Fox Sports Houston was an American

regional sports network In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...

that was owned by Fox Cable Networks, a unit of the

Fox Entertainment Group Fox Entertainment Group was an American entertainment company specialised in filmed entertainment owned by 21st Century Fox. Following the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, the group's assets were folded into various Disney units. The ...

subsidiary of

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...

, and operated as an affiliate of Fox Sports Networks. The channel, which operated out of facilities based in

downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10, Interstate 45, and Interstate 69. The ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, originally began in April 2005 as a sub-feed of sister network

Fox Sports Southwest Bally Sports Southwest is a Texan regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group (a joint-venture between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios), and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts regional c ...

and became a separate 24-hour channel on January 12, 2009. Fox Sports Houston held the broadcast rights to most of the professional sports franchises based in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...

, carrying games from the Houston Astros (

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

), Houston Rockets ( NBA) and the Houston Dynamo ( Major League Soccer); it also carried coverage of collegiate events involving Conference USA members, the Houston Cougars and

Rice Owls Rice University athletic teams are known as the Rice Owls. The name comes from the owls in Rice's crest. Rice participates in NCAA Division I athletics. A member of Conference USA, Rice sponsors teams in seven men's and seven women's NCAA sanct ...

as well as high school sports events throughout the Houston area. After losing the broadcast rights to the Astros and Rockets to

Root Sports Southwest AT&T SportsNet Southwest is an American regional sports network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit as part of the AT&T SportsNet brand of networks. It is the only AT&T SportsNet regional network that does not maintain a pro ...

, the network was re-absorbed into Fox Sports Southwest on October 5, 2012.

History

A separate FSN feed for Houston and the surrounding area launched in April 2005, just as the Astros and Rockets were working together to establish their own local sports network with the city's then-dominant cable television provider,

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

. For the better part of two seasons (from 2003 to 2005), all Houston Rockets games that were not televised nationally on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

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%). Th ...

were only available on broadcast television, splitting games between independent station KNWS-TV (channel 51, now Azteca affiliate KYAZ) and WB affiliate KHWB (channel 39, now CW affiliate

KIAH KIAH (channel 39) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, airing programming from The CW. Owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios adjacent to the Westpark Tollway on th ...

). Working out with the new deal with the Astros and Rockets, Fox Sports Networks decided to establish a completely separate feed for Houston and its surrounding outer television markets, however just operating evenings and on weekends, while Fox Sports Southwest continued to transmit in the region in other dayparts. In addition to Astros and Rockets telecasts, FSN Houston also broadcast games featuring the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the university in Texas with over 47,000 students. Its campus, which is primarily in s ...

and

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...

football and basketball teams, and local high school sports events. The channel also aired a Houston-branded edition of the ''Southwest Sports Report'', the network's nightly sports news and highlights program. Fox Sports Houston produced Rockets and Astros games for co-owned

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...

owned-and-operated station

KTXH KTXH (channel 20), branded on-air as My 20 Vision, is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, airing programming from MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet KRIV (channel 26). Both ...

(channel 20). On January 12, 2009, Fox Sports Houston split from Fox Sports Southwest and relaunched as a 24-hour standalone channel. The new feed allowed the channel to provide more local content and maintain its own identity, as well as air replays of Houston Rockets and Astros games, which it had not been able to do before, according to Ramon Alvarez, spokesman for Fox Sports Houston. It also allowed for more extensive coverage of the city's NFL franchise, the Houston Texans. Fox Sports Southwest's primary

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

-based feed was previously carried in the Houston market for most non-event programming. The channel was carried only for live game broadcasts on DirecTV and Dish Network, whose viewers continued to receive Fox Sports Southwest as their full-time RSN.

Loss of broadcast rights and re-absorption into Fox Sports Southwest

Fox Sports Houston's partnership with the Rockets ended after the 2011–12 NBA season, and their partnership with the Astros ended after the

2012 Major League Baseball season The 2012 Major League Baseball season began on March 28 with the first of a two-game series between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. On November 22, 2011, a new contract between Major League Baseball and ...

. The two teams subsequently struck broadcast deals with Comcast (which acquired the cable television franchise rights to the Houston market in a trade with Time Warner Cable in exchange for the latter's Dallas- Fort Worth system in 2007), forming the nucleus of the new regional sports network

Comcast SportsNet Houston AT&T SportsNet Southwest is an American regional sports network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit as part of the AT&T SportsNet brand of networks. It is the only AT&T SportsNet regional network that does not maintain a pro ...

, which became the home to both teams when it launched on October 1, 2012. On October 2, 2012, Fox Sports Networks announced that it would shut down Fox Sports Houston three days later on October 5, re-absorbing it into Fox Sports Southwest; the move resulted in the layoffs of some of the network's staff. Longtime network personality Patti Smith remains with Fox Sports as a host for team programming pertaining to the Houston Texans, while Kevin Eschenfelder left the network in late September to join Comcast SportsNet Houston as a reporter. Reporter Greg Lucas also did not continue with Fox Sports; while it was initially unclear if he would join Comcast SportsNet Houston, he ultimately did not move to that network.

References

{{Houston TV Fox Sports Networks Television channels and stations established in 2005 2005 establishments in Texas Television channels and stations disestablished in 2012 2012 disestablishments in Texas Defunct mass media in Texas