Comcast to Buy 2 Viacom Sports Networks

Comcast Corp., the third-largest U.S. cable-television company, agreed to buy two sports networks from Viacom Inc. for an undisclosed price to add more broadcasts of professional basketball and hockey games.

Comcast is buying Midwest Sports Channel, which has 2.6 million subscribers in Minneapolis and Milwaukee, and Home Team Sports Channel, with 4.7 million customers in Washington and Baltimore. Fox Entertainment Group Inc., controlled by Rupert Murdoch, will retain about a one-third stake in Home Team Sports.

The acquisition will increase Comcast’s sports lineup, which already includes the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Assn. and the National Hockey League’s Flyers, which the company partly owns. Philadelphia-based Comcast, which has 8.2 million cable customers, has said it wants to distribute more sports broadcasts to better compete with satellite companies such as Hughes Electronics Corp.’s DirecTV.

Viacom became the world’s third-largest media company in May, and said it would sell the two networks because the combined company wouldn’t specialize in sports programming. Instead, New York-based Viacom combined its other networks into a single entity that includes MTV, Nickelodeon, TNN and VH1.

Comcast shares fell 19 cents to close at $35.63 in Tuesday’s trading on Nasdaq. Viacom rose $1.13 to $69.38, and New York-based Fox rose $1.50 to $34, both on the New York Stock Exchange.

Comcast has about 1.5 million subscribers in the Baltimore-Washington area who could watch Home Team Sports broadcasts. The company doesn’t have any customers in Milwaukee or Minneapolis, said spokeswoman Vickie Glazar.