Atlantic Sports Network (ASN) is an American regional sports network owned by RavCom. Headquartered in Westminster, Maryland, the channel broadcasts regional coverage of sports events along the eastern seaboard.
ASN is available to watch on all television stations owned by RavCom East on or near the East Coast of the United States. ASN is also available on several cable and fiber optic providers along the East Coast.
History[]
In 2008, the board of directors at RavCom began writing up plans for a cable-only national sports network, similar to ESPN. This network would be carried on most major cable providers in the United States. These plans, however, began to diminish as the Recession of 2008 hit and RavCom's income began to tank. Eventually, these plans were scrapped entirely.
In 2011, a new board was put together to revitalize the company following the recession. These directors had extreme and efficient roadmap for the coming years in RavCom. Along with this, they brought up the plan of having a much smaller, more scaled down version of the scrapped plans the old board had drawn up. This plan was a more localized regional sports network that would broadcast games and sports news specifically for the East Coast. Instead of being cable-only, it was thought that the channel would get more traction if broadcast on all stations owned by RavCom East (on the East Coast) free of charge. Another benefit of allowing free transmission on RCE channels is all of these stations would be expecting higher viewer count, boosting company-wide income.
By the end of 2011, a complete plan to roll out Atlantic Sports Network was finished and the expected first air date would be May 2, 2012. Once the network began operations, viewership climbed rapidly for both the network and all RCE television stations on the East Coast.
Programming[]
The network broadcasts all regional Major League Baseball games, National Football League games, as well as a fair amount of National Hockey League games. The network also provides a sports news service before and after each game.
A second channel, ASN X-tras, airs rebroadcasts of their most popular games as well as using the channel as an overflow area in case there are several games at once, which happens quite often.