The story
Origins
The first effort to air the Bucks and Brewers on cable, Sportsvue in 1984, was hampered by multiple factors, including dispersed systems and uncabled parts of the state of Wisconsin (including Milwaukee itself), team nadirs for the Bucks and Brewers and the availability of Chicago Cubs games via superstation WGN-TV throughout the state. Sportsvue was discontinued at the beginning of 1985 and resulted in the sale of the Bucks to future senator Herb Kohl. In the meantime, the Bucks and Brewers returned to a statewide broadcast network originated by Gaylord Broadcasting's WVTV, and later WCGV-TV, which was hampered by the two teams limiting their schedule to mainly road games.
Wisconsin Sports Network (unrelated to the current-day high school-focused sports publishing operation), a gametime-only network that broadcast Milwaukee Brewers baseball and Milwaukee Bucks basketball games. The channel was owned by Time Warner Cable's Milwaukee franchise and Group W. In 1996, it was taken over by the Minneapolis-based Midwest Sports Channel (MSC), which was owned by CBS (as a result of CBS' 1995 merger with Group W's corporate parent Westinghouse). Shortly afterward, MSC became an affiliate of the fledgling Fox Sports Net in the fall of 1996.
From then on until 2007, Wisconsin was served by one of three regional subfeeds of MSC/FSN North; the other two being a feed for the Twin Cities metropolitan area and a feed for the rest of Minnesota (as well as Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota). CBS sold the network to News Corporation in 2000, ultimately rebranding as FSN North in April 2001. Despite being well out of the station's market area, MSC's late night encore of WCCO's 10:00 p.m. newscast also aired on the Wisconsin network until the Fox purchase. The network then began maintaining offices at the studios of Fox owned-and-operated station WITI (channel 6, which was owned by Tribune Broadcasting from 2007 until 2020, when Fox re-purchased the station) in the Milwaukee suburb of Brown Deer, along with sharing limited programming with that station.
Wisconsin gets its own channel
FSN North converted the Wisconsin feed into a separate channel, FSN Wisconsin. The channel launched on April 1, 2007, coinciding with the start of the 2007 Milwaukee Brewers season, originating from facilities in Milwaukee. That year it aired 125 Brewers games and 70 Bucks games. Other programming included the Minnesota Wild (NHL), University of Wisconsin athletic events, WIAC events, and WIAA high school sports, including live telecasts of the annual football championships. At launch FSN Wisconsin was available to more than 1.5 million homes and produced nearly 2,600 hours of local programming.
After Fox Television Stations sold WITI to Local TV in 2008, FSN Wisconsin relocated its operations to facilities in downtown Milwaukee. As part of the national rebranding of the Fox Sports Networks in 2012, FSN Wisconsin was rebranded as Fox Sports Wisconsin.
On December 14, 2017, as part of a merger between both companies, The Walt Disney Company announced plans to acquire all 22 regional Fox Sports networks from 21st Century Fox, including Fox Sports Wisconsin. However, on June 27, 2018, the Justice Department ordered their divestment under antitrust grounds, citing Disney's ownership of ESPN. On May 3, 2019, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios (through their joint venture, Diamond Holdings) bought Fox Sports Networks from The Walt Disney Company for $10.6 billion. The deal closed on August 22, 2019, thus placing Fox Sports Wisconsin in common ownership with the Milwaukee and Green Bay duopolies of WVTV/WVTV-DT2, WLUK-TV/WCWF and Madison Fox affiliate WMSN. On November 17, 2020, Sinclair announced an agreement with casino operator Bally's Corporation to serve as a new naming rights partner for the FSN channels. Sinclair announced the new Bally Sports branding for the channels on January 27, 2021. On March 31, 2021, coinciding with the 2021 Major League Baseball season, Fox Sports Wisconsin was rebranded as Bally Sports Wisconsin.
In February 2021, the Brewers and Sinclair announced a new contract that gave the Brewers a minority share in the network. The deal is reportedly worth around $34 million per year for four years. The network also originated the official team coverage of the Bucks' 2021 championship parade.
On March 14, 2023, Diamond Sports filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
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On October 9, 2024, after the Brewers' contract with Diamond expired, MLB Local Media announced that it would take the Brewers' media rights in-house, which would have ended the team's relationship with Bally Sports and its forerunners after 27 years.
On October 21, 2024, the network was rebranded as FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin, as part of a new sponsorship agreement between Diamond and sports betting company FanDuel.
On December 31, 2024, the Brewers announced that it had opted to renew with Diamond and remain on FanDuel Sports Network for the 2025 season instead. The team's president of business operations Rick Schlesinger stated that Diamond offered to renegotiate with the team, explaining that "their executives reached out and said, 'Hey, we want to explore a potential new structure with you and new opportunities.' And I said, 'We are certainly open.'" The contract will also add the ability to distribute in-market streams of Brewers games via Amazon Prime Video Channels.
On March 19, 2025, the team announced that through a deal made with WTMJ radio owner Good Karma Brands and FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin that former sister station WITI, along with a state network of stations within the team's territory, would carry three spring training and ten regular season games in the 2025 season locally in a simulcast with the cable channel.
On February 2, 2026, the Milwaukee Brewers announced that they would finally leave FanDuel Sports Network, ending the team's relationship with FanDuel Sports Network after 28 years. MLB also announced that they would be taking over production and distribution of Brewers games starting in the 2026 season.
From Wikipedia’s article on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4