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SportsNet New York was launched on March 16, 2006. The network was created in order for the New York Mets to better leverage the team's television broadcasting rights, which were previously held by Cablevision for its regional sports networks MSG and FSN New York. From 1998 to 2002, Cablevision had a monopoly on the cable television rights to all local professional sports franchises in the New York City market, which resulted in the company using those rights for various business practices (some controversial among viewers and local media analysts) such as moving certain games to its MSG Metro Channels, a group of locally based services that had limited distribution on most cable providers in the New York City metropolitan area.[citation needed] In 2002, YankeeNets – then the corporate entity which owned both the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets – ended the monopoly by launching the YES Network to serve as the local cable broadcaster of their games, leaving the Mets in the Cablevision fold until that team's contract with the company (the dominant cable provider outside of Manhattan and the adjacent boroughs) expired in 2005. Its owners at the time is Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Wilpon, CBS Sports and Dish Network.
By 2011, through its majority ownership, the Mets received $68 million in revenue from SportsNet New York for the broadcast rights to its games.[2] In 2013, Bloomberg estimated that $1.2 billion of the Mets' $2.1 billion value came from SNY.[3]
SNY serves as the primary local broadcaster of the New York Mets. It carries at least 120 games involving the team each season not televised on a national network (Fox, TBS or ESPN) or streamed exclusively through a streaming service (Apple TV+ or Roku Channel). SNY also produces a smaller broadcast schedule of games for local broadcast on Nexstar's CW affiliate WPIX (channel 11), which distributes those games to other broadcast stations in the Mets' broadcast territory. Gregg Picker serves as producer for the games. Mets game telecasts and post-game shows on SNY delay other programming, such as the 11:00 p.m. edition of SportsNite, and preempt all or portions of shows starting at midnight in the event a game with a 7:00 p.m. start time runs over its scheduled time period.
New York Jets
In November 2005, the New York Jets signed a broadcasting agreement with SportsNet New York to carry programs relating to the NFL franchise for three years. SNY carries more than 250 hours of Jets-related content annually, including both regular season and off-season shows with access to players, coaches and management.
New York Yankees
Although the local rights for New York Yankees broadcasts belong exclusively to YES Network, SNY operates a Twitter account dedicated to Yankees highlights.[4] Game highlights on the account are typically clips from the YES broadcast, sourced from the official Yankees Twitter account. SNY uploads their own recordings of post-game interviews to the account. The Yankees are also frequently covered on the primary SNY Twitter account.[5]
Other professional sports
On October 1, 2014, SNY signed an agreement with the Fall Experimental Football League to carry some of the league's inaugural regular season games in October and November of that year.[6]
On December 20, 2018, SNY and Rugby United New York of Major League Rugby announced a partnership where SNY would televise nine of the team's inaugural season games.[7]
On July 23, 2008, SNY reached an agreement with Rutgers University to become "the exclusive home" of the university's athletics program; the deal includes the rights to air encore presentations of the team's football telecasts (involving games televised by ABC or any of the ESPN networks), weekly coaches shows (for both football and basketball, such as Inside Rutgers Football) and press conferences.[19]
Beginning in 2008, SNY carried football and basketball games involving the Big East Conference; the network lost the rights to Fox Sports 1 (through an agreement with Fox Sports) when that network launched in August 2013. The network also carried coaches shows focusing on the Seton Hall University and St. John's University basketball teams, both members of the old Big East.[20][21] From its launch, SNY also carried football and basketball games from the Big Ten Conference that were not scheduled to be televised on a national network; the network lost these games to the Big Ten Network when it launched in 2007. SNY also televised college basketball games from the Sun Belt Conference through ESPN Plus, later dropping these events in 2008, in order to focus its college sports coverage on the Big East Conference.
In August 2010, the University of Connecticut announced a multi-year deal with SportsNet New York to become "the official television home" of UConn Huskies football and men's basketball. SNY will feature 300 hours of Huskies-related programming annually, including 120 hours of game coverage.[22] In May 2012, SNY signed a four-year agreement with the university to become the exclusive broadcaster of the Huskies women's basketball team (assuming the regional rights from Connecticut Public Television), agreeing to air a minimum of 17 games per year.[23] However, as of 2020 only women's basketball still airs on the network.
On October 31, 2013, SportsNet New York signed a broadcasting agreement with the Atlantic 10 Conference to televise the conference's college basketball games; under the initial deal, the network carried 43 Atlantic 10 basketball games during the 2013–14 season.[24]
Until 2023, SNY also broadcast college lacrosse, college football and college basketball from Hofstra University. Those games have since moved to MSG Network.[25]
Original programming
Broadcast as seen through the window of SNY's street-level studio in the Time-Life Building.
News and debate programs
The Thread – A show introduced in March 2019, showing a social media lens on New York Sports at 5 p.m. The program features contributors from entertainment fields and popular New York radio show commentators. It is hosted by Justine Ward, with various SNY contributors.
Honda SportsNite – A daily half-hour sports highlights show airing at 11:00 p.m. and throughout the night (with a rebroadcast from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 to 1:00 p.m., the latter not airing on weekends or on days when a Mets game is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. or earlier start). The 11:00 edition is pre-empted on nights when a Mets telecast starts at or after 8:00 p.m.
Loudmouths – A half-hour sports talk show (airing weeknights at 5:30 p.m.), in which host Jon Hein and various SNY panelists debate the top sports topics of the day. Occasionally, the hosts have themed broadcasts and predict the winners for future NFL games for the coming week.
Baseball Night New York - a primetime baseball-related program that airs on 6:00 pm weekdays hosted by Sal Licata, focused on news and insights of New York City's two baseball teams.
Carton and Roberts - SNY simulcast of WFAN-AM and WFAN-FM afternoon drive radio program hosted by Craig Carton and Evan Roberts (airing weekday afternoons from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm beginning in May 2021, head to head with YES Network's simulcast of The Michael Kay Show).
Entertainment programs
Beer Money! – A half-hour game show (airing Sundays at 7:00 p.m.), in which hosts Amber Wilson and Dan Schachner visit bars throughout New York and New Jersey asking contestants questions pertaining to New York sports, in three rounds (with prize amounts of $10, $20, and $100); contestants choose to leave the game with their existing prize total at any time, or continue on, risking losing the money if they give a wrong answer. The program also features a two-contestant shootout round for a $50 prize, in which the first contestant to answer a question wrong loses. A similar program with the same title airs on SportsTime Ohio, while New England Sports Network (NESN) carried a similarly formatted program, Pocket Money.
Mets-related programs
Mets Classics – Broadcasts of archived Mets games from past seasons and the current season (UltiMet Classics).
Mets Fast Forward – A condensed one-hour replay of the previous day's Mets game telecast on SNY or WPIX (airing at 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. following a Mets game).
Mets Insider – A bi-weekly, half-hour magazine-style program geared towards a diverse range of Mets topics.
Mets Kids Clubhouse – A weekly half-hour baseball edutainment program for children, hosted by Neha Joy (airing Saturdays at 12:00 p.m.).
Mets Hot Stove – An offseason "hot stove" discussion about the Mets, hosted by Gary Apple with various local writers.
Mets Pre-Game Live – A half-hour program previewing the upcoming Mets game/series.
Mets Post-Game Live – A half-hour program providing recaps and analysis of the day's Mets game and previews of upcoming matchups.
Mets Weekly – A weekly half-hour magazine program featuring team coverage, interviews, and stories on the Mets (airing Sundays at 6:00 p.m.).
Mets Yearbook – A half-hour program of past Mets year in reviews from 1962 to 1988.
Mets Year in Review – A program recapping the Mets season since 2009.
Mets Amazin' Finishes - A program recapping the best games in various seasons in a countdown list. Frequently played during rain delays.
Kevin Burkhardt – Mets field reporter and alternate play-by-play announcer; host of Mets Hot Stove (2007–2014; now play-by-play broadcaster and studio host for Fox Sports)
Chris Carlin – GEICO SportsNite anchor; Loudmouths co-host; and Mets Pre Game and Post Game Live host and Rutgers football and basketball analyst
Gary Thorne - Mets alternate play-by-play announcer
Matt Yallof – host of Mets pre-game and post-game shows (2006–2008; joined MLB Network in 2009)
Bobby Valentine – fill-in Mets pre-game and post-game studio analyst
Availability
At its launch, it was originally expected that SNY would experience issues with trying to gain carriage on Cablevision, as the Mets moved their game telecasts from that company's two regional sports networks, MSG Network and FSN New York (now MSG Plus). The situation was similar to that experienced by the YES Network, the Yankees ended its broadcasting agreement with Cablevision. Cablevision filed a lawsuit against Sterling Entertainment Enterprises on the grounds that the franchise might have violated their contract, which theoretically had one year left to run, as well as the right of last refusal. However, a judge ruled in favor of Sterling Entertainment, essentially stating that the Mets had voided their deal with Cablevision entirely by paying a specified buyout fee, believed to have exceeded $50 million.
Comcast began carrying the network on its Hartford area systems on March 31, 2008. Then in July 2008, just days after the University of Connecticut signed its broadcast deal with SNY, Cox Communications began carrying SportsNet New York on channel 62 throughout its Connecticut service area. On August 29, 2011, the network launched a secondary feed for Connecticut, SNY-CT.[26]
SNY is also available on Comcast systems in Palm Beach County, Florida and nationally on Verizon FiOS. However, due to broadcasting rules imposed by Major League Baseball that restrict local telecasts to within their designated broadcast territory, Mets games televised by the network are blacked out, although pre-game and post-game shows and other non-event programming is cleared for broadcast in Palm Beach County.
Beginning in 2017, SNY made Mets games available for live Internet streaming to subscribers via its website and the NBC Sports app but has been yet to be made authorizable to Comcast Xfinity subscribers though Comcast is the owner of the NBC Sports app and is part owner of SNY.[27] In 2022, SNY launched its own app, serving much the same purpose with much the same availability.[28]
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