Comcast-GE Joint Venture

I considered posting this elsewhere, but in my mind, the impact really is for football.



The following came across my ticker this morning, and I know the impact of a Comcast (Versus Network) and GE (NBC Universal/NBC Sports) competitor to ESPN has been discussed on this board.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Comcast /quotes/(CMCS.A 15.30, -0.02, -0.13%) /quotes/comstock/15*!cmcsk (CMCS.K 14.18, +0.06, +0.42%) and General Electric /quotes/quotes/nls/ge (GE 16.17, +0.10, +0.62%) said that they will form a joint venture that will be 51% owned by Comcast and 49% owned by GE. The joint venture will consist of the NBC Universal businesses and Comcast's cable networks, regional sports networks and certain digital properties and unconsolidated investments. GE will contribute to the joint venture NBCU's businesses valued at $30 billion. Comcast will contribute its cable networks and make a payment to GE of approximately $6.5 billion of cash subject to certain adjustments. As part of the deal, GE will acquire Vivendi's /quotes/comstock/24s!e:viv (FR:VIV 20.22, -0.05, -0.25%) 20% interest in NBC Universal for $5.8 billion. "This transaction will generate approximately $8 billion of cash at closing with an expected small after-tax gain," said GE CEO Jeff Immelt.

Impact on the mtn.

Impact on ESPN.

Impact on BYU Sports (and our ability to see them.

All I care about is, will this get the Mtn. on Dish Network? And will it be in HD?

I have a feeling this just means that Comcast is now going to make it next to impossible for DirecTV to get NBC.

hawkwing wrote:
I have a feeling this just means that Comcast is now going to make it next to impossible for DirecTV to get NBC.

Reminds me of a few years ago when Dish Network didn't have CBS for a few days due to a contract disbute.