The markets weren’t very good today so the announcement by Comcast (
CMCSA) that they’d bought Cablevision’s (
CVC) interests in FSN (Fox Sports Net) in both the Bay Area and New England for $570 million mostly went unnoticed. The deal gives the country’s largest cable operator a bigger sports stronghold in two of the nations’ best television markets.
Is the deal worth it? I haven’t even had a chance to think about that aspect of the story. What interests me is the ownership of sports programming, especially in the growing game of soccer. Comcast, with this purchase, puts themselves further into the drivers seat in terms of sports broadcasting and only time will tell if this makes sense or not. I tend to think that owning these properties is more sensible than owning the cable operations themselves.
Why do I feel this way? Here’s why: we don’t know for sure if cable will survive for another 50 years. An existing technology (satellite) could replace it or something completely new that's yet too thought of. However, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume sports will exist at that time, which ones I can’t tell you, but today’s news is further indication that Comcast wants to be the one to provide the television programming.
I say this move makes Comcast a more interesting stock, not less. I don’t know if I can say the same about Cablevision.