As of August 2023[update], SportsNet Pittsburgh is available on cable providers throughout nearly all of Pennsylvania (outside the Philadelphia market), almost all of West Virginia, western Maryland, eastern Ohio, southwestern border areas of New York and Ashland, Kentucky, reaching more than 2.4 million homes; it is also available in the Columbus, Ohio, market through DirecTV Stream, though Penguins broadcasts are blacked out due to the presence of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

[2] The network was initially owned by Tele-Communications Inc. (now part of Comcast), then the largest cable television provider in the Pittsburgh market.

[10] The network officially rebranded as Root Sports Pittsburgh on April 1, 2011, coinciding with the start of the 2011 Major League Baseball season.

All network programming and on-air talent remained intact, with the exception of Paul Steigerwald, who was replaced in October 2017 by Steve Mears as the play-by-play announcer of the Penguins.

Two potential suitors included Sinclair Broadcast Group, which had acquired Fox Sports Networks (with Entertainment Studios) amid the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney (and already had a decades-long presence in the Pittsburgh market as the owners of WPGH-TV/WPNT), as well as NBCUniversal, which owns regional networks via its NBC Sports division, and whose parent company Comcast is the cable provider in Pittsburgh.

[18][19][20] While originally setting a deadline of March 31, it later reached an agreement to keep the networks operational through at least the end of the 2023 Major League Baseball season.

[26] It was initially uncertain whether the Pirates would continue to be televised by the channel, with sportswriters citing potential conflict of interest concerns with FSG being the parent company of a competing MLB team, the Boston Red Sox.

[25] On December 13, 2023, the Pirates announced that they had acquired a stake in SportsNet Pittsburgh, and confirmed that it would remain the team's home beginning in the 2024 season.

It is available at no additional charge to SportsNet Pittsburgh subscribers on television providers, and sold as a direct-to-consumer subscription service priced at $17.99 per-month.

To fill out its schedule outside local sports, the network carries live coverage of the Professional Women's Hockey League, college ice hockey, and the British Basketball League, as well as tape-delayed coverage of pro footvolley, kickboxing, poker, MMA, boxing, padel, jai alai, and World Chase Tag.

The network formerly served as the cable home of the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers, broadcasting team-related magazine and analysis programs such as weekly press conferences held by coach Mike Tomlin during the regular season and the team coach's show The Mike Tomlin Show (both were hosted by Stan Savran).

Additional collegiate programming formerly carried by SportsNet has included: West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission high school football, baseball, softball, and boys' and girls' basketball championship games, as well as occasional broadcasts of regular-season WVSSAC football contests, are carried by SportsNet Pittsburgh.

[43][44] The network is the regional home of the annual PONY League World Series, which is held locally in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

Notable events broadcast by the network include the Pittsburgh City League boys’ and girls’ basketball championships, the Penguins Cup, and the Serra Catholic Baseball Invitational.

[47] The network also provides coverage of Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) boys' and girls' regular season basketball.

With the sale of the network to Fenway Sports Group, pre- and postgame coverage has been expanded from 30 minutes to an hour before and after each game as of October 2023.

Since 2021, SportsNet has served as the local affiliate of VSIN's Follow The Money, a 3-hour sports betting program that airs weekdays from 7-10am.

[49] Additional content from VSIN was added in the fall of 2023, including The Lombardi Line and betting-oriented NFL and college football gameday programming.

Savran on SportsBeat, Pittsburgh Sports Tonight, and live Steelers coverage are just some of the local studio shows that were cancelled during the network's ownership under Liberty Media in the late 2000s.