Fox RSNs to become branded under Bally name

The Fox Sports regional networks will be getting a new name — nearly two years after leaving the Fox corporate family.

Diamond Sports, a joint venture of Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios, announced that 19 RSNs will transition to the Bally Sports name over the coming months. 

Using the Bally name is part of a November 2020 strategic partnership between Sinclair and Bally, the latter of which owns casinos, racetracks, off track betting and hotel properties in multiple states. 

The partnership also calls for the integration of Bally’s proprietary sports betting technology with Sinclair’s local and regional market footprints.

For the Bally Sports logo, Interbrand combined the custom drawn Bally’s logotype with a sans serif “Sports” beneath it. Each regional network will be distinguished with a box, with angled sides designed to match the lines in the Bally’s logo, containing the city or region identifier reversed out.

Meanwhile, Fox Sports Carolinas and Fox Sports Tennessee will be shuttered, with programming moved to what will become known as Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast. 

Meanwhile, non-Fox Sports branded RSN Prime Ticket will become known as Bally Sports SoCal and Sports Time Ohio will rebrand as Bally Sports Great Lakes.

Fox Sports Networks was acquired by Diamond Sports Group from Walt Disney in 2019, months after Disney bought key assets from 21st Century Fox, including the Fox Sports RSNs.

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A condition of the acquisition was selling off the RSNs due to Disney’s existing ownership of TV sports giant ESPN. 

The Bally rebranding will not affect FS1 or FS2, which were not part of the Disney sale and are still owned by Fox Media. 

The rebranding will have the key effect of removing the Fox name from the channels, a move that, at least symbolically, represents the final stage of decoupling from Fox.

Disney renamed 20th Century Fox to just 20th Century in January 2020.

Here’s a full list of the new names that will be used across the country: Bally Sports Arizona, Bally Sports Detroit, Bally Sports Florida, Bally Sports Great Lakes, Bally Sports Kansas City, Bally Sports Indiana, Bally Sports Midwest, Bally Sports New Orleans, Bally Sports North, Bally Sports Ohio, Bally Sports Oklahoma, Bally Sports San Diego, Bally Sports SoCal, Bally Sports South, Bally Sports Southeast, Bally Sports Southwest, Bally Sports Sun, Bally Sports West and Bally Sports Wisconsin.

Sinclair also runs Marquee Sports Network, a joint venture with the Chicago Cubs, in the Chicago market.