April 30, 200719 yr Philadelphia Business Journal - 10:42 AM EDT Monday, April 30, 2007 Comcast Corp. has agreed to buy Cablevision Systems Corp.'s interests in two cable sports networks for $570 million, a move that will give Comcast complete ownership of FSN New England and 60 percent of FSN Bay Area, Comcast and Cablevision said Monday. Comcast is buying 60 percent of FSN Bay Area and 50 percent of FSN New England from Cablevision's Rainbow Media Holdings LLC subsidiary. The rest of FSN Bay Area will remain owned by an affiliate of News Corp. (NYSE:NWS). Comcast, which already owns all or part of six other sports networks, will operate both FSN networks. Philadelphia-based Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA, CMCSK) is the nation's largest cable-television company, with 24.2 million cable customers, 12.1 million high-speed Internet customers, and 3 million phone customers. It also owns cable networks and programming assets, including stakes in sports teams. Cablevision's cable-TV operations serve more than 3 million households in the New York area. The company also owns cable networks, sports teams and other assets. It is based in Bethpage, N.Y. Could FSN Bay Area and FSN New England become the next Comcast SportsNets? Giants and A's are on FSN Bay Area. Comcast SportsNet West competes with FSN Bay Area, now with this deal they could be partners like FSN Florida and Sun Sports are. FSN New England should become Comcast SportsNet New England almost right away since Comcast now owns 100% of it.
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