Fox Sports Southwest originally launched on January 4, 1983 as Home Sports Entertainment , a unit of Warner-Amex Cable. As one of the first regional sports networks in North America, it served as the cable television home of professional and collegiate sports teams throughout Texas and surrounding states. In 1988, HSE became an affiliate of Prime Sports Networks. Like many Prime Sports-affiliated networks, it shared channel space with other networks on several cable providers in its service area until the early 1990s, when cable systems began upgrading their headend infrastructures to increase channel capacity, reassigning most of the cable channels that shared time with HSE to other channel slots once these upgrades were complete. In 1994, Liberty Media acquired HSE, converting it into an owned-and-operated affiliate of Prime Sports and changing its name to Prime Sports Southwest. In 1996, News Corporation, which formed its own sports division for the Fox network two years earlier, acquired a 50% interest in the Prime Network from Liberty Media; the network was officially rebranded as Fox Sports Southwest on November 1 of that year, as part of a relaunch of the Prime Network affiliates as the cornerstones of the new Fox Sports Net. The channel was then rebranded as Fox Sports Net Southwest in late 1999, as part of a collective brand modification of the FSN networks under the "Fox Sports Net" banner. In 2004, the channel shortened its name to FSN Southwest, through the networks' de-emphasis of the brand, before reverting to the Fox Sports Southwest moniker in 2008. In July 2013, News Corporation spun off the Fox Sports Networks and most of its other U.S. entertainment properties into 21st Century Fox. 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 Southwest. 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 bought Fox Sports Networks from The Walt Disney Company for $10.6 billion. The deal closed on August 22, 2019, thus placing Fox Sports Southwest in common ownership with 17 Sinclair stations in Texas.
Fox Sports Southwest has the second-largest market area and total viewer reach of any network in the FSN group. Its expansive footprint extends from eastern New Mexico to Panama City, Florida. The network is divided into five broadcasting zones, each representing the five largest television markets in its designated broadcast region:
The separation of broadcast zones for the channel is mostly due to the defined broadcast territories set by the National Basketball Association for four of the region's five NBA franchises – the Dallas Mavericks, Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans. In the event of a scheduling conflict between either of the teams, the games will be shown on their own subfeeds. In certain circumstances, games involving the Dallas Stars air on Fox Sports Southwest beyond the Dallas-Fort Worth designated market area, including the Houston market, which no longer receives any NBA broadcasts over Fox Sports Southwest. Programming seen in each broadcasting zone is common in most areas, and includes a mix of programs supplied by Fox Sports Networks and some original programming exclusive to Fox Sports Southwest. Other than Fox Sports New Orleans and Fox Sports Oklahoma, which are both treated by Fox Sports Networks as separate channels from Fox Sports Southwest, each feed disambiguated in some electronic program guides and online television listings services as "Fox Sports Dallas", "Fox Sports Houston" and "Fox Sports San Antonio".
Other services
Fox Sports Southwest HD
Fox Sports Southwest HD is a high definition simulcast feed of Fox Sports Southwest, which broadcasts in the 720p format. The channel does not provide a 24-hour simulcast, however it broadcasts various Mavericks, Rangers, Spurs and Stars games, as well as several NCAA football and basketball games shown nationally on FSN and other programming distributed nationally by Fox Sports Networks in high definition.
Fox Sports Southwest Plus
Fox Sports Southwest Plus is an alternate channel feed of Fox Sports Southwest used to broadcast select events from teams to which Fox Sports Southwest holds the broadcast rights within the designated market in the event that two or more games scheduled to be broadcast on the channel are held simultaneously, requiring the overflow feed to carry games that cannot air on the main feed.
Fox Sports Southwest less available on stream
As of January 1, 2020 Fox Southwest is no longer available on streaming services such as fubotv and Sling, though it still is available on Hulu + live TV, and AT&T TV NOW.
