The same deal would also give CBS a 50% interest in Rainbow's other networks, then-premium services Bravo and American Movie Classics.

While the Florida network got off to a slow start, this proved to be a great move as it gained rights to several expansion teams in the years that followed.

In December 1988, NBC and Cablevision announced that they would form a joint venture to operate their respective cable networks, including SportsChannel.

[10] Through this partnership, SportsChannel launched five additional networks in the Bay Area, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

SportsChannel Los Angeles later ceased operations at the end of 1992 due to financial issues, with all of its sports broadcast contracts being acquired by the competing Prime Ticket.

Through this partnership, the two companies formed the sports news service NewSport, replacing SportsChannel America.

On April 25, 1995, NBC sold its 50% interest in SportsChannel New York to Rainbow Media for US$93 million; NBC cited that "owning a piece of SportsChannel New York made less sense" after Cablevision and ITT purchased competing regional sports network, MSG Network.

[11] On June 30, 1997, Fox/Liberty Networks, a joint venture between News Corporation and Liberty Media, purchased a 40% interest in Rainbow's sports properties including the SportsChannel networks, Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers.

National Sports Partners, the venture formed through Cablevision's entry into the News Corporation/Liberty partnership to operate the existing and newly acquired owned-and-operated regional networks, later announced that it would relaunch the other SportsChannel networks under the "Fox Sports Net" banner.

After Comcast acquired a majority stake in Philadelphia-based entertainment company Spectacor to form Comcast Spectacor in 1996 and announced plans to create its own regional sports network, Rainbow Media decided to shut down SportsChannel Philadelphia and sister premium service PRISM on October 1, 1997, with both networks' NBA and NHL contracts with the Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers being acquired by the new Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia (which replaced SportsChannel Philadelphia on local cable systems and additionally became an FSN affiliate; PRISM was replaced by then-Liberty owned premium movie network Starz).

Cablevision repurchased Huizenga's share of the network in November 1999, relaunching it as Fox Sports Net Florida on March 1, 2000, formally dissolving the SportsChannel brand two years after the national group effectively ceased operations.

The contract expired on January 1, 2000, enabling Fox Sports New England to become a full FSN affiliate.

However, News Corporation and Cablevision retained joint ownership of Fox Sports Bay Area.

SportsChannel broadcast several Canadian Football League regular season games produced by SportsChannel Pacific during the 1993 season, later losing the broadcast rights to the upstart ESPN2 (at the time devoted most of programming to extreme sports) through a four-year contract in 1994.

Lee Zeidman,[29] Dave Johnson, and sideline reporter Keith Tozer served as the commentators for the occasion.