The network maintains main studios and offices located inside the Wells Fargo Center in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex.

After short-lived discussions between Rainbow Media and Comcast about the latter possibly becoming a part-owner in PRISM and SportsChannel Philadelphia,[6] on April 25, 1996, Comcast Spectacor formally announced plans to create a new Philadelphia-centric sports network, which would carry both the Flyers and Sixers; it also signed a deal with the Phillies, giving the new network rights to most of their Major League Baseball games.

Disagreements between the Flyers and Rainbow Media over the amount the team would receive for the 1996–97 season contract led the Flyers to announce plans in late September that it would assume production responsibilities for its home game broadcasts and sell the local rights to its game telecasts to individual cable providers as a backup plan if deal did not come to fruition.

[9] Rainbow and Comcast Spectacor finally reached a one-year, $5 million contract extension to keep its locally televised games on PRISM and SportsChannel on October 4, 1996, the day before its season home opener.

[11] After much uncertainty, which included plans for PRISM and SportsChannel to become affiliates of Fox Sports Net (after News Corporation and Liberty Media purchased 40% of the sports assets owned by Rainbow parent Cablevision on June 30, 1997[12][13]), Comcast then reached agreements with Liberty and Rainbow Media to replace PRISM with the Liberty-owned premium movie channel Starz!

[14][15] Reports indicated that Comcast SportsNet initially would charge a per subscriber rate of $1.50 a month (representatives for Comcast Spectacor stated the rate was closer to the range of $1.20 to $1.35) to participating cable providers, described as "one of the most expensive – if not the most expensive" basic cable channel in the United States (a distinction that was eventually assumed by the nationally distributed ESPN); SportsChannel Philadelphia, by comparison, charged providers that carried the network between 25¢ and 35¢ a month per subscriber.

The company's demand that CSN Philadelphia be offered as a basic cable service resulted in complaints by some local providers (including Wade Cable, Lower Bucks Cablevision and Harron Communications) because of the higher per subscriber rate; however, Jack Williams, who was appointed as the original president of CSN Philadelphia, said that the company would "not accept any arrangement other than running SportsNet as a basic channel.

It also broadcasts numerous men's and women's college sporting events sanctioned by the Atlantic 10 Conference, the Ivy League, and the Coastal Athletic Association.

Since NBC Sports Philadelphia did not uplink its signal to any communications satellites, Comcast was able to avoid a regulation outlined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that requires most television channels to be offered to direct broadcast satellite providers; this loophole, known as the "terrestrial exception", was implemented by the FCC in 1992 to encourage investments in local programming by cable providers.

As a result of its limited availability, satellite providers DirecTV, Dish Network and the now-defunct PrimeStar experienced a far slower rate of subscriber penetration into the Philadelphia market compared to other American cities.

Waz also accused DirecTV of unfairness in wanting to "profit" from carrying the channel despite having "invested zero in improving the quality of programming available to greater Philadelphia".

However, on December 4, 2006, Comcast reached a deal with Verizon FiOS to carry CSN Philadelphia on its systems in eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and southern New Jersey.

However, days before it was set to be added, the NBA issued a cease and desist order against Comcast, blocking the distribution of Philadelphia 76ers games in Middlesex County; this was despite the fact that the league allowed New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets games televised by MSG Network and Fox Sports New York to be shown on both Comcast and TKR (now Cablevision) in Mercer County, which is part of the Philadelphia market.

Due to blackout restrictions imposed by Major League Baseball, residents within the Philadelphia area, the eastern half of Pennsylvania and most of New Jersey and Delaware cannot view these games via the MLB Extra Innings package.

Because of the network's distribution exclusively in the Delaware Valley, ESPN must reach agreements with ABC owned-and-operated station WPVI-TV (channel 6) – owned by ESPN's majority owner The Walt Disney Company – to provide the network recordings of any sporting events involving teams whose game broadcasts are shown on NBC Sports Philadelphia to include in highlight packages seen on Sportscenter, NBA Fastbreak and Baseball Tonight.