The other bidders include Sinclair Broadcast Group and private equity firm Apollo Global Management, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Final bids are due to investment bankers by Thursday, these people say.
The price of the bids could not be determined but one person with knowledge of the matter says it’s far below the original asking price of around $20 billion.
The bidding process, which began in November, has been hampered by lackluster interest, low-ball offers and confusion over whether buyers would ultimately own the rights to broadcast various sports programming. One problem facing the auction is that cable subscriptions are declining as customers "cut-the-cord" and ditch their cable boxes and view programming on their computers or mobile devices.
Bankers had originally hoped that the process would have concluded by the second week of January, amid the initial interest from possible bidders like online retailer Amazon, which has been slowly moving into streaming sports programming. But Amazon did not bid in the first round and is not expected to make an official bid in the second round as it focuses on cutting a deal to buy a portion of just one of the RSNs, the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network, or YES Network.
The YES deal is being conducted under a separate negotiation between management of the New York Yankees, Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos, FOX Business has learned. YES is considered the crown jewel of the RSNs, and prior to the Disney deal, Fox retained an 80 percent ownership in the network. But the Yankees chose to buy back the portion of YES that was transferred to Disney after the Fox deal and seek new partners.
No comments:
Post a Comment