The New England Sports Network, or NESN [NESS-en], is a regional cable television network that covers the six New England states. It is broadcast throughout New England (except Fairfield County and most of New Haven and Litchfield counties in Connecticut). In the New England area, DirecTV carries it on channel 623, with channel 623 for HD). Comcast, in the city of Boston, has NESN on channel 13, but NESN HD is still on channel 851. The Boston Red Sox are a co-founder and the majority owner (80%) of NESN, with the Boston Bruins owning the remaining 20%. NESN is thus technically a unit of the New York Times Company's Boston Globe division, which is part of the Red Sox ownership group. Although it mainly broadcasts non-national Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins games, NESN also features regional college sports including college hockey games on Friday nights, various outdoor shows, and sports talk shows featuring the sports columnists of the Globe, as that paper is also owned by the New York Times. NESN was, for a time, the New England carrier for Fox Sports Net (before Sports Channel New England joined Fox Sports Net), after that, until early 2006, NESN carried ESPNEWS in the afternoon and overnight hours. NESN has carried regional Atlantic Coast Conference basketball games since Boston College joined the conference.
