Other SportsChannel networks launched between throughout the 1980s and early 1990s in markets such as San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

[7] In December 1988, Cablevision announced that it would form a joint venture with NBC to operate the cable networks owned by the respective companies, including SportsChannel.

[citation needed] SportsChannel New York lost the broadcast rights to the Yankees to the MSG Network, then its main competitor, after the 1988 season.

SportsChannel New York officially became Fox Sports New York the following day on January 28, with the first event aired as a Fox Sports Net outlet that evening being an NBA game between the Nets and the Los Angeles Lakers at Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California.

In 2004, the channel shortened its name to FSN New York, through the networks' de-emphasis of the "Fox Sports Net" brand.

In 2005, the Mets announced that it would launch its own sports network to carry the team's games after FSN New York's contract with the team expired; SportsNet New York became the Mets new cable home when it launched in April 2006, at the start of that year's regular season.

[17] The last event to air under the FSN New York banner was a college basketball game between the Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers and the Robert Morris Colonials from Moon Township, Pennsylvania on March 9.

After News Corporation acquired a stake in the channel, rights to FSN national programming moved to YES Network.

In turn, through MSG's regional television rights agreements, MSG Sportsnet also broadcasts certain NHL games involving the New York Rangers and Major League Soccer games featuring the New York Red Bulls not broadcast by its parent network.

MSG Sportsnet also carries a large proportion of Buffalo Sabres games available to subscribers in most of upstate New York.

Even after the network's rebranding as MSGSN, it continued to carry these programs until they were discontinuance, similar to a programming agreement FSN maintained with Comcast SportsNet affiliates in markets where there is no local FSN outlet (although CSN maintains a local affiliation with SportsNet New York).

Normally, New York Knicks games are televised over MSG2 only during road games that start at least one hour later than a Rangers telecasts due to the fact that the Knicks (whose telecasts are the highest-rated sports events on MSG Network) normally take precedence on the main MSG network when played at Madison Square Garden.

However, several Knicks home games originally scheduled to air on MSG were moved to MSG2 in 2008, in order for the former to carry the Rangers' Stanley Cup Playoff matches.

Beginning in the 2005–06 NBA and NHL seasons, after the Metro Networks ceased operation and the Nets telecasts moved to YES Network, MSG and the then-FSN New York relaunched MSG2 and FSN New York 2 (the present-day MSG+ 2) and began producing two separate broadcasts when two of their contracted teams play one another.

It is carried on Cablevision (except on its system in Litchfield), Time Warner Cable (in New York and New Jersey), Comcast (which has carried MSGSN HD full-time since October 15, 2009 in areas of northern and central New Jersey within the New York City market)[23] RCN, DirecTV[24] and Verizon FiOS.

Sister network MSGSN 2 also maintains an HD simulcast, whose availability depends on geographic location and television provider.

[27] On December 14, 2011, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied MSG Holdings' petition to review an order by the Federal Communications Commission that Cablevision make the HD feeds of its regional sports networks available for distribution to AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS.