Baseball’s Houston Astros and the NBA’s Houston Rockets have acquired AT&T SportsNet Southwest from Warner Bros Discovery and will relaunch the channel Tuesday as the “Space City Home Network.” 

The move completes the media conglomerate's exit from the regional sports networks (RSN) business, reluctantly foisted upon WBD when it, in turn, foisted the highly leveraged merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery upon all of us 18 months ago. 

Last month, WBD sold AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh to Fenway Sports Group, owner of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. 

Earlier, WBD announced the abandonment of AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, which had been the RSN home of the NBA's Utah Jazz and NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights. (Both teams have announced local broadcast TV deals and new DTC streaming platforms.)

As for the rebranded Space City Home Network, the Rockets and Astros say little will change in terms of the channel's operations and positioning on the pay TV grid (it currently has distribution via Comcast, DirecTV and Fubo). General manager David Peart will remain in charge of the network.

No financial terms of the acquisition from WBD were disclosed. 

“It’s not something that I would have bet on [in 2014],” Astros general counsel Giles Kibbe told the Houston Chronicle. “But as things started changing … it’s something we’ve had our eyes on. Owning our media rights and having the ability to control those rights is extremely important to both the Astros and Rockets.” 

The Rockets and Astros will be looking to expand revenue through increased distribution, hoping to gain carriage via cable operators including Charter Communications and Altice, as well as virtual MVPD YouTube TV. 

They're also looking at direct-to-consumer streaming. 

“We are looking at the direct-to-consumer model,” Kibbe told the Chronicle. “It’s something that we are seeing in a few regional sports networks. It is going to take some work to make that happen. But it is something that we will look at and evaluate.”

Back in February, Warner Bros. Discovery told its professional sports team partners that it wanted to divest the three AT&T SportsNet regional sports networks it reluctantly inherited amid the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery. 

Seven months later, a clearer exit strategy has emerged, as outlined by Sports Business Journal's John Ourand.

WBD has agreed to sell AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh to Fenway Sports Group, which owns one of the channel’s anchor tenants, the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. 

WBD is also in talks to sell AT&T SportsNet Houston to that channel’s foundational teams, the NBA's Houston Rockets and Major League Baseball's Houston Astros. 

AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, which recently saw the NBA’s Utah Jazz and NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights depart to local-station broadcast TV deals, will shutter. 

WBD will, however, retain a sliver of skin in the fast-declining RSN business, serving as 29% owner of Seattle’s Root Sports Network, with that channel’s principal team, baseball’s Seattle Mariners, being the majority owner. 

The moves clarify WBD's exit from the RSN business, but plenty of questions remain for the numerous individual teams involved. 

Fenway Sports Group, for example, operates one of the more profitable RSNs still around, New England Sports Network (NESN). And SBJ says it's likely that SportsNet Pittsburgh will launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service around the Penguins, much as NESN has around its tenants, the MLB's Boston Red Sox and NHL's Boston Bruins. 

We could be witnessing the emergence of a powerful go-to sports streaming technology shop in regard to the Ted Leonis-backed ViewLift, which last week announced that it will be handling the tech for the Vegas Golden Knights’ new DTC venture. It was also reported at the time that ViewLoft would likely take on the Penguins’ DTC effort, as well.

Meanwhile, two MLB teams under the AT&T SportsNet umbrella, the Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies, will be searching for new RSN homes once baseball's regular season ends next month. 

The Pirates have the option of cutting a deal with Fenway, or the team could follow the path carved out by MLB rivals the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, which were both abandoned by Bally Sports operator Diamond Sports Group when the subsidiary went into Chapter 11 restructuring earlier this year. 

Both the Padres and the Diamondbacks chose to let Major League Baseball set them up with pay TV production and distribution for new channels operated by the league itself. SBJ said these channels pay the teams revenue adding up to about 80% of what they were getting with their old Bally Sports contracts.

The Rockies have the same MLB option, but the team reportedly can also choose to move over to the Stan Kroenke-backed Altitude Sports, home of the NBA defending champion Denver Nuggets and NHL's Colorado Avalanche. 

The Rockies are viewed by some as a critical addition that might convince Comcast to finally reintegrate the Altitude RSN back into its program guide after dumping the channel four years ago. 

TNT’s Memorial Day telecast of the Golden State Warriors-Houston Rockets' NBA Western Conference Finals Game 7 was a social media slam-dunk, drawing nearly 4 million social media interactions, according to Nielsen.

The game -- won by the Warriors, who advanced to their fourth straight NBA Finals -- drew 3.8 million Facebook and Twitter interactions to easily best all live sports and entertainment-based programming on television, according to Nielsen’s daily social content ratings report.

NBC’s Washington Capitals-Vegas Golden Knights Game 1 NHL Stanley Cup telecast finished second with 898,000 social media interactions.

Fox broadcasting’s recently cancelled series Lucifer was the most social entertainment-based show on Monday with 666,000 social media interactions, according to Nielsen. 

A federal appeals court has sent back a five-year-old bankruptcy case involving the Comcast Sports Network Houston regional sports network for re-evaluation, noting in a ruling March 29 that the former partners in the channel may owe Comcast more than $54 million.

CSN Houston was formed in 2012 by Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros, the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets and Comcast to air contests from the two teams to customers in the Houston region. But the channel, which reportedly was seeking carriage fees of $3.40 per customer per month – had been unable to secure distribution from other providers outside of Comcast and a few small cable operators. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013. 

News of the ruling was first reported by the Houston Chronicle. The network was sold to AT&T-DirecTV in 2014 and now operates under the AT&T SportsNet Southwest banner. AT&T and DirecTV are not part of the bankruptcy and the most recent ruling has no impact on the network, which continues to carry Astros and Rockets games.

The win, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, means that the case will be sent back to U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Marvin Isgur, who will hold another hearing to determine whether Comcast is owed the balance of its loan or if the teams can successfully persuade the court that the cable operator is owed nothing. No date has been set for the hearing as yet.

Since the bankruptcy in 2013, the Astros have gone on to win the World Series in 2017. Leslie Alexander, who owned the Rockets at the time, sold the basketball team in 2017 to billionaire restaurant, hotel and casino owner Tilman Fertitta for $2.2 billion. Alexander remains a party to the bankruptcy case.

Comcast did not respond to a request for comment, but the Astros, in a statement to the Houston Chronicle, said they were disappointed with the appellate court ruling.

“We will address this valuation issue with the Court at the appropriate time and we will continue to pursue all of our claims against Comcast," the Astros told the Chronicle.

The Astros filed a separate suit against Comcast claiming the cable operator breached its contract for the network by making false statements that resulted in the bankruptcy and the loss of the teams’ rights fees. 

The bankruptcy of CSN Houston was big news in 2013 because it was one of the few documented failures of a large cable regional sports network, which up until that time had been perennial cash cows for operators and teams alike. Comcast, which had put up a $100 million secured loan to help launch the network in 2012, had tried to get most of that investment back.

The Astros owned the biggest chunk of the network (46.5%), followed by the Rockets (31.5%) and Comcast (22%). The teams lost their equity when the network filed for bankruptcy, and Comcast received what was then determined to be the value of the channel’s tangible assets, about $26.2 million.

Isgur had valued the Comcast agreement at $54.3 million and then subtracted from that the value of the unpaid rights fees, which was determined to be about $107 million and also used as collateral for the $100 million loan. That rendered the value of the deal at less than zero.

That’s where the appellate court ruled Isgur went wrong.

“…we remand for a re-valuation of the Agreement because the bankruptcy court failed to value the collateral in light of its proposed use when it deducted all unpaid media fees from the value of the Agreement,” Circuit Judge Priscilla Owen wrote in the March 29 ruling. “The bankruptcy court erred in deducting the Teams’ unpaid, waived media fees from the value of Comcast’s collateral.”

ESPN AND TNT will tip off their respective National Basketball Association regular-season coverage expecting to build on their ratings performances from last year, despite an earlier tip-off to the campaign.

The season kicks off Oct. 17 — two weeks earlier than usual — in an effort to better schedule games to limit player fatigue and injuries during the season. TNT will offer an opening night doubleheader showcasing the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Boston Celtics along with the Houston Rockets battling last year’s champion, the Golden State Warriors.

The games are part of TNT’s 67-game regular-season NBA schedule, which also features a Christmas Night telecast, its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day tripleheader and its 20-game Tuesday night “Players Only” lineup of games featuring former basketball players in all broadcast roles, according to network officials.

ESPN will begin its 87-game NBA coverage Oct. 18 with a Philadelphia 76ers-Washington Wizards/Minnesota Timberwolves-San Antonio Spurs doubleheader. Combined with sister network ABC’s broadcast schedule, the two Disney-owned networks will offer a company record 104 NBA regular season games.

ESPN executive VP of programming and scheduling Burke Magnus said the network is bullish on the upcoming season, given the number of off-season moves by top teams and players as well as the emergence of a strong crop of rookies.

He also expects that ESPN will surpass the 1.6 million viewers it generated last season despite the early start.

“We’ve been pushing for our efforts around the NBA to be year-round, and with our coverage of the past off-season the league had, in terms of free agent movements, a draft class that hasn’t been seen in many years, the season starting now seems about right to me,” he said.

Boston Celtics great Kevin McHale is returning to Turner Sports as an NBA analyst.

He has struck a multi-year deal for TNT game telecasts and analysis on NBA TV's Fan Night.

McHale was with Turner in 2009-2011 before exiting to coach the Houston Rockets and work in the NBA front office. He was a guest analyst on TNT's NBA playoff coverage last season.

“Kevin is one of the most respected basketball minds in the history of the game and we’re thrilled to welcome him back to the Turner family,” said Albert “Scooter” Vertino, GM of NBA Digital and SVP of programming for Turner Sports.

McHale teamed with Larry Bird and Robert Parish in the Celtic's front court, recording three NBA championships. His jersey was retired in 1994.

Comcast attorneys will meet with a U.S. District Court judge on Wednesday seeking an emergency stay as it looks to reverse a bankruptcy court decision allowing the sale of its regional sports network in Houston to DirecTV and AT&T.

The cable company, whose NBC Sports Group has operated Comcast Sports Net Houston, is slated for a  hearing with judge Lynne Hughes on Nov. 5. Comcast, if the stay is not granted, is also expected to make an immediate appeal with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the CSN Houston reorganization plan, which calls for DirecTV and AT&T to purchase the embattled service with the former operating it under its Root Sports umbrella.

On Oct. 30, bankruptcy court judge Marvin Isgur approved a plan supported by MLB’s Houston Astros and the NBA’s Houston Rockets. Isgur reorganization would result in the teams and Comcast losing their equity positions in the RSN, which has been under Chapter 11 protection since September 2013.

The plan calls for AT&T, DirecTV and Comcast to carry the rebranded service, with an eye toward Roots Sports Houston tipping off on Nov 14.

Comcast deems Isgurs ruling “unlawful in several ways,” notably in that the MSO is not allowed to receive full payment of a $100 million secured loan that was used by the RSN for start-up costs, a studio build-out and early right fees payments to the clubs.

Launched in October 2012, CSN Houston never gained distribution traction beyond Comcast and a handful of smaller providers in the Houston DMA, and, as such, was unable to pay rights fees and meet other expense obligations.