Fox Sports Kansas City
Fox Sports Kansas City (FSKC) is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, and operates as an affiliate of Fox Sports Networks. The channel broadcasts coverage of professional, collegiate, and high school sports events both within and outside the Kansas City area. It maintains offices and master control operations at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
 | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Kansas City metropolitan area Western and Central Missouri Kansas Eastern Nebraska Iowa Nationwide (via DirecTV; games only) |
| Network | Fox Sports Networks |
| Headquarters | St. Louis, Missouri |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Picture format | 720p (HDTV) 480i (SDTV) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Diamond Sports Group (Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios) |
| Sister channels | Fox Sports Midwest Fox Sports Indiana |
| History | |
| Launched | March 31, 2008 |
| Replaced | Fox Sports Midwest (within designated broadcast area) |
| Links | |
| Website | foxsports.com/kansas-city |
| Availability (some events may air on overflow feed Fox Sports Kansas City Plus due to event conflicts) | |
| Cable | |
| Charter Spectrum (Kansas City metropolitan area) | 59 or 309 Fox Sports Kansas City (SD) 1750 Fox Sports Kansas City (HD) 5 Fox Sports Kansas City Plus (SD) |
| SureWest (Kansas City metropolitan area) | 30 Fox Sports Kansas City (SD) 649 Fox Sports Kansas City (HD) 66 Fox Sports Kansas City Plus (SD) |
| Available on most other cable systems in designated broadcast area | Consult your local cable provider or program listings source for channel availability |
| Satellite | |
| DirecTV | 671-5 (SD) 671-5 (HD) |
| IPTV | |
| AT&T U-verse | 750 (SD) 1750 (HD) |
| Google Fiber (Kansas City metropolitan area) | 205 (HD) |
| Streaming media | |
| Fox Sports Go | www.foxsportsgo.com/ (U.S. cable internet subscribers only; requires login from participating providers to stream content; some events may not be available due to league rights restrictions) |
Fox Sports Kansas City is available on cable providers throughout western and central Missouri, Kansas, eastern Nebraska, and Iowa; it is also available nationwide on satellite via DirecTV.
History
Originally operating as a subfeed of Fox Sports Rocky Mountain, then Fox Sports Midwest in 1998, the network formally announced that it would spin-off Fox Sports Kansas City as a separate channel on January 24, 2008 after Fox Sports Midwest signed an exclusive long-term broadcast agreement with the Kansas City Royals. The agreement was struck following the dissolution of the Royals Sports Television Network, a regional network formed in 2003 to broadcast games and analysis programs for the Major League Baseball franchise, which distributed its event telecasts to broadcast and cable affiliates throughout the Midwestern and South Central United States.[1] Specifically, Fox Sports Kansas City was created to avoid scheduling conflicts with coverage of St. Louis Cardinals games televised by Fox Sports Midwest.
On December 14, 2017, as part of a merger between both companies, The Walt Disney Company announced plans to acquire all 22 regional Fox Sports networks from 21st Century Fox, including Fox Sports Kansas City. However, on June 27, 2018, the Justice Department ordered their divestment under antitrust grounds, citing Disney's ownership of ESPN. On May 3, 2019, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios (through their joint venture, Diamond Holdings) bought Fox Sports Networks from The Walt Disney Company for $10.6 billion.[2] The deal closed on August 22, 2019.[3]
Programming
Fox Sports Kansas City holds the exclusive regional cable television rights to the Kansas City Royals, and produces the Major League Baseball team's pre-game and post-game show Royals Live and the weekly magazine program Royals Insider. Starting with the 2017 season, the channel holds the exclusive regional television rights to Sporting Kansas City broadcasts.[4] Because there can be Royals and SKC programming at the same time, Fox Sports Kansas City is provided to cable operators as two separate channels, which normally carry identical programming.
During the college football season, the channel broadcasts Kansas Jayhawks and Kansas State Wildcats games in different time slots to avoid scheduling conflicts; the channel also broadcasts Kansas State Wildcats basketball and volleyball and baseball from the Wildcats and Kansas Jayhawks.
The channel also carries select events televised by Fox Sports Midwest including games from the St. Louis Blues (NHL); basketball, volleyball, baseball and wrestling events from the Missouri Tigers, with the university's college football games televised on an alternate feed.[1]
Other sports programming on the network includes Big 12 Conference regular season women's basketball and baseball games, and championship matches from both conference-sanctioned sports; regular season and championship basketball games from the Missouri Valley Conference; college coaches' shows; football and basketball championships from the Missouri State High School Activities Association; and NBA games from the Oklahoma City Thunder televised by Fox Sports Oklahoma.[1]
Fox Sports Kansas City HD is a high definition simulcast feed of Fox Sports Kansas City, which broadcasts in the 720p format. HD content broadcast on the feed including the channel's entire slate of Royals game telecasts, as well as game telecasts and other programming distributed national by Fox Sports Networks.
Notable on-air staff
Kansas City Royals
- Steve Physioc – play-by-play commentary
- Ryan Lefebvre – play-by-play commentary
- Rex Hudler – analyst
- Jeff Montgomery – analyst
- Joel Goldberg – in game reporter
Sporting Kansas City
- Nate Bukaty - play-by-play commentary
- Jacob Peterson - color analyst
- Carter Augustine - sideline reporter
References
- "FSN Announces Launch of FSN Kansas City". Fox Sports (Press release). January 24, 2008.
- Littleton, Cynthia. "Sinclair Clinches Disney-Regional Sports Networks Deal, Byron Allen Joins as Partner". Variety. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
- "Sinclair completes acquisition of regional sports networks from Disney". Bloomberg. 22 August 2019. Retrieved 23 August 2019.
- "FOX Sports Kansas City and Sporting KC announce multi-year TV agreement beginning in 2017". Sporting Kansas City (Press release). December 20, 2016.