It’s been about seven months since Dish Network let its carriage deal for 16 Fox regional sports networks expire, and the satellite giant’s founder and chairman Charlie Ergen told analysts Wednesday the decision to drop the channels was one of simple math.

Dish dropped 16 Fox Sports RSNs in July after then-owner The Walt Disney Co., allegedly asked for exorbitant carriage fees for the channels. Disney sold the RSNs to Sinclair Broadcast Group in August, but the channels have yet to return to the satellite company’s customers.

In the meantime, Dish has seen a dramatic reduction in satellite TV customer losses over the past few quarters, apparently a sign that the absence of the sports channels, once thought to be a necessity for any pay TV distributor, aren’t quite as essential as previously believed.

Related: Ergen: Dish May Never Carry Fox RSNs 

Dish lost about 100,000 satellite TV customers in Q4, compared to a loss of 381,000 in the prior year. In the third quarter, losses improved to 66,000 compared to a loss of 367,000 in the previous year. 

On a conference call with analysts to discuss Q4 results, Ergen said Dish decided to drop the RSNs because the numbers just didn’t add up.

“Everything we do here is somewhat mathematical,” Ergen said, adding that the company knows what its customers watch and don’t watch, and compares that to the cost of programming.

Related: Why Sinclair’s Sports Bet is a Risky Play 

Programmers are locked in an endless loop of demanding higher and higher fee increases, regardless of whether consumers are actually watching their content.

“What we see is the exact opposite, which is people are watching less,” Ergen said. “And we would say your price should go down if people are watching less.”

Ergen said once a sports network is unavailable, die-hard fans usually find an alternative quickly, by either dropping their existing pay TV distributor or finding another way to access the programming. But once that customer is gone, it makes little sense spending more money — perhaps in the form of increased carriage fees — to get them back.

“The math was clear that the kind of offer we had from the Disney folks at the time our contract was up was not even close to something that made sense for us,” Ergen said.

LightShed Partners principal Rich Greenfield estimated in a blog posting that Dish is saving about $400 million annually by not carrying the Sinclair RSNs. In contrast, it has lost about 166,000 satellite TV subscribers since July, accounting for $40 million in lost cash flow. To Greenfield, the trade-off is obvious. 

Asked if the math around the Sinclair RSNs was too hard, Ergen said it was fairly simple.

“The math is easy,“ he said. “We know what it’s worth and it’s worth less today than it was last year.” 

Ergen also addressed the possibility of a merger between Dish and the largest satellite company in the country, DirecTV. Although there could be regulatory hurdles around such a union, Ergen said given the current state of the pay TV business, such a union is “inevitable.”

“The growth in TV is not coming from linear,” Ergen said. “The regulatory environment usually is behind the marketplace, but I think that becomes increasingly likely that [a merger] makes logical sense.” 

Liberty Media chairman John Malone said his company’s failed attempt to purchase the 21 Fox regional sports networks put up for sale earlier this year by the Walt Disney Co., would have helped to right what he sees as one of cable’s biggest mistakes -- allowing content providers to force distributors to carry programming bundles that are too large and too pricey.

Liberty was one of several bidders for the Fox RSNs, which were eventually won by Sinclair Broadcast Group and a minority partner -- Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios -- for about $9.6 billion.  Liberty had reportedly teamed up with Major League Baseball in its bid, but backed off when the price became too high.

At Liberty’s Investor Day in New York Thursday, Malone confirmed that Liberty teamed with MLB on a bid, which he said would have been “affordable, and less disruptive.”

Related: RSN Redux 

“It was designed essentially to be a little more rational, and not to allow retransmission consent to be confounded with regional sports,” Malone said. “The unfairness of that leverage would just make the overpricing of the big bundle that much worse.”

Malone continued that he saw the cable industry’s allowing networks to make carrying all of their networks across the board as a contractual obligation, as a mistake.

“That really turned the negotiation into a tax,” Malone said. “Once there was competition among distributors and a fear that distributors would lose market share if they didn’t carry pretty much everything in the sports area, it really just turned sports programming into a tax.”

He added that in addition to enriching players and distributors, that practice also drove the price of the big bundle beyond the economic limits of many households.

“If you didn’t have that component in the cost of content, you would probably see far fewer cord cutting for economic reasons,” Malone said.

While Dish Network managed to report a solid Q3 even after dropping the Fox RSNs in July, Malone said satellite’s economics are different, because in many markets it is the only viable video alternative. For other distributors with three or even four competitors, it would be tougher to survive without the channels.

Late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) had proposed a solution about a dozen years ago, where any network that was priced wholesale over a certain threshold, would be made available a la carte by the distributor.

“The industry had a chance to support that and did not,” Malone said. “It was a huge mistake.”

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen dug his heels in the sand regarding the blackout of 16 Fox regional sports networks, telling analysts and reporters that it is possible a deal will never be reached.

The Fox RSNs went dark to Dish customers on July 26. 

In a conference call with analysts and reporters Monday to discuss Q2 results Monday, Ergen said although he wants to do business with the RSNs and their expected new owner Sinclair Broadcast Group, he may not be able to. 

Ergen praised Sinclair for its work on ATSC 3.0, adding that the two corporate cultures are similar.

“So, we hate to be in a position to not be able to carry a product that they are investing a large sum of money in,” Ergen said.

But that doesn’t seem to be enough to get the channels back on the air. Dish has complained that the RSNs are too expensive, while the programmers insist they are merely asking for fair value for their content.

Ergen continued that while his head may want to keep the channels, his nose tells him it’s not the right move.

“Because I'm emotionally involved, I want to keep them,” Ergen said of the Fox RSNs. “And my nose tells me, that's not the right thing to do.”

The longer the dispute drags on, the lesser the chances for a resolution, Ergen added, noting that after about one month without the networks, most customers will forget they ever had an RSN.

“I guess, the chairman saying it doesn't look good that the regional sports will ever be on Dish again,” Ergen said.

Ergen has made similar provocative statements in other carriage disputes, only to eventually strike a deal. Last year he said it appeared that the blackout of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision would be “probably permanent,” but hammered out a deal in March that restored the networks after nine months of darkness.  On the flip side, Dish subscribers are still without access to premium channels HBO and Cinemax after they went dark in November when their carriage deal expired.

Dish has had a spotty history with regional sports networks. In the New York market -- where one of the channels in the current dispute, the YES Network, resides -- Dish has never carried YES on its satellite TV service, only its Sling TV OTT offering. The other two New York RSNs -- MSG Networks and SportsNet New York -- went dark to those subscribers in 2010 and 2011 and have yet to return.

Dish reported better than expected pay TV losses in Q2 -- it lost a total of 31,000 customers, compared to the 151,000 it lost in the prior year. At its Sling TV service, subscribers rose by 48,000 in the period, while its satellite TV offering lost 79,000 customers, considerably fewer than the 192,000 it lost in the previous year and the more than 300,000 customers some analysts predicted it would shed. 

Part of that, according to analysts, could be that Dish is picking up subscribers who have fallen off promotional pricing offers from rival DirecTV. DirecTV lost nearly 1 million subscribers in Q2.

In a research note, MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett wrote that although it could be tempting to look at the subscriber results as proof Dish’s increasingly more rural subscriber base is getting stickier, the reality is their low price reputation probably was the main driver.

“If so, we are seeing more of a rebalancing of the two than we are a rebirth, Moffett wrote. “Still it is a glimmer of good news for a satellite business that, soon enough, won’t be the ‘core.’” 

Sinclair Broadcast Group stock was up more than 30% in early trading Monday, the first full day of trading after the station group announced its purchase of 21 regional sports networks from The Walt Disney Co.

Sinclair shares rose as high as $59.39 in early trading -- up 32.1%, or $11.80 per share -- on May 6. The stock closed at $60.48 on Monday, up 34.5%, or $15.53 per share.

Sinclair announced Friday that it had submitted the winning bid for the RSNs, former Fox Sports properties that Disney purchased as part of its larger buy of certain 21st Century Fox programming assets. Disney had agreed to divest of the former Fox RSNs as a condition of federal approval of the larger deal.

In a conference call with analysts to discuss the merger on Monday, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said the deal will double Sinclair’s total revenue to $6.7 billion and nearly triple its cash flow from $900 million to $2.6 billion.

“We will become the leading local sports and news company in the country,” Ripley said on the call. “There is a lot to like about this transaction.”

Sinclair stock rose another 10% in early trading on May 7 to $66.57 per share before settling down to $62.04 (up 2.6%) by 11:21 a.m. on Tuesday. 

The ride is a big change from just eight months ago, when Sinclair stock plunged after its $3.9 billion merger with Tribune Media was terminated. Sinclair shares had been trading in the $35-$40 range in the months leading up to May 5, 2017 -- when it first announced the deal -- but started to sink as opposition to the merger began to gain steam. In late July and early August, when it started to become clear that the merger would face difficulties in getting federal approval, the stock fell to around $25 per share. Tribune announced it was terminating the deal on Aug. 9, 2018.   

The stock stayed in the doldrums for months after the Tribune deal was scrapped -- Tribune found another buyer in Nexstar Media Group, a deal that is pending federal approval -- picking up in January and when it was identified as one of the bidders for the Fox RSNs and in March after it announced a partnership with the Chicago Cubs for the Marquee Sports Network.

For the latest deal, the former Fox RSNs will be placed in a separate entity -- Diamond Sports Holdings -- which will also house minority interests from the teams that the channels carry and Entertainment Studios chief Byron Allen. On the call, Ripley would not reveal how much of an interest Allen or the teams will hold, but said Sinclair would control 90+% of the “total economics” of the sports channels.

Sinclair said the structure of the deal -- placing the RSNs in a separate silo -- was specifically made to allow from additional partners to participate. Ripley said on the call that Sinclair had received inbound interest from several financial and strategic players and that the structure is to make it easier to expand participation in the future.

“I think it will be inevitable that we add future equity partners into the structure,” Ripley said. “Because of that it made sense to keep it separate so we could facilitate those arrangements.”

Ripley was vague when asked whether any of the networks are due for renewal with distributors in the near term, but said “they are very similar to the existing distribution outlook for our core business on the broadcast side.”

BTIG media analyst Rich Greenfield has said that he believes all of the Fox RSNs are up for renewal with major distributors in the next two years, beginning with Dish Network in the summer and Charter in the fall of 2019, followed by AT&T-DirecTV (summer 2020) and Comcast (fall 2020).

Ripley added that equity participation in the RSN silo could be a big part of carriage renewals, adding that while several RSNs already have an equity piece of the networks that carry them, he expects that to increase.

“We expect that [equity participation] to be a core tenet of renewals going forward because we do think that it aligns interest better and variabilizes the expense structure,” Ripley said.

With just about a month to spare, the Walt Disney Co. has settled on a buyer for 21 former Fox Sports regional sports networks, with Sinclair Broadcast Group emerging as the winning bidder with an offer of about $9.6 billion.

Disney put the networks on the block in October, part of the conditions of its $71.3 billion purchase of certain 21st Century Fox programming assets. As part of that deal, Disney agreed to sell the RSNs within 90 days after closing the larger Fox deal. With that deal closing on March 20, Disney had until June 18 to finalize an RSN transaction.

“We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Sinclair for the sale of these 21 RSNs, subject to the conditions of the consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice,” said Disney senior EVP and chief financial officer Christine McCarthy in a press release.

Sinclair had been in the running for the RSNs from the beginning — it heat out competing bids from Liberty Media and Big3 Networks. As part of the transaction, Sinclair will form a new subsidiary — Diamond Sports Group — which will contain the RSNs. The deal does not include the YES Network, the New York area RSN that was reportedly purchased by the New York Yankees for $3.5 billion. Sinclair was said to be a minority partner in that deal, along with online retail giant Amazon. 

Entertainment Studios founder and CEO Byron Allen has agreed to become an equity and content partner in a newly formed wholly-owned subsidiary of Sinclair and an indirect parent of Diamond Sports. Allen, whose Entertainment Studios purchased the Weather Channel last year, will add some distribution expertise to the partnership. 

After adjusting for minority interests, Sinclair said the deal has an enterprise value of about $10.6 billion.

The RSNs hold exclusive local rights to 42 professional teams consisting of 14 Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, 16 National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, and 12 National Hockey League (NHL) teams. In 2018, the channels had a combined $3.8 billion in revenue and served about 74 million subscribers.

The addition of the RSNs is expected to give further leverage to Sinclair in retransmission consent negotiations for its 191 TV stations across the country, a development that has at least one cable lobbying group coming out against the deal.

On Friday, ACA Connects, which represents hundreds of small cable operators across the country, said it opposed the Sinclair RSN purchase because it will enable the broadcaster to raise prices to millions of consumers.

“Big 4 broadcast network programming and RSN programming are both critical for ACA Connects members,” ACA Connects said in a press release. “By jointly negotiating these assets when they serve the same market, Sinclair can raise prices to cable operators for both offerings.”

The group said that the Federal Communications Commission had similar concerns about Sinclair’s merger proposal with Tribune Media, which was scrapped last year. 

“And it is why we expect antitrust regulators to reject Sinclair's proposed acquisition of Fox regional sports networks as well,” ACA said. “We look forward to making this case at the appropriate time.”

Sinclair expects to pump about $1.4 billion in cash equity into Diamond Sports, including $700 million in cash and $700 million in debt at Sinclair Television Group, Inc.

The deal adds to Sinclair’s sports portfolio, which consists of the Tennis Channel, Stadium (a joint venture focused on college sports and professional highlights), and Ring of Honor Wrestling (professional wrestling). Earlier this year, Sinclair partnered with the Chicago Cubs on Marquee Sports Network, a Chicago-area RSN that is expected to debut in the 2020 baseball season. 

“This is a very exciting transaction for Sinclair to be able to acquire highly complementary assets,” Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said in a press release. “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.”

The RSNs to be acquired by Sinclair are: Fox Sports Arizona, Fox Sports Detroit, Fox Sports Florida, Fox Sports Sun, Fox Sports North, Fox Sports Wisconsin, Fox Sports Ohio, SportsTime Ohio, Fox Sports South, Fox Sports Carolina, Fox Sports Tennessee, Fox Sports Southeast, Fox Sports Southwest, Fox Sports Oklahoma, Fox Sports New Orleans, Fox Sports Midwest, Fox Sports Kansas City, Fox Sports Indiana, Fox Sports San Diego, Fox Sports West, and Prime Ticket. Also included in the acquisition is Fox College Sports.

Guggenheim Securities, LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., RBC Capital Markets, Pursuit Advisors, and Moelis & Company are acting as Sinclair’s financial advisors. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP and Thomas & Libowitz P.A. are acting as legal advisors to Sinclair in connection with this transaction. Allen & Company LLC and J.P. Morgan are acting as Disney’s financial advisors. Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and Covington & Burling LLP are acting as legal advisors to Disney in connection with this transaction. 

The auction for 21 former Fox regional sports networks is nearing the finish line, with reports claiming that Sinclair Broadcast Group has emerged as the winner with a bid around $10 billion.

According to Fox Business reporter Charlie Gasparino, Sinclair and The Walt Disney Co., which closed on its purchase of the RSNs and other programming assets from 21st Century Fox last month, have a “handshake agreement” for the networks for a price up to $10 billion. No formal agreement has been signed, and there is still a possibility that a deal may not be finalized.

[embed]https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1121793264628060161[/embed]

Disney agreed to divest the RSNs as part of federal approval of the larger Fox deal. As part of those conditions, Disney said it would have a deal in place within 90 days after it closed the Fox purchase. That closing occurred on March 20.

Sinclair was one of the original bidders for the RSNs, and apparently fought back competing offers from John Malone’s Liberty Media and Big3 Networks, a professional three-on-three basketball league headed by rapper Ice Cube. 

Malone and Liberty Media reportedly joined forces with Major League Baseball in its bid for the RSNs, but according to at least one person familiar with the auction process, its offer just became too complicated.

“There were a lot of moving parts there,” said one person familiar with the auction process.

Sinclair, which controls 191 television stations in 89 markets across the country, is serious about sports. It purchased the Tennis Channel in 2015 for $350 million and has said publicly that the Fox RSNs would be “a good fit.”

Earlier this year, Sinclair paired up with the Chicago Cubs MLB team for a new sports channel -- Marquee Sports Network-- that will be the exclusive home of Cubs games beginning in the 2020 season. Sinclair also was one of the partners that helped the New York Yankees buy back Fox’s 80% interest in RSN the YES Network for about $3.5 billion. That deal, which sources say is basically complete, hasn’t been officially announced yet.

NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson, just days after stepping down as president of the Los Angeles Lakers, has joined Big3 Networks in its bid to win 21 Fox regional sports networks.

Rapper Ice Cube, who along with entrepreneur Jeffrey Kwatinetz formed the three-on-three professional basketball league in 2017, said in a tweet Wednesday that Johnson had joined Big3 in its bid for the networks.

[embed]https://twitter.com/icecube/status/1118571275734044673[/embed]

Johnson stepped down as president of basketball operations for the Lakers earlier this month. 

It was unclear as to whether Johnson will provide financial support for Big3’s bid -- it already has some backing from private equity player Centerbridge Partners and investment banker Macquarie Group. Earlier, Big3 said it had lined up actor Will Smith, tennis star Serena Williams and rapper Snoop Dogg as content partners if its bid for the Fox RSNs prevails.

Big3 is among a handful of bidders that have pledged upwards of $10 billion for the channels. According to sources and published reports, Liberty Media and Sinclair Broadcast Group have submitted bids as well. Liberty, run by cable legend John Malone, has apparently joined with Major League Baseball in its bid for the channels. Liberty also owns the Atlanta Braves baseball team.

[embed]https://twitter.com/icecube/status/1118195585431916545[/embed]

The networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Co. as part of its $71.3 billion purchase of certain 21st Century Fox programming assets. Disney agreed to divest of the RSNs as a condition of the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s approval of the larger deal, which closed on March 20. Disney agreed to sell off the RSNs within 90 days of the Fox closing, meaning it has until June 18 to finalize the sale of the sports networks.

Disney also could spin-off the RSNs into a separate public entity to satisfy the government's conditions, but it would need the DOJ's permission to do so. 

Big3 has accused Charter Communications of trying to manipulate the bidding process. Sources confirmed reports that Big3 is scheduled to meet with the Justice department to discuss the matter.

Speculation around The Walt Disney Co.’s auction for the Fox’s 22 regional sports networks has gained some considerable heat over the past few weeks. The latest is that cable legend John Malone, who once owned most of those networks in an earlier life, is gathering up partners for a possible bid.

Disney put the networks up for sale in October,  a condition of federal approval of its larger $71.3 billion purchase of certain 21st Century Fox assets. As part of that approval, Disney agreed to sell the channels within 90 days after closing the bigger Fox deal. With some analysts predicting the Fox transaction could close as early as the latter part of March -- officially, Disney is saying the deal will be completed in the first half of the year -- time is of the essence.

On the surface, regional sports networks would seem easy to sell -- sports, next to live news, is one of the few remaining ratings grabbers in the TV business. But RSNs come with a lot of baggage. For starters they are tiered by most distributors, which limits their total number of viewers. They are expensive -- the larger RSNs can garner monthly affiliate fees well in excess of $4 per subscriber per month. And the largest and most attractive RSN in the mix -- the New York Yankees’ YES Network -- likely won’t be part of the sale. The Yankees have the right of first refusal to purchase Fox’s 80% interest in the network, and are reportedly talking to private equity players and online retailing giant Amazon about pairing up for a bid.

With YES out of the mix, that leaves regional sports networks in towns like Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Detroit, Minneapolis and Kansas City. Already several potential suitors have lined up -- Sinclair Broadcast Group, private equity players like Apollo Global Asset Management, Major League Baseball itself, and Malone. 

According to a report in the NY Post, Malone, who owns baseball’s Atlanta Braves, is reportedly talking to Platinum Equity chief Tom Gores (who also owns the NBA Detroit Pistons) and Jim Pohlad, owner of MLB’s Minnesota Twins, about ginning up a bid. Fox Business was first to report on Malone’s interest. The owners are apparently worried that an outside buyer of the RSNs would allocate more resources to larger markets and leave smaller teams in the lurch. Other teams could join Malone, including the Arizona Diamondbacks and Milwaukee Brewers.

Related: MLB Commissioner on Fox RSNs: We’re Interested 

But there could be another unintended beneficiary of the Fox RSN deal -- MSG Networks. MSG, which operates two sports channels in the New York market, MSG Network and MSG + -- could be the missing piece of the puzzle for any buyer. With YES out of the mix, MSG is the only other New York area RSN available -- SportsNet NY is owned by The New York Mets baseball club, Comcast and Charter and isn’t likely for sale. And an MSG Networks buy would be pretty clean -- the company split from its former parent Madison Square Garden in 2015 -- and is a pure-play sports network.

In a research note, FBN Securities media analyst Robert Routh said Liberty’s reported interest only enhances the takeout value of MSG.

“Here we think it is more likely than not the Yankees will exercise their right of first refusal on the 80% of the YES Network currently owned by Fox,” Routh wrote. “If the case, then whoever buys the Fox RSN’s will likely need a NY area sports RSN to make the “RSN Group” work. Here, MSGN remains the only other game in town and we think the current multiple does not accurately reflect this.”

Malone apparently wasn’t interested in getting into the RSN fray earlier in the process, but fears about being pushed around by a larger owner apparently spurred him to action. According to Fox Business, Liberty CEO Greg Maffei let Disney know it was interested as the second round of the auction closed. 

Malone is no stranger to the sports business -- his Prime Sports morphed into Fox Sports RSNs in 1995 after he struck a deal with Fox, later selling his stake in the channels to the programmer in 1997.  Malone also has interests in other RSNs through his investment in Charter Communications, in Los Angeles -- the NBA Lakers’ channel Spectrum SportsNet and the MLB Los Angeles Dodgers’ SportsNet LA.

Related: Books Out on Fox RSNs 

Disney hasn’t said much about the auction aside from acknowledging it’s been going on, but that hasn’t stopped speculation from running rampant. On Disney’s Feb.5 earnings conference Disney CFO Christine McCarthy recognized the noise.

“There's a lot of chatter out in the market,” McCarthy said of the RSN auction. “I won't comment on it, just to say that not everything you hear is necessarily true.”

Related: The Curious Case of the RSNs 

But the longer the auction drags on, the lower the value of the networks. When it became clear that Disney would have to sell the RSNs to gain approval for the larger Fox deal, analysts valued the channels at between $20 billion and $22 billion. But as time has gone on, that value has plummeted, with some reports placing the value of the RSNs -- sans YES Network -- at around $10 billion, or between 6 times and 8 times cash flow.

Some observers have hoped that Malone’s involvement could goose what has been a lackluster auction process, with some reports saying a potential deal could now cost $13 billion or more, still well below the $20 billion once hoped. But Malone has traditionally been a bargain hunter -- in the past he has left the grand gestures to free spenders like Fox chief Rupert Murdoch and others. And early reports said he was leaning toward offering what others had bid -- $10 billion. Malone could well bid more, but it’s his move. And that’s just how he likes it.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred threw his hat in the ring for the 22 Fox regional sports networks currently on the block, telling Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo that the networks are valuable properties.

“Yes, we're interested in the regionals,” Manfred told Bartiromo on Fox Business Networks’ Mornings with Maria. “You know, in 12 markets baseball on the Regional Sports Network is the number one programming throughout the summer. In 24 of 25 markets that we operate in, we're the number one programming on cable. So these Regional Sport Networks are really valuable, valuable assets and we think that the combination of that traditional mode of delivery and the digital rights that we control is an opportunity for the game.” 

The 22 RSNs, which some analysts have valued at as much as $20 billion, are on the block as a condition of The Walt Disney Co.’s pending $71.3 billion purchase of certain assets of 21st Century Fox. In issuing its approval of the deal, the U.S. Department of Justice required that Disney divest of the 22 RSNs within 90 days after closing the larger Fox deal. That larger deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019.

Related: Books Out on Fox RSNs

The RSNs own rights to 44 professional baseball, basketball and hockey teams and in markets like Atlanta, Detroit, Kansas City, Miami, Phoenix and Indianapolis. The New York Yankees, which own 20% of Fox regional the YES Network, have the right of first refusal to purchase the remaining interest of the network, and are reportedly assembling a group of private equity investors to make a bid. 

Related: The Curious Case of the RSNs

MLB was considered to be among the parties expressing interest in the RSNs, a field that has been said to include TV station group Sinclair Broadcast Group, online retailer Amazon, private equity investor The Blackstone Group and rapper and entrepreneur Ice Cube. In his interview with Bartiromo, Manfred added that digital streaming has been an important part of the league’s growth.

“Well, I think our fans want to be able to consume the game on the platforms that they're naturally on… that's why we have experimented with things,” Manfred told Fox Business. “We had 30 games on Facebook last year. We have a relationship with Twitter. YouTube's been very active with respect to our product. And it's important for us to deliver games in the way that fans want to see them.”

Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav essentially scratched his company from the list of interested parties vying for 21st Century Fox’s 22 regional sports networks currently on the sales block, telling analysts that he prefers sports assets that operate outside the U.S.

As part of the approval conditions of its deal to acquire certain Fox programming and production assets, The Walt Disney Co. agreed to divest of the 22 Fox RSNs. Disney has to divest the RSNs within 90 days of closing its Fox purchase, which is expected in the first half of 2019.

Already several potential suitors are said to be circling the RSNs, which some analysts value at about $20 billion, including Fox itself, Sinclair Broadcast Group, tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google and a handful of private equity players.

Zaslav, who was involved in the RSN business during his previous life as head of NBC Cable, said that while Discovery has been aggressive in snapping up sports assets overseas -- it recently inked a deal with the PGA Tour for streaming golf rights outside of the U.S. -- Discovery will probably sit this one out.

“We’ve said we like outside the U.S., we like our European position as a leader, but we think we’re late here,” Zaslav said. “Those businesses can be dicey. I was involved in those businesses with [former NBC chief] Bob Wright and [MSG Networks founder] Chuck Dolan in the early days, and they really have to do with how long own you own that IP for. In many cases they are at the top of heap in terms of what they were able to generate. So I think unless it was a great deal, you wouldn’t see us in there.”