NBC Gets Small Stake in Arena, Sports Teams

NBC acquired a small stake in Madison Square Garden and its two sports teams, the New York Knicks and Rangers, as part of a deal Monday that also gave it part ownership of several cable networks.

NBC exchanged its stakes in several networks owned by Rainbow Programming Holdings Inc. for a 25% share of Rainbow, which is owned by Cablevision Systems Corp. The value of the deal wasn’t disclosed.

Rainbow owns American Movie Classics, Bravo, the Independent Film Channel and several Sportschannel regional networks.

In March, Cablevision announced it would gain full ownership of the Garden by purchasing ITT Corp.’s 50% stake for at least $650 million.

Monday’s deal will give NBC, which is owned by General Electric Co., a 12.5% stake in the Garden. “We did it because we felt it would be helpful to have NBC as partners in all of Rainbow’s businesses instead of just some,” said Joshua Sapan, Rainbow president and chief executive.