level of college football in the United States, after the Football Bowl Subdivision. Sponsored by the National Collegiate Athleti ...

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

; it presented that group's major end-of-season awards—the

Walter Payton Award The Walter Payton Award is awarded annually to the most outstanding offensive player in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) of college football as chosen by a nationwide panel of media and college sports ...

for the top offensive player, the Buck Buchanan Award for the top defensive player, the

Jerry Rice Award The Jerry Rice Award is awarded annually in the United States to the most outstanding freshman player in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) of college football as chosen by a nationwide panel of media and college sports inf ...

for the top freshman and the

Eddie Robinson Award The Eddie Robinson Award is awarded annually to college football's top head coach in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). The award was established by The Sports Network, since merged into Stats Perform, ...

for the top coach. It served a list of clients that included

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

Yahoo Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...

, and the Canadian television channel

The Sports Network The Sports Network (TSN) is a Canadian English language sports specialty channel established by the Labatt Brewing Company in 1984 as part of the first group of Canadian specialty cable channels. Since 2001, it has been majority-owned by comm ...

, and was a partner with

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...

Lawsuit

The Sports Network sued

Disney 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 ...

in May 2004 over Disney-owned

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 ...

's illicit usage of Minor League Baseball data and statistics. Both sides settled in January 2005.

Site attack

In April 2008, The Sports Network's online services were shut down for several days by PRC hackers.

Acquisition

On February 10, 2015, The Sports Network was acquired by STATS LLC and its Hatboro headquarters were closed in July 2015.

References

Sports mass media in the United States {{Sport-stub