Ted Leonsis expands DC empire renaming NBC Sports Washington as Monumental Sports Network

One year ago Ted Leonsis purchased NBC Sports Washington and promised a rebrand once the seasons of the Washington Capitals and Wizards were complete.

On Wednesday that rebrand and what’s next were announced. Of course the big one was the name change as the network will become Monumental Sports Network starting in September ahead of the Caps preseason.

The rebrand will extend to new on air graphics, digital aesthetics, and hopefully a better looking score bug. When it goes live this fall, there will also be new original programming.

That means while you’re waiting for the Caps pregame show to start you won’t need to worry about sitting through an entire afternoon of random horse races.

In addition to Caps and Wizards games, Monumental Sports Network will include coverage of the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, the NBA G League’s Capital City GoGo, Wizards District Gaming, plus hundreds of hours of programming for local college and high school sports across the DMV.

May I throw in another suggestion, let’s get some Hershey Bears games on the new network too. The fresh defending Calder Cup champs deserve it after the spring they just had.

There will also be two new studio shows, behind the scenes team magazine shows (hello CRL?) and even coverage from popular sports reporter and DC area native Rachel Nichols.

The new original programming include classic Capitals and Wizards games which will hopefully have some good classic games from the early Alex Ovechkin era and sooner.

There will also be a Top 10 series that counts down the greatest moments in Capitals and Wizards history. There will also be a Capitals magazine style show that hasn’t been named yet but a return of Caps Red Line makes the most sense for the show title. Alexa Landestoy will host and the show will highlight the best behind the scenes, office ice stories with players, staff and other Capitals fanatics stories.

There will also be some live game enhancements. Sideline reporters will travel and report on the ground for every game. Players and coaches will be mic’d up for at least 40 Caps and Wizards games. That is 40 games for each team.

The new in game enhancements also promise to give us unparalleled access and views as we all await Alex Ovechkin’s historic chase of Wayne Gretzky’s all time scoring record.

You can check out more details on Monumental Sports Network by viewing the press release here.

The sports media landscape has changed a lot and this is the latest example. Traditional news is fading while team owned sports networks and independent media and fan blogs seem to be the future.

Overall I love this concept and am excited to see how it all plays out during the NHL and NBA season. I remember going to my grandma’s house in New Jersey as a kid and being fascinated by the New York Yankees and Mets programming from their own TV networks in YES and SNY.

I imagined to myself back then, “what if DC had that?”.

Starting in September, DC will have their very own team owned sports network and we can all thank Uncle Ted for it.