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Bright House Sports Network

Bright House Networks maintain the Bright House Sports Network, providing sports coverage to Tampa Bay and Central Florida.


Bright House Sports Network is actually two slightly separate stations embedded into two local cable channels. These stations provide coverage of local sporting events ranging from the professional level, all the way down to the high school level. For many of these sporting franchises, they are the only stations that provide any television coverage at all. In addition, Bright House Sports Network is exclusive to Bright House Networks customers, meaning that only Bright House subscribers will be able to watch these games.

Sports Franchises Covered

Bright House Sports Network provides coverage of local sports. As a rule, it does not broadcast NFL, NBA, Major League or NHL events, but it does actually broadcast events from smaller sporting leagues and school sports.

Major Professional Teams

Bright House Sports Network does not actually show many of the sporting events of professional times, but it does cover them. In other words, they have a number of shows that discuss the latest games and provides analysis. While this may seem like a raw deal, remember that Bright House Sports Network comes packaged with other cable networks that do show the games. As a result, the programming is actually quite unique: it provides the perspective of fans from Central Florida and Tampa Bay.

The major professional teams that are covered by Bright House Sports Network are the Buccaneers, the Magic, the Devil Rays and the Lightning.

Smaller Professional Teams

Bright House Sports Network covers a number of other professional teams from the central Florida area. These games are shown in their entirety, along with analysis and commentary from their broadcasters.

Many of these teams are minor league teams from the advanced-A division of minor league sports. As a result, fans often enjoy following both the minor league team and also the associated major league team.

The other sports are either local teams not quite at the professional level or teams for sports that don’t have the same level of coverage as the major sports teams.

They carry each of the following teams:

Tampa Bay Storm: Arena Football League
FC Tampa Bay: North America Soccer League
Clearwater Threshers: Florida State League (Phillies’ minor league team)
Brevard Co. Manatees: Florida State League (Brewers’ minor league team)
Dunedin Blue Jays: Florida State League (Blue Jays’ minor league team)
Orlando Predators: Arena Football League
Orlando City S.C.: USL Professional Division Soccer
Tampa Yankees: Florida State League (Yankee’s minor league team)
Lakeland Flying Tigers: Florida State League (Tiger’s minor league team)

Many of these teams are covered exclusively by Bright House Sports Network, so they cannot be watched unless one subscribes to Bright House cable.

High School Sports

Every day at 3 p.m., Bright House shows a local high school sporting event from the area. Which game will depend on whether you are in Tampa Bay or somewhere else in central Florida. The Tampa Bay ineration of the channel shows almost exclusively Tampa Bay games, while the other iteration shows games from a much wider region.

For the most part, the high school sporting events will cover championship games, though when no championship games are available, they will show regular season games.

Local Programming

Bright House Sports Network is what is called an “embedded” channel. In other words, it is “embedded” in another channel and provides a part of its programming. In the case of Bright House Sports Network, it is embedded in the local channel.

In Tampa Bay, Bright House Sports Network is embedded in the local channel Bay News 9. This channel provides a number of local programs, including information about local events, local news, weather and traffic, as well as information about local politics. It also hosts a range of educational programs similar to what one might expect on public television.

In central Florida, Bright House Sports Network is embedded in the local channel CF13 News. This shows some of the same range of educational programs as Bay News 9, but also has a wide range of local programming covering the entirety of Central Florida.

Conclusion

If you enjoy local sports, Bright House Sports Network provides one of the most comprehensive local sports channels available. By shying away from the big games that everyone else is showing anyway, Bright House is able to provide coverage not only of other local professional teams but even daily high school sports. Since this service is only available with Bright House Networks, Bright House cable is a must for any local sports fan in central Florida.

More information is available at their official site.