C.D. Chesley

Raycom Sports

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Sports Broadcast Television Production Sales & Marketing Syndication Distribution Event Management
Founded	June 19, 1979 (1979-06-19)
Founders	Rick and Dee Ray Ken Haines
Headquarters	Charlotte, North Carolina
Area served	United States (Nationwide)
Key people	Hunter Nickell (CEO)
Number of employees	51 (2016)
Parent	Raycom Media
Website	www.raycomsports.com

Raycom Sports is an American syndicator of sports television programs. It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and owned and operated by Raycom Media. It was founded in 1979 by husband and wife, Rick and Dee Ray. Since its inception, it has produced and distributed football and basketball games from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) of the NCAA. It was also a distributor of games from the Southeastern, Big Eight, and Big Ten conferences, as well as the now-defunct Southwest Conference. In August 2019, Raycom Sports will officially stop its syndicated broadcasts of ACC college football and basketball seasons as the Conference and ESPN will then launch the ACC-ESPN cable network.

Raycom produces sports event telecasts for Fox Sports South and the Carolina Panther pre-season games.

Raycom Sports was started in July 1979 by Rick and Dee Ray in Charlotte. Rick Ray was a program manager at WCCB in Charlotte when he proposed that WCCB produce more basketball games. Ray thought that they would be very profitable for WCCB, given North Carolina's reputation as a college basketball hotbed.

Raycom first pick up the broadcast rights to Great Alaska Shootout in 1979. Ken Haines was one of the first hired for Raycom Sports. The company in its first year got Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) basketball rights. Raycom even sold ESPN part of its early live programming in ACC basketball games. Only in 1982, Haines had Raycom offer a package of ACC basketball via cable called ACC Ticket.

In mid-1988, Raycom acquire Rasmussen Communications, thus adding the Big 10 to its broadcast rights. Raycom then extended its right with exclusivity for all non-network conference basketball games until 1995.