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Empire Sports Network was an American
regional sports network A regional sports network (RSN) in the United States and Canada is a television channel that presents sports programming to a local media market or geographical region. Such channels often focus on one or a few teams who currently play in Major L ...
that was owned by the Adelphia Communications Corporation. The network was available on
cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
providers in much of
upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region of New York (state), New York that lies north and northwest of the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area of downstate New York. Upstate includes the middle and upper Hudson Valley, ...
(stretching from Buffalo to Albany), as well as parts of northern
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
and eastern
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
. The network ceased operations on March 7, 2005, in the midst of Adelphia's financial collapse and bankruptcy.


History


Beginnings

Empire Sports Network launched on December 31, 1990; its first broadcast that evening was a
National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...
game between the
Buffalo Sabres The Buffalo Sabres are a professional ice hockey team based in Buffalo, New York. The Sabres compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NHL), Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Con ...
and the
Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conference. The team play ...
. Founded by John Rigas (founder and
chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...
of network parent Adelphia Communications), the idea for Empire Sports was first conceived in 1989; Rigas decided to operate the new network in Buffalo, instead of in Adelphia's corporate homebase of Coudersport, Pennsylvania, a rural borough dozens of miles away from the nearest major sports teams. Originally broadcasting as a part-time service for four hours each night from 8:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., the network originally carried games from the Sabres (carrying locally televised games not broadcast on Fox affiliate WUTV (channel 29), which carried the team's games under a separate contract), the
Buffalo Bisons The Buffalo Bisons (known colloquially as the Herd) are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Located in Buffalo, New York, the team plays their home games at Sahlen Fiel ...
of the
International League The International League (IL) is a Minor League Baseball league that operates in the United States. Along with the Pacific Coast League, it is one of two leagues playing at the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A level, which is one grade below Major ...
and
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
games from the
Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central ...
. Empire was an outgrowth of the ''Niagara Frontier Sports Network'' (NFSN), a partnership between the Sabres and Adelphia that had carried Sabres games on cable on a part-time basis through much of the 1980s. Adelphia launched the network without seeking a specified carriage fee rate, offering Empire Sports to cable providers for free on a "good faith" basis. However, in June 1991, Tele-Communications Inc. briefly dropped the network from its systems in New York state, after TCI decided against carrying it without a firm carriage agreement. In October 1991, the network became an affiliate of the Prime Network group of regional sports networks; at that time, the network expanded its programming schedule to 19 hours per day, operating from 5:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. On August 10, 1994, Empire acquired the exclusive regional television rights to the Sabres; as part of the deal, Empire also struck a deal with WUTV parent Act III Broadcasting to air over-the-air simulcasts of ten regular season games (a third of the 30 games that the station had been carrying under a separate contract with the team) and any playoff games during the term of the agreement. By 1995, Empire had expanded its carriage to TCI systems in Rochester and Syracuse; the network expanded its statewide coverage eastward to Albany and Binghamton. The next year, 1996, saw the Prime Network converted to Fox Sports Net, and Empire thus became an FSN affiliate, airing nationally provided sports programming from Fox and in turn contributing footage to FSN shows such as ''Fox Sports News''. The Sabres' relationship with Empire Sports strengthened in 1998, when Adelphia and the Rigas family purchased the team. Following the purchase, the network expanded its coverage of the team, culminating in the Sabres' advancement to the
Stanley Cup Finals The Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey (also known as the Stanley Cup Final among various media, ) is the annual championship series of the National Hockey League (NHL). The winner is awarded the Stanley Cup, North America's oldest professional spo ...
in May 1999, when it provided 12 hours of coverage daily from 12:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. during the championship series. The network's unbridled coverage of the Sabres caught the attention of the National Hockey League, with league Commissioner
Gary Bettman Gary Bruce Bettman (born June 2, 1952) is an American sports executive who serves as the NHL commissioner, commissioner of the National Hockey League (NHL), a post he has held since February 1, 1993. Previously, Bettman was a senior vice preside ...
commenting that "if the rest of the league was covered like Empire Sports covers the Sabres, we would be as big as the NFL." By 2001, Empire Sports had over 6.7 million subscribers via both cable providers in New York, northern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio and nationally on
satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...
. Between October 2000 and March 2004, Adelphia, under
vice president A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...
/
general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
Bob Koshinski, used staff from Empire to operate Wethersfield radio station WNSA (107.7 FM). The station overtook WGR (550 AM) as the ratings leader among the Buffalo market's two sports radio stations in the spring of 2001, but subsequently lost several of its talent, including prominent afternoon host Mike Schopp, to WGR when the Rigas/Adelphia scandal broke.


Collapse

Empire Sports thrived until March 2002, when the
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began investigating accusations of internal
corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...
and securities violations by Adelphia executives (including John Rigas and his son,
chief operating officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...
Timothy Rigas), leading up to the company's subsequent
bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...
filing, as Adelphia was mired in
off-balance-sheet In accounting, "off-balance-sheet" (OBS), or incognito leverage, usually describes an asset, debt, or financing activity not on the company's balance sheet. Total return swaps are an example of an off-balance-sheet item. Some companies may have ...
debt totaling $2.3 billion. With Adelphia in freefall and under temporary bank-appointed management, Empire was unable to renew its carriage agreement with
Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC 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, o ...
, its largest non-Adelphia customer and the primary cable provider for nearly all of upstate New York, in the fall of 2002; TWC continued to carry Empire on its Syracuse system for eight months without a carriage deal in place, later announcing plans to replace it with the Outdoor Life Network on May 1, 2003. Empire Sports and Time Warner Cable struck an agreement in April 2003, which would significantly reduce its coverage by migrating the network from TWC's analog service to a digital sports tier in Syracuse and Binghamton. The network continued to operate, but was dealt another severe blow in 2003 when Adelphia's
board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...
appointed William Schleyer as its new chief executive officer and Ron Cooper as its chief operating officer. With questions surrounding whether Adelphia was even still interested in being in the lucrative regional sports business and if Empire Sports would survive its parent's ongoing collapse, the company laid off 27 full-time employees and all freelancers on August 19. The staff cuts forced Empire to immediately eliminate the popular news/call-in show ''Fan TV'', but the network itself was still able to survive for another eighteen months. The lockout that wiped out the entire
2004–05 NHL season The 2004–05 NHL season would have been the National Hockey League's 88th season of play. The entire 1,230-game schedule, that was set to begin in October, was officially canceled on February 16, 2005, due to an unresolved lockout that began ...
served both as a blessing and a death blow. Financially, the lockout benefited the network because it was not required to pay the Sabres its annual rights fee of $9.5 million. The Sabres had acted as a
loss leader A loss leader (also leader) is a pricing strategy where a product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate other sales of more profitable goods or services. With this sales promotion/marketing strategy, a "leader" is any popular artic ...
for Empire, and without them, the network had no core programming (incidentally, Empire Sports nearly lost the Sabres telecasts when its previous broadcast deal expired in 2003; however, due to the absence of other offers, the Sabres chose against exercising an option to pay Adelphia $1 million to terminate its agreement with the network). Further complicating matters, Time Warner later decided to drop Empire from its systems in Syracuse, Rochester and Binghamton on December 1, 2004, leaving Empire available only in
Western New York Western New York (WNY) is the westernmost region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The eastern boundary of the region is not consistently defined by state agencies or those who call themselves "Western New Yorkers". Almost all so ...
and the city of Utica, although it remained on the sports tier packages of
DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...
and
Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...
across the country. Howard Simon's radio-TV simulcast show was among the last local programs (other than the nightly sports report) that aired on the network. From the time Adelphia decided to sell WNSA, the network also streamed online until the closing of its sale to Entercom Communications, which purchased the station in May 2004 for $10.3 million; when the station was sold, Empire Sports merely switched the Internet stream from WNSA to Empire's feed. Empire's partnership with WNSA ended in the fall of 2004, when Entercom switched its format to
classic rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...
under the brand "107.7 The Lake". Simon's show, however, continued on
WLVL WLVL (1340 AM broadcasting, AM) is a radio station broadcasting a News Talk Information format. Licensed to Lockport (city), New York, Lockport, New York, United States, the station serves the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area. The station is owned by ...
(1340 AM) in Lockport until November 2004, when he was recruited to host WGR's morning show. Under the watch of Schleyer and Cooper, on January 24, 2005, Adelphia announced that would shut down Empire Sports on March 7, instead of selling it to several interested parties, citing severe financial losses. Adelphia resisted offers from outside interests to purchase Empire – including a $17 million cash bid by Joshua Pollack (a native of Buffalo and founder of New York City-based media company NXT Communications), a failed bids by the Hamister group (which would have also included the Sabres) and the
Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East div ...
was also interested in purchasing Empire Sports – desiring instead to pocket the
retransmission consent Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commerc ...
fees (totaling an average of $1.98 per subscriber) that would have gone to Empire's new owner had the network been sold off.
Tom Golisano Blase Thomas Golisano (born November 14, 1941) is an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder of Paychex, which offers payroll and human resources services to businesses. Golisano owned Greenlight Networks, a fiber ...
and Larry Quinn decided against buying Empire Sports in their purchase of the Sabres. Despite concerns from viewers and local political leaders, Adelphia announced on January 19, 2005, that it would shut down Empire altogether. On January 23, the network laid off all but two of its 30 employees. The network cancelled its original programming, replacing it with a continuous
tape loop In music, tape loops are loops of magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound when played on a tape recorder. Originating in the 1940s with the work of Pierre Schaeffer, they were used among ...
, showing highlights from the network's history. Empire signed off for good on March 7, 2005, with Adelphia replacing it on its former analog channel slot on its Western New York systems with the
NFL Network NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
.


Aftermath

Adelphia was acquired by Time Warner Cable and
Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...
, which completed the asset transfer and division on August 1, 2006. CEO William Schleyer received a bonus of $15 million and COO Ron Cooper received $9 million as part of their compensation package from the re-structured Adelphia Board of Directors. After Empire's contract with the team expired, the Buffalo Sabres signed a new cable rights agreement with
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
-based MSG Network, where the team's games remain to this day; however, the broadcasts are still produced by the Sabres organization as they were during the duration of its agreement with Empire.
Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...
maintains an agreement with what was then
Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC 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, o ...
for extensive local coverage of its teams, the result of which was the creation of what was originally Time Warner Sports 26 and would eventually end its life as Spectrum Sports, a sports network that covers most of Empire's old territory and operated out of Empire's old studios in West Seneca. Some of Empire's sports rights, such as the handful of Bisons games that aired on the network, ended up being acquired by WNGS (channel 67), before ending up back in Time Warner's hands after WNGS briefly came under the operation of a religious organization; WNGS, now rechristened as
WBBZ-TV WBBZ-TV (channel 67) is a television station licensed to Springville, New York, United States, serving the Buffalo, New York, Buffalo area. It has a primary affiliation with MeTV, but is otherwise programmed as an independent station. WBBZ-TV i ...
, originally indicated it would make a greater push for sports rights after being revived as a commercial, locally owned station (indeed, WBBZ hired Koshinski as an
executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the production of media. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights or royalties). In film ...
in 2012). Ultimately, WBBZ abandoned most of its sports broadcasts in 2015 when Koshinski left the station. Spectrum Sports shut down operations in 2017.
Terrence Pegula Terrence Michael Pegula (born March 27, 1951) is an American billionaire businessman and petroleum engineer. He is the owner of the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL) and, with a consortium of private equity firms and athletes, th ...
, who purchased the Sabres and Bills in the early 2010s, raised the possibility of launching an in-house regional sports network when the Sabres' contract with MSG ended after the 2016–17 season. Rather than go through the process of building a team-owned network from scratch, in June 2016, it was announced that Pegula had reached a deal to expand its relationship with MSG by forming a regional opt-out of MSG Network known as MSG Western New York, which is co-owned by Pegula and carries additional local studio programming covering the Bills and Sabres. Zito Media, the company established by the Rigas family to replace Adelphia, has not re-entered the regional sports network market. Empire's Web site remained live but abandoned for 13 years after the network's closure, in part to prevent a
fake news website Fake news websites (also referred to as hoax news websites) are websites on the Internet that deliberately publish fake news—hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be news, real news—often using social media to drive web traffic ...
of the same name from claiming the domain. The empiresports.com domain was eventually transferred to a marketing firm in
Dublin, Ohio Dublin is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. A suburb of Columbus, Ohio, Columbus, it falls within the jurisdictions of Franklin County, Ohio, Franklin, Delaware County, Ohio, Delaware, Union County, Ohio, Union, and Madison County, Ohio, Madison ...
.


Programming

The network was the flagship station for Buffalo Sabres NHL games, however it also aired collegiate sports (particularly those involving Syracuse University), and several sports news and talk shows. Empire also aired a significant number of programs covering the
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
's
Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East div ...
; live play-by-play of the
Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 Arena Football League season, 1987 season, making it the third longest-runnin ...
's Buffalo Destroyers, the
Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central ...
of Major League Baseball, the
Buffalo Bisons The Buffalo Bisons (known colloquially as the Herd) are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Located in Buffalo, New York, the team plays their home games at Sahlen Fiel ...
,
Rochester Red Wings The Rochester Red Wings are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals. They are located in Rochester, New York, and play their home games at Innovative Fie ...
and
Syracuse Chiefs Syracuse most commonly refers to: * Syracuse, Sicily, Italy; in the province of Syracuse * Syracuse, New York, USA; in the Syracuse metropolitan area Syracuse may also refer to: Places * Syracuse railway station (disambiguation) Italy * Provi ...
of the AAA International League; AHL hockey; and
NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...
basketball.
Buffalo Bandits The Buffalo Bandits are an American professional box lacrosse team based in Buffalo, New York, that competes in the National Lacrosse League (NLL). The team plays its home games at KeyBank Center. The Bandits played in the Major Indoor Lacrosse L ...
lacrosse also received limited coverage on the network. Empire also aired
NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...
games featuring the
Toronto Raptors The Toronto Raptors are a Canadian professional basketball team based in Toronto. The Raptors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlantic Division (NBA), Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference (NBA), E ...
for several seasons until January 2005, when all original and live programming on the network was discontinued. In its latter years, the network also aired live
Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; , LCF) is a Professional gridiron football, professional Canadian football league in Canada. It comprises nine teams divided into two divisions, with four teams in the East Division (CFL), East Division and f ...
games on Friday nights and tape delayed telecasts on Saturday mornings. Some of Empire's programs included ''Fan TV'', a daily 2½-hour late-afternoon sports news and call-in program hosted by Howard Simon and Jim Brinson) and its successor, ''The SimonCast''; the ''Empire Sports Report'', a nightly sportscast hosted by Mike DeGeorge, Josh Mora and Jason Bristol; and ''Hockey Hotline'', the Sabres' post-game report hosted by NHL veteran
Mike Robitaille Michael James David Robitaille (born February 12, 1948) is a Canadians, Canadian former professional ice hockey defenceman (ice hockey), defenceman and commentator. He played in the National Hockey League with the New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wi ...
and later with Brian Blessing. Other popular shows included ''Fan Forum with Bob Koshinski'', which aired from 1991 to 1998 and ''Pros and Cons'' (a predecessor to ''
Pardon the Interruption ''Pardon the Interruption'' (abbreviated ''PTI'') is an American sports talk television program, television show that airs weekdays primarily on ESPN but can air on various TV channels in the event of live sports or breaking news. It is hosted by ...
'' that featured WGRZ-TV sports director Ed Kilgore pitted against contrarian and WGR radio host Art Wander, with ''
Buffalo News ''The Buffalo News'' is the daily newspaper of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, located in downtown Buffalo, New York. It was for decades the only paper fully owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. On January 29, 2020, the ...
'' sports editor Larry Felser moderating), which ran from 1992 to 1996. As an affiliate of first the Prime Network and then Fox Sports Net, Empire also carried nationally oriented programming from those networks. Former Bills punter Paul Maguire (now an NFL analyst for
ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
) also hosted the ''
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Sportsline'' on the network during the NFL season; Pete Weber and
Danny Gare Daniel Mirl Gare (born May 14, 1954) is a Canadians, Canadian broadcaster, ice hockey coach and former National Hockey League (NHL) player, most notably of the Buffalo Sabres. During a 13-year professional career, Gare also played for the Detroit ...
(who both currently work as NHL announcers) also worked for Empire along with former Buffalo Bill
Steve Tasker Steven Jay Tasker (born April 10, 1962) is an American sports reporter and former professional football wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He spent the majority of his career with the Buffalo Bills but began his career with th ...
(now of CBS). Van Miller lent his voice to several college basketball games on Empire during the early years of the network. The network also aired ''
ECW Hardcore TV ''ECW Hardcore TV'' is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by the Philadelphia based promotion Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) composed of footage from live shows and recorded interviews. It ran in syndi ...
'' produced by
Extreme Championship Wrestling Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was an American professional wrestling promotion that was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and operated by its parent company HHG Corporation. The promotion was founded in 1992 by Tod Gordon as Nationa ...
, a now-defunct
professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...
promotion based in
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
.


References


External links


Empire Sports Network: An oral history of WNY'sÇ long-lost TV sports hub
from
The Buffalo News ''The Buffalo News'' is the daily newspaper of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, located in downtown Buffalo, New York. It was for decades the only paper fully owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. On January 29, 2020, th ...
{{Fox Sports Networks Sports television networks in the United States Defunct local cable stations in the United States Sports in Buffalo, New York Syracuse University Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002 Television channels and stations established in 1990 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2005 Prime Sports Fox Sports Networks Defunct mass media in New York (state)