Meet the Mets' new network: SportsNet New York

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The New York Mets will call the sports television network they are starting with Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Inc. "SportsNet New York," and will broadcast from midtown Manhattan across from Radio City Music Hall.

The cable network, which will go on the air next year, will show as many as 125 regular-season Mets baseball games. Programming will include 30 college football games and 85 college basketball games from conferences including the Big East and the Big Ten.

The name of the network, its blue-and-white logo and street-level studios were unveiled at a press conference today.

"We will be compelling, informative and entertaining," network President Jon Litner said at a Manhattan press conference where he was joined by Time Warner Chief Executive Officer Richard Parsons and Jack Williams, president of Comcast SportsNet.

The Mets paid $54 million last year to Cablevision Systems Corp.'s MSG Networks to end their television contracts after this season, allow them to show their games on their own network. The New York Yankees were the first team to own their own network when they started the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network in 2002.

SportsNet New York doesn't yet have an agreement with Cablevision, New York's largest cable operator with 3 million subscribers, to be carried on its system. The network will be available to about 2.3 million Time Warner Cable customers in New York and New Jersey, plus 790,000 Comcast customers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

"We plan to be available in all homes in our regional footprint by next spring," Litner said.

The network also annonced that it hired Curt Gowdy Jr., who worked for ABC Sports, as vice president of production and executive producer; Steve Raab, a former executive at Turner Broadcasting where he helped start the Turner South regional network, as vice president of marketing and business; and Gary Morgenstern, who helped start ESPN2 and ESPN Outdoors in a 16- year career at the Disney cable network, as director of programming.

That's So New York