In a move that Americans are trying to wrap their proverbial heads arounds, news broke Wednesday night that the largest U.S. cable provider, Comcast, has entered into an agreement to purchase the second largest, Time Warner Cable.
According to CNBC (owned by Comcast), this megadeal is worth $159 per share or somewhere in the neighborhood of $45 billion.
Not only does this make Comcast a huge provider with 33 million subscribers, it also gives them local sports rights in Los Angeles to the Dodgers and the Lakers through Time Warner.
If this deal is approved and expect heavy scrutiny from the Feds, the new company would have regional sports networks in some of the nation’s biggest cities, New York (SNY which is a partnership between Comcast, TWC and the Mets), Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, DC, Houston (although that is in court) and Portland as well as CSS, a regional sports network in the South.
And these rights would involve in MLB, Chicago Cubs and White Sox, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants.
In the NBA, they would own the rights to the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia 76ers, Portland Trail Blazers and Washington Wizards.
In the NHL, they would own the rights to Chicago Blackhawks, Philadelphia Flyers, San Jose Sharks and Washington Capitals as it currently does now.
Comcast SportsNet also has agreements with several NFL teams as their official cable network.
Of course, Comcast owns NBCUniversal including the NBC Sports Group and rights to the NFL, NHL, English Premier League, Formula 1, Olympics, PGA Tour and starting in 2015, NASCAR.
As we get more information on this deal, I’ll be sure to pass it along.
