Spectrum Sports is a former

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 ...

owned by

Charter Communications Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. With over 32 million customers in 41 states as of 2022, it is the ...

through its acquisition of

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 ...

, including its

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

and Eastern Wisconsin cable franchises, in May 2016. Broadcasting on Channel 32 exclusively on Charter Spectrum systems in the Milwaukee and Green Bay/Fox Cities areas, the channel launched in February 2007. This is not to be confused with WACY, Green Bay's actual broadcast Channel 32, which airs on Spectrum channel 83 on its northeastern Wisconsin systems. The channel featured a mix of local sports roundtable discussion shows, UW-

Milwaukee Panthers The Milwaukee Panthers are the athletic teams representing the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level, competing in the Horizon League for all sports ...

sporting events, programs featuring the former sports directors of several local television stations and newspapers, coaches' shows, high school sports, and other minor professional sports within the Milwaukee and Green Bay franchise areas of Spectrum. Until 2013 the network also aired

Marquette Golden Eagles The Marquette Golden Eagles are an athletic team representing Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. They compete as a member of the NCAA Division I level (non-football, sub-level), primarily competing in the Big East Conf ...

sports, including men's

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

games from

ESPN Plus ESPN+ is an American over-the-top subscription video streaming service available in the United States, owned by ESPN Inc., which is a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communication ...

, rebroadcasts of ESPN Marquette games, other Marquette sports, and archived Marquette sports programming; this was discontinued that year due to the new

Big East Conference The Big East Conference (stylized as BIG EAST) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference that competes in National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA NCAA Division I, Division I in 10 men's sports and 12 women's sports. H ...

contract with

Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 1 (branded on-air as FS1) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by the Fox Sports (United States), Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 airs an array of live sporting events, including Majo ...

which will see some games sub-licensed to

Fox Sports Wisconsin FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin is an American regional sports network owned by Main Street Sports Group (formerly Diamond Sports Group) and operated as an affiliate of FanDuel Sports Network. Operating as the "Wisconsin" sub-feed of Fox Spor ...

locally, and the athletic department considering taking their coach's shows online-only or discontinuing them altogether. The

Horizon League The Horizon League is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I. Headquartered in Indianapolis, the league's eleven member schools are located in ...

also moved to a mix of airing their games through

ESPN+ ESPN+ is an American over-the-top subscription video streaming service available in the United States, owned by ESPN Inc., which is a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communicati ...

and

Stadium A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...

(the latter sometimes simulcast by WVTV's "My 24" subchannel), leaving the network without much college game programming. The network also had rights through Time Warner Cable/Spectrum's 'official cable partner' designation to carry programming produced by and revolving around the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They ar ...

. On May 18, 2016,

Charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

completed its merger with Time Warner Cable, after an earlier attempt by

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 ...

to merge with Time Warner had failed the year before, placing the network and Time Warner Cable's Milwaukee operations under the control of Charter. As a result, it and the other ex-TWC RSNs rebranded under the umbrella of ''Spectrum Sports''.

Replacement with Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin

The channel was never added to Charter's legacy systems in Wisconsin. This was due to Spectrum launching a statewide 24-hour news channel, Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin; a lack of sports job postings for the effort suggested that the content of Spectrum Sports would be merged into the new effort, with a relocation of the rebranded channel space to Channel 1 statewide. This was confirmed by Spectrum in October 2018, and Spectrum Sports ended autonomous operations before the launch of the new Spectrum News channel on November 27 at 6 a.m., using space in Spectrum's downtown Milwaukee headquarters. Time Warner planned to launch "Time Warner News Wisconsin" in the mid-2000s before deciding not to launch a news channel at the time and focus on a more scalable local sports channel. The network continued with archived content for the next month, going off the air late on December 31, 2018.

Programming

The following shows were broadcast and produced by the network: *The Roundtable – A roundtable show featuring Spectrum Sports' Sports Director Dennis Krause and state sports journalists. Airs weeknights. *Dennis Krause Show - A half-hour profile show with Krause interviewing sports coaches and former Wisconsin sports greats. *Sports32 Weekly – Weekly round-up of high school, college, or professional, premieres Tuesdays. *Timber Rattlers Field Pass - Program featuring stories, news and profiles involving

Appleton Appleton may refer to: People and fictional characters * Appleton (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters * Appleton family, an American political, religious and mercantile family * Appleton P. Clark Jr. (1865–1955), Am ...

minor league baseball Minor League Baseball (MiLB) is a professional baseball organization below Major League Baseball (MLB), constituted of teams affiliated with MLB clubs. It was founded on September 5, 1901, in response to the growing dominance of the National Le ...

team, the

Wisconsin Timber Rattlers The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers are a Minor League Baseball team of the Midwest League and the High-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. They are located in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, a town on the outskirts of Appleton in the Fox Cities, and are nam ...

. *The Rob Jeter Show – Official weekly coach's show for Milwaukee men's basketball coach

Rob Jeter Robert DeLafayette Jeter III (born May 15, 1969) is an American college basketball coach and current head coach at Southern Utah. Personal life Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jeter grew up in Chicago. His father, Bob (1937–2008), was a Ro ...

, with Bill Johnson. *The Keith Tozer Show – A weekly show involving the

XSL In computing, the term Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) is used to refer to a family of languages used to transform and render XML documents (e.g., XSL is used to determine how to display a XML document as a webpage). Historically, the W3C XS ...

indoor soccer Indoor soccer or arena soccer is a form of five-a-side football, five-a-side or six-a-side version of minifootball. It is derived from association football and adapted to be played in walled hardcourt indoor arenas. It differs from the FIFA, FIFA ...

league and the

Milwaukee Wave The Milwaukee Wave are an American professional indoor soccer team based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that competes in the Major Arena Soccer League (MASL). Founded in 1984, they have been the oldest continuously operating professional indoor footbal ...

, featuring Wave coach

Keith Tozer Keith Tozer is a retired American soccer player who played professionally in the Major Indoor Soccer League, American Soccer League and American Indoor Soccer Association. He is currently the commissioner of the Major Arena Soccer League. Play ...

, with Dennis Krause. *"The Midwest Ballers Show" The following sporting events were carried by Spectrum Sports (Wisconsin): * WIAA athletics *

athletics *

baseball *

Milwaukee Admirals The Milwaukee Admirals are a professional ice hockey team based in Milwaukee. They are the American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate of the National Hockey League (NHL)'s Nashville Predators. They play their homes games at the UW–Milwaukee Panther ...

hockey *

Green Bay Gamblers The Green Bay Gamblers are a Tier I junior ice hockey team in the Eastern Conference of the United States Hockey League (USHL). They play in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, at the Resch Center. History Professional hockey in Green Bay The first p ...

hockey *

indoor soccer *

Green Bay Blizzard The Green Bay Blizzard are a professional indoor football team based in the Green Bay metropolitan area that competes in the Indoor Football League (IFL). The franchise was founded in 2003. The Blizzard began play in the IFL in 2010, after hav ...

arena football * Milwaukee Iron arena football Other shows that aired on Spectrum Sports (Wisconsin): *''

All-Access'' *'' Milwaukee Iron Coach's Show'' *''Sidelines'' *''On the Water Adventures'' *''Hunter's Exchange'' *''John Gillespies Waters & Woods'' *''Midwest Classic Golf with Tom Sutton'' *''Raceline''

References

{{Sports television in the United States

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

Television stations in Milwaukee Defunct local cable stations in the United States Television stations in Green Bay, Wisconsin Television channels and stations established in 2007 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2018