.png) | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Upstate New York Nationwide (via satellite) |
| Network | Prime Network (1990–1996),Fox Sports Net (1996–2005) |
| Headquarters | West Seneca,New York |
| Programming | |
| Language | English |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Adelphia Communications Corporation |
| History | |
| Launched | December 31, 1990 (1990-12-31) |
| Closed | March 7, 2005 (2005-03-07) |
| Replaced by | MSG Spectrum Sports (New York) |
Empire Sports Network was anAmericanregional sports network that was owned by theAdelphia Communications Corporation. The network was available oncable providers in much ofupstate New York (stretching fromBuffalo toAlbany), as well as parts of northernPennsylvania and easternOhio. The network ceased operations on March 7, 2005, in the midst of Adelphia's financial collapse and bankruptcy.
Empire Sports Network launched on December 31, 1990; its first broadcast that evening was aNational Hockey League game between theBuffalo Sabres and thePhiladelphia Flyers. Founded byJohn Rigas (founder andchief executive officer 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 ofCoudersport, Pennsylvania, a rural borough dozens of miles away from the nearest major sports teams.[1] 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 onFox affiliateWUTV (channel 29), which carried the team's games under a separate contract), theBuffalo Bisons of theInternational League andMajor League Baseball games from thePittsburgh Pirates. Empire was an outgrowth of theNiagara 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.[2] In October 1991, the network became an affiliate of thePrime 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.[3]
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 parentAct 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.[4] By 1995, Empire had expanded its carriage to TCI systems inRochester andSyracuse; the network expanded its statewide coverage eastward toAlbany andBinghamton. 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 asFox 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 theStanley Cup Finals 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 CommissionerGary Bettman commenting that "if the rest of the league was covered like Empire Sports covers the Sabres, we would be as big as theNFL." By 2001, Empire Sports had over 6.7 million subscribers via both cable providers in New York, northern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio and nationally onsatellite.[1]
Between October 2000 and March 2004, Adelphia, undervice president/general manager Bob Koshinski, used staff from Empire to operateWethersfield radio stationWNSA (107.7 FM). The station overtookWGR (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 hostMike Schopp, to WGR when the Rigas/Adelphia scandal broke.
Empire Sports thrived until March 2002, when theSecurities and Exchange Commission began investigating accusations of internalcorruption and securities violations by Adelphia executives (including John Rigas and his son,chief operating officer Timothy Rigas), leading up to the company's subsequentbankruptcy filing, as Adelphia was mired inoff-balance-sheet debt totaling $2.3 billion.[5] With Adelphia in freefall and under temporary bank-appointed management, Empire was unable to renew its carriage agreement withTime Warner Cable, 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 theOutdoor Life Network on May 1, 2003.[6][7] 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.[8]
The network continued to operate, but was dealt another severe blow in 2003 when Adelphia'sboard of directors 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 showFan TV,[9][10] but the network itself was still able to survive for another eighteen months.
Thelockout that wiped out the entire2004–05 NHL season 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 aloss leader 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).[11] Further complicating matters, Time Warner later decided to drop Empire from its systems in Syracuse, Rochester and Binghamton on December 1, 2004,[12] leaving Empire available only inWestern New York and the city ofUtica, although it remained on the sports tier packages ofDirecTV andDish Network 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 toEntercom 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 toclassic rock under the brand "107.7 The Lake". Simon's show, however, continued onWLVL (1340 AM) inLockport 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.[13] 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),[14] a failed bids by the Hamister group (which would have also included the Sabres) and theBuffalo Bills was also interested in purchasing Empire Sports – desiring instead to pocket theretransmission consent fees (totaling an average of $1.98 per subscriber) that would have gone to Empire's new owner had the network been sold off.[1]Tom Golisano andLarry 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.[15][16] On January 23, the network laid off all but two of its 30 employees.[17] The network cancelled its original programming, replacing it with a continuoustape loop, 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 theNFL Network.[18]
Adelphia was acquired by Time Warner Cable andComcast, which completed the asset transfer and division on August 1, 2006.[19] 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 withNew York City-basedMSG 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 maintains an agreement with what was thenTime Warner Cable 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 asSpectrum Sports, a sports network that covers most of Empire's old territory and operated out of Empire's old studios inWest 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 asWBBZ-TV, 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 anexecutive producer 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, 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.[20] 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 asMSG Western New York, which is co-owned by Pegula and carries additional local studio programming covering the Bills and Sabres.[21]
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 afake news website of the same name from claiming the domain. The empiresports.com domain was eventually transferred to a marketing firm inDublin, Ohio.
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 theNational Football League'sBuffalo Bills; live play-by-play of theArena Football League'sBuffalo Destroyers, thePittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball, theBuffalo Bisons,Rochester Red Wings andSyracuse Chiefs of theAAA International League;AHL hockey; andNCAA basketball.Buffalo Bandits lacrosse also received limited coverage on the network.
Empire also airedNBA games featuring theToronto Raptors 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 liveCanadian Football League games onFriday nights andtape delayed telecasts on Saturday mornings.
Some of Empire's programs includedFan TV, a daily 2½-hour late-afternoon sports news and call-in program hosted byHoward Simon and Jim Brinson) and its successor,The SimonCast; theEmpire Sports Report, a nightly sportscast hosted by Mike DeGeorge,Josh Mora and Jason Bristol; andHockey Hotline, the Sabres' post-game report hosted by NHL veteranMike Robitaille and later with Brian Blessing. Other popular shows includedFan Forum with Bob Koshinski, which aired from 1991 to 1998 andPros and Cons (a predecessor toPardon the Interruption that featuredWGRZ-TV sports director Ed Kilgore pitted against contrarian and WGR radio hostArt Wander, withBuffalo News sports editorLarry 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 punterPaul Maguire (now an NFL analyst forESPN) also hosted theBudweiser Sportsline on the network during the NFL season;Pete Weber andDanny Gare (who both currently work as NHL announcers) also worked for Empire along with former Buffalo BillSteve Tasker (now ofCBS).Van Miller lent his voice to several college basketball games on Empire during the early years of the network. The network also airedECW Hardcore TV produced byExtreme Championship Wrestling, a now-defunctprofessional wrestling promotion based inPhiladelphia.
| |
| Franchise | |
| History | |
| Personnel |
|
| Arenas | |
| Affiliates | |
| Media | |
| Culture and lore |
|
