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News Disney and Fox come to terms -- announcement soon; huge IP acquisition

Indy_UK

Indy_UK

Well-Known Member
Is Disney not being allowed to have regional sport now as part of this deal make a big difference? Are Disney going to be gutted to not get that part?

$18 billion knocked off what's owed is quite a chunk. Go buy Sony Pictures with that
 
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mab7689

Active Member
Apologies if this has already been asked on this thread but does anyone else have any idea what the other international regulatory approvals it needs outside of the USA are? I'm assuming the EU (or possibly European Commission), because of Sky, and India but are there others?
 
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AnotherDayAnotherDollar

Well-Known Member
mab7689 said:
Apologies if this has already been asked on this thread but does anyone else have any idea what the other international regulatory approvals it needs outside of the USA are? I'm assuming the EU (or possibly European Commission), because of Sky, and India but are there others?
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All the major countries and territories need to approve. Of note would be India because of Star.
 
donsullivan

donsullivan

Premium Member
Twilight_Roxas said:
This proves that Comcast is greedy.
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More than that. I read a financial analyst report the other day suggesting that if Comcast was actually able to pull this off with their 'all cash' bid, the debt burden they would be saddled with would be absolutely debilitating. Comcast doesn't have that kind of cash sitting in a drawer somewhere, it would all be done with massive loans. The way the analyst described it, one good economic downturn could destroy the company given that massive debt burden they would have accumulated in order to acquire those assets. Sometimes the cost is higher than the price you pay.

Besides Fox was never a fan of the all cash approach because of the very expensive tax implications for them. A nearly all stock offer such as Disney could save them millions in taxes vs the 'cash' offer from Comcast. Again, it's not always about the price but the total cost of the deal.
 
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donsullivan

donsullivan

Premium Member
Beacon Joe said:
What I want to know is what sort of trashy IP will Chapek shoehorn into the parks if this merger proceeds?
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This deal is not, and never has been about acquiring IP for use in the parks and Disney has stated that from the start. This is all about acquiring an expanded library of content for the streaming media service Disney is launching in 2019. Just because a movie was produced, or distributed by FOX would not automatically give Disney the theme park rights for that content; all of that is negotiated totally separately from the movie rights. Take a look at the Harry Potter movies, one company produced them, Warner Brothers distributed them and JK Rowling sold the Theme Park Rights to Universal. Each of those was a completely separate deal with JK Rowling who owns the content and sold the rights for different uses to different companies.

EDIT: Corrected distribution studio to Warner Bros. Thanks @Twilight_Roxas
 
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seascape

Well-Known Member
donsullivan said:
This deal is not, and never has been about acquiring IP for use in the parks and Disney has stated that from the start. This is all about acquiring an expanded library of content for the streaming media service Disney is launching in 2019. Just because a movie was produced, or distributed by FOX would not automatically give Disney the theme park rights for that content; all of that is negotiated totally separately from the movie rights. Take a look at the Harry Potter movies, one company produced them, Paramount distributed them and JK Rolling sold the Theme Park Rights to Universal. Each of those was a completely separate deal with JK Rowling who owns the content and sold the rights for different uses to different companies.
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Universal signed the contract with WB and JKR.
 
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AnotherDayAnotherDollar

Well-Known Member
Pressure from Comcast is what made the DOJ clearance happen quicker:

https://variety.com/2018/politics/news/disney-fox-merger-justice-department-1202859900/

“I could see how Disney wanted to cut a deal quickly if delay meant increasing the prospects of a Comcast counter,” Hal Singer, economist at George Washington University’s Institute of Public Policy, wrote in an email.

In announcing the approval, the Justice Departmentnoted that “to streamline agency clearance, Disneyagreed to divest the 22 RSNs rather than continue with the Antitrust Division’s ongoing merger investigation.” In other words, it became clear to Disney what the Justice Department’s major concern was with the deal: Disney’s purchase of the RSNs would harm competition for sports programming in those local markets. Rather than try to challenge that contention or negotiate some kind of conditions, a process that could have taken many more months, Disney agreed to the type of structural remedy favored by the DOJ under antitrust chief Makan Delrahim.
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I bet they would have kept fighting and waiting had Comcast not made an offer and been dead serious about it.
 
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AnotherDayAnotherDollar

Well-Known Member
larryz said:
Maybe spin off ESPN and sell the RSNs to that new company...
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Twilight_Roxas said:
Disney could sell some of RSN & trade some of RSN to Comcast in exchange for the Marvel name & the distribution movie rights for Hulk.
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Even the lowest RSN by itself is worth more than Comcast's Marvel theme park rights + Hulk and Namor movie rights. They could use the RSNs (or 39% of Sky as part of a bigger package to get those rights and Comcast's 30% of Hulu though).

The question is if they can get the ~19-26B the RSNs are estimated to be worth. Al Jazeera, FAANG, Comcast, ATT, Sony, Verizon, Charter, and others might be interested in purchasing the assets. YES and Fox Sports West being the 2 main ones here and they will get paid for those, maybe overpaid even, but I'm not sure how much they can get for the rest of them.
 
Rodan75

Rodan75

Well-Known Member
AnotherDayAnotherDollar said:
Even the lowest RSN by itself is worth more than Comcast's Marvel theme park rights + Hulk and Namor movie rights. They could use the RSNs (or 39% of Sky as part of a bigger package to get those rights and Comcast's 30% of Hulu though).

The question is if they can get the ~19-26B the RSNs are estimated to be worth. Al Jazeera, FAANG, Comcast, ATT, Sony, Verizon, Charter, and others might be interested in purchasing the assets. YES and Fox Sports West being the 2 main ones here and they will get paid for those, maybe overpaid even, but I'm not sure how much they can get for the rest of them.
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Charter And Verizon seem the most likely. Or they could just spin the RSNs off as a unit.

If CBS Viacom wasn’t otherwise distracted, I could see them chasing it.
 
TwilightZone

TwilightZone

Well-Known Member
Beacon Joe said:
What I want to know is what sort of trashy IP will Chapek shoehorn into the parks if this merger proceeds?
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I think that Anastasia is the most likely candidate, animation wise even if it's just meet n greets.
As for live action, the x-men and deadpool are also good candidates.
Wouldn't it be nuts if something from fox kids managed to get into the parks? Sure no wb stuff, but there's some good stuff.
 

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