If you are a big fan of one of the many professional sports teams in the Texas area, you will want access to Bally Sports Southwest. It is the go-to channel for most Rangers, Mavericks, and Stars games.
- Fubo: Get over 150 channels including a great selection of RSNs starting at $85.98/mo. Fubo allows you to try out its service with a free trial.
- DIRECTV STREAM: Sets you up with every regional channel in your area and 100+ others for $99.99/mo. A 5-day free trial is now available for DIRECTV STREAM.
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Table Of Contents
What Is Bally Sports Southwest?
Bally Sports Southwest is a regional sports network (RSN). It operates only in a defined geographical area. So, even though it is streamed, it is only available to subscribers in its market of operation. If you live in Portland, you can’t get Bally Sports Southwest.
Where Is Bally Sports Southwest Available?
The channel is available throughout Texas. It is also available in most of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. And it is available in eastern New Mexico. The dividing lines are dictated by state lines most of the time. For example, Osceola, AR gets Bally Sports Southwest but Fort Pillow, TN (less than 8 miles away) does not.
Bally Sports Southwest is the largest RSN among the Bally affiliates. As such, it is divided into four regions, which will determine exactly what games you see. These regions are largely defined by the local NBA teams’ television territories and agreements.
- Dallas-Fort Worth: Northern and north-central Texas and northern Louisiana
- Houston: Southeast Texas
- San Antonio: Austin, El Paso, southern Texas, eastern New Mexico
- Arkansas
Because of all the details about exactly where Bally Sports Southwest is available, you must contact your provider and confirm that it is available to you.
What Sports Does Bally Sports Southwest Cover?
The main focus of Bally Sports Southwest is Major League Baseball and NHL hockey. They also provide extensive NBA coverage, as well as WNBA, wrestling, Big 12 Conference NCAA events, and larger high school games (Conference 6A).
Along with these professional games, Bally Sports Southwest features pregame and postgame shows and associated analysis. They also feature other sports-related shows like Texas Insider Fishing Report.
The notable exception regarding what Bally Sports Southwest covers is NFL. This is typical for RSNs, however. The networks (ABC/ESPN, CBS, Fox, NBC) have the NFL all to themselves.
It also no longer carries Major League Soccer games from any of Texas’s three MLS teams: Austin FC, FC Dallas, and Houston Dynamo FC. All MLS is now exclusively through Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass.
What Teams Does Bally Sports Cover?
As mentioned, Bally Sports Southwest is huge, and is divided into four broadcasting zones. All the broadcast areas carry Texas Rangers baseball, Dallas Stars hockey, and Dallas Wings women’s basketball. Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs basketball is regional to their respective areas.
Each area may also simulcast games from neighboring Bally Sports channels. For example, the Dallas-Fort Worth area may show Oklahoma City Thunder games (from Bally Sports Oklahoma) and St. Louis Cardinals games (Bally Sports Midwest), Houston may broadcast New Orleans Pelicans matchups, or the Memphis Grizzlies (Bally Sports Southeast) in Arkansas.
What Teams Does Bally Sports Not Cover?
The Houston Rockets and Houston Astros are not covered (they’re on Space City Home Network, formerly AT&T SportsNet Southwest). You also won’t see any pro football teams because the NFL doesn’t use regional sports networks at all.
Also note that Bally Sports+ (see below) does not have agreements in place with most baseball teams, so, as explained below, you won’t see Texas Rangers games on Bally Sports+.
What is Bally Sports Southwest Extra?
Bally Sports Southwest Extra (formerly Bally Sports Southwest Plus) is a substation of Bally Sports Southwest. It features some other sports programming but exists mostly as a place to put overflow programming when too many sporting events are happening at once.
Who are the Bally Sports Southwest Commentators?
Dave Raymond serves as the Texas Rangers’ play-by-play commentator for most of the team’s Bally Sports Southwest-broadcast games; CJ Nitkowski performs in that role the rest of the time. In most cases, however, Nitkowski acts as analyst. When he is not doing so, Tom Grieve, David Murphy, and Dave Valle are ready to step into that position. Emily Jones and Lesley McCaslin are regularly seen as well as field reporters.
Describing the action at Dallas Mavericks games are Mark Followill (play-by-play), Derek Harper (analyst), and Jeff Wade (courtside reporter). All of them completed the 2021-22 season with at least 11 years in those roles, Wade and Followill with more, with 13 and 17, respectively.
Courtside for San Antonio Spurs games are Bill Land (play-by-play) and Sean Elliott (analyst), who both have at least 19 years of experience with the team in their respective positions, Elliott with a little more at 21.
The duo calling the action for Dallas Stars games are Josh Bogorad and Daryl Reaugh. The former ended the 2021-22 season with four years as play-by-play announcer for the Stars, nine with the team overall, and the latter has had 23 campaigns as color analyst, 25 overall.
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Streaming Bally Sports Southwest
There was a time when all the Bally RSNs were widely supported by live TV streaming services. But since the spring of 2020, negotiations broke down between Bally Sports’ parent company, Diamond Sports Group, and the two biggest live TV streaming services: Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV.
Get Bally Sports SW With Fubo
Fubo (formerly FuboTV) is a sports-first streaming service. That means that although it is a great general streaming service with a ton of entertainment, news, and family channels, its focus is on sports.
The only major RSNs that it does not offer are MASN, Spectrum SportsNet, Spectrum SportsNet LA, and YES Network. So if you live in Maryland, Los Angeles, or New York, you might be better off with DIRECTV STREAM. Otherwise, you’ll save a lot of money and get more with Fubo.
Apart from the Bally Sports Southwest and other RSNs, Fubo’s base (Pro) plan comes with 35+ other sports channels. These include hard-to-find channels like beIN Sports and TUDN. And, of course, you get all your local channels and a general selection of about 100 general channels like USA, FX, and SyFy.
All plans come with 1,000 hours of cloud DVR storage with no time limit. And you can stream on up to 10 devices at once, so it’s great for large households.
The pricing for Fubo is a bit confusing, however. It consists of a base plan price plus an RSN fee. It’s like this:
- Plan Cost: $74.99/mo
- RSN Fee:
- One RSN: $10.99/mo — total: $85.98/mo
- Two or More RSNs: $13.99/mo — total: $88.98/mo
For more information, see our Fubo review.
Stream Bally Sports Southwest With DIRECTV STREAM
DIRECTV STREAM (formerly AT&T TV) is not provided with the base (Entertainment) plan. Instead, you need to sign up for the Choice Plan for $108.99/mo. But this does come with a great overall package.
Perhaps even more important is that the plan comes with other RSNs. In most areas, this includes Space City Home Network (formerly AT&T SportsNet Southwest), which is the home of the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets. Bally Sports Oklahoma is also often provided.
The Choice Plan provides you with over 100 channels. These include roughly 20 sports channels like ESPN, ESPNU, FS1, MLB Network, and NBA TV.
All DIRECTV STREAM plans come with unlimited cloud DVR and streaming on unlimited devices at once. This makes DIRECTV STREAM a particularly good service for large households.
For more information about DIRECTV STREAM, read our detailed review.
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Bally Sports+
Note: At this point, Bally Sports+ has secured rights for the games of all covered NBA and NHL teams. But it has not secured rights to most MLB team games. Make sure that your teams will be available before signing up. Or go with Fubo.
Bally Sports+ is the direct-to-consumer streaming service that offers all the Bally Sports channels. Those in Bally Sports Southwest’s broadcast area can get it with the service. There is only one plan but two payment structures:
- Monthly: $19.99
- Yearly: $189.99 (Black Friday deal)
Bally Sports+ supports the following devices: Amazon Fire TV, Android mobile, Android TV-compatible TVs, iOS (eg, iPhone) tvOS, and web browsers (via BallySports.com). Bally Sports says it is working to expand its device support.
Note that Bally Sports+ is limited in terms of its channels. If you want national channels, you will need to combine it with another streaming service like Sling TV.
And if you are a Houston Astros fan, you will want Space City Home Network (formerly AT&T SportsNet Southwest). You have two options:
- Fubo: standalone gives you all the channels for $88.98/mo.
- DIRECTV STREAM: standalone gives you all the channels for $108.99/mo.
Alternatives to Bally Sports Southwest
There is only one way to get Bally Sports Southwest and that is by getting Bally Sports Southwest. But if you just want to watch live games of your favorite NHL, NBA, and MLB teams, there are other streaming options.
If you do not live in the blackout area of Bally Sports Southwest, these services should help you:
- ESPN+: For $9.99/mo or $99.99/yr, you get access to a wide variety of sports. Specifically, ESPN+ streams a lot of NHL and MLB games.
- MLB.TV: For $24.99 per month or $149.99 for the season, you can watch any regular season MLB game live. The catch is that there is a blackout of all games in the Bally Sports Southwest’s area. So if you are a Rangers fan up in El Paso, you are out of luck. But if you are a Rangers fan in Madison, you’re set!
- NBA League Pass: This is the same deal as for MLB.TV. You get all the NBA games that are not blacked out in your area for $14.99 per month or $99.99 for the whole season. They also offer team-specific, no commercial, and NBA TV versions of the plan.
The other option is to stick with nationally televised games. Several league games will be broadcast nationally, though you will still need to deal with blackouts. But these services will provide you with good sports coverage:
- Hulu + Live TV: Provides a great overall streaming service with all the major national sports channels. Try one month for $76.99.
- Sling TV: Allows you to select the additional channel bundles you want at a lower price than other services. Save 50% on your first month of Sling TV.
TVs and Devices to Watch Bally Sports Southwest
DIRECTV STREAM and Fubo support most streaming devices that are in use these days. They support all the standard TV “sticks”: Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, and Roku. They also support Chromecast devices. And they support all smartphones that run iOS and Android.
They also support recent Andoird TV and Samsung smart TVs. And, of course, they support most web browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Safari. Finally, DIRECTV STREAM has its own device that you can use.
You can also use your DIRECTV STREAM account via the Bally Sports App. This allows you to stream on devices like the Xbox One gaming console.
Fubo supports all these streaming devices and more. Find out more in our Fubo Devices Guide.
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Wrapping Up
Bally Sports Southwest is an essential channel for local NBA, MLB, WNBA, and NHL fans in Texas and the surrounding areas.
We recommend Fubo for it and other local channels. Fubo allows you to try out its service with a free trial.
FAQs
What is the cheapest way to stream Bally Sports Southwest?
The cheapest way to get Bally Sports Southwest is to sign up with Bally Sports+. But this may be a false economy since you will not get any channels outside the Bally Sports network — in particular, Space City Home Network (formerly AT&T SportsNet Southwest). If you want these channels, the cheapest option is Fubo for $88.98/mo, which will give you all the RSNs you qualify for as well as 130+ others.
Why can’t I get Bally Sports Southwest if I’m outside its coverage area?
Bally Sports Southwest has exclusive deals with sports leagues that limit their broadcast reach to specific areas. This allows the leagues to still sell some games to national providers who understand that baseball fans in Portland may enjoy a few Rangers games each year but they won’t be willing to pay for 160+ of them.
Why are some Mavericks games blacked out?
This is due to the deal Bally Sports Southwest has made with the NBA. When a Mavericks game is broadcasted on a national channel like ESPN or FS1, it is not available to watch in the area that Bally Sports Southwest operates — these are “in-market” games. The blackout gives local fans an incentive to sign-up with Bally Sports Southwest.
Can I subscribe to Bally Sports Southwest directly?
The content on Bally Sports Southwest (specifically, Texas Rangers and Dallas Mavericks games) are available through Bally Sports+. It costs $19.99/mo or $189.99/yr ($15.83/mo). Depending on your exact location, you may get access to content from other Bally Sports channels. But it does limit you to the Bally Sports network and you will not get access to many national games (including all playoff contests).
Does Hulu come with Bally Sports Southwest?
You can’t get any of the Bally Sports channels with Hulu + Live TV — including Bally Sports Southwest. This is also true of YouTube TV. Neither of them have had any Bally Sports channels since 2020. You need either Fubo or DIRECTV STREAM for Bally Sports Southwest.
What can I do if I’m not in Bally Sports Southwest’s coverage area?
If you aren’t in Bally Sports Southwest’s coverage area, you can’t get it. But you might have better options. Rangers fans who live outside the Texas area can sign up for MLB.TV ($139.99/yr) and watch all the games live. And if they are Mavericks fans, they can sign up for NBA League Pass ($99.99/yr). You can also get League Pass through Fubo and DIRECTV STREAM. There used to be a similar service for NHL but it has been folded into ESPN+.
What happened to Fox Sports Southwest?
Fox Sports Southwest has been rebranded as Bally Sports Southwest. When 21st Century Fox merged with Walt Disney, the US Justice Department forced the sale of the Fox Sports RSN because of an antitrust conflict because of Disney’s ownership of ESPN. Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios (as Diamond Holdings) bought all the Fox RSNs and made a deal with Bally’s Corporation to use its name. Hence Fox Sports Southwest became Bally Sports Southwest.
How can I watch the Rangers’ divisional rivals?
The following articles provide all the information you need to watch the other American League West teams:
- Oakland Athletics — NBC Sports California
- Houston Astros — Space City Home Network (formerly AT&T SportsNet Southwest)
- Los Angeles Angels — Bally Sports West
- Seattle Mariners — Root Sports Northwest
How can I watch the Stars’ divisional rivals?
For information about the other teams in the Central Division, see these articles:
- Arizona Coyotes — Bally Sports Arizona
- Chicago Blackhawks — NBC Sports Chicago
- Colorado Avalanche — Altitude Sports
- Minnesota Wild — Bally Sports North
- Nashville Predators — Bally Sports South
- St Louis Blues — Bally Sports Midwest
- Winnipeg Jets — NA
How can I watch the other Southwest division rivals?
For information about the other teams in the SouthWest Division except Mavericks, and Spurs, see these articles:
- Houston Rockets — Space City Home Network (formerly AT&T SportsNet Southwest)
- Memphis Grizzlies — Bally Sports Southeast
- New Orleans Pelicans — Bally Sports New Orleans
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