ROH Owner Sinclair Officially Acquires Former Fox Sports Networks For $10.6 Billion

– Sinclair Broadcast Group, the parent company of Ring of Honor, has officially acquired the former Fox Sports networks from Disney for $10.6 billion. The two companies announced on Friday that they have entered into an agreement to sell twenty-one regional sports networks and Fox College Sports. All of the networks were acquired by Disney when it completed its deal to buy 21st Century Fox.

The deal was initially reported yesterday and is in part because Disney is required to divest itself of the networks to avoid a monopoly, as they already own ESPN. The announcement noted that the deal has been unanimously approved by the Board of Directors of both Sinclair and Disney, and it specifically mentions ROH amidst the existing sports business that Sinclair already operates. There’s no word on whether ROH could end up seeing a greater profile by being aired on the newly-acquired channels at this time.

“This is a very exciting transaction for Sinclair to be able to acquire highly complementary assets,” commented Chris Ripley, President and CEO of Sinclair. “While consumer viewing habits have shifted, the tradition of watching live sports and news remains ingrained in our culture. As one of the largest local news producers in the country and an experienced producer of sports content, we are ideally positioned to transfer our skills to deliver and expand our focus on greater premium sports programming.”

He added, “The transaction is expected to be highly accretive to free cash flow and brings consolidated net leverage to 4.7x and 5.1x through the preferred financing. This acquisition is an extraordinary opportunity to diversify Sinclair’s content sources and revenue streams with high-quality assets that are driving live viewing. We also see this as an opportunity to realize cross-promotional collaboration, and synergistic benefits related to programming and production.”