Private equity, station groups also interested

Amazon is among the bidders for the Fox Regional Sports Networks that the Walt Disney Co. will have to divest after acquiring assets from 21st Century Fox, according to a report from CNBC.

The online retail giant currently streams Thursday Night Football and has been adding programming to its Amazon Prime Video streaming service.

The Chinese government has just recently approved the Disney-Fox deal, clearing the last major hurdle before it closes.

CNBC’s David Faber reported Tuesday that Amazon has made a bid for all 22 of the Fox regional sports networks. It is also participating in a bid for the YES Network if it bought separately by the Steinbrenner family that controls the Yankees.

Faber in his report wondered what Amazon’s plan would be if it got control of the regional sports network “Keeping them on cable and collect a fee? if you are out there as a high paying cable customer who does not want these things. the cable company now says now you can get it on prime so we don’t need to offer it any longer we can cut price we can eliminate it from the bundle interesting choice on amazon’s part perhaps they see opportunities perhaps there are opportunities for them of the sales of tickets, sale of memorabilia or programming or advertising where we know they become an important player certainly when it comes to search on the actual amazon platform but many of the merchants need to do that as well so very interesting to note,” he said.

Other bidders include private equity firms like Apollo, KKR and Blackstone. There are also some station groups including Tegna and Sinclair. Those station groups might take on a partner and one partner could be Fox, which didn’t enter its own offer in the first round of bidding, according to Faber.