ESPN said to talk with NBA, NFL, MLB over strategic partnerships (updated)
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ESPN (NYSE:DIS) reportedly held talks with the National Basketball Association and National Football League as it looked for potential strategic partners in its business. (Updated: The sports network also talked with Major League Baseball about potential plans.)
That would be an unprecedented step but secure premium content from those top-drawing sports as the Walt Disney (DIS) sports network looks for a way forward through a complicated media landscape.
ESPN talked with the leagues about a variety of new partnerships and investment structures, CNBC reported.
That could include minority stakes for the leagues in ESPN's business.
Disney stock (DIS) jumped to a gain Friday afternoon on the news and closed 1% higher.
In the case of the NFL, the talks coincided with the football league's own hunt for a partner in its media assets -- NFL Network, NFL.com and RedZone, according to the report.
While it would help provide a path forward for ESPN, there's the chance of conflicts of interest if the leagues take equity stakes in ESPN, and of rankling sports-rights bidding competitors including NBCUniversal (CMCSA), Fox (FOX) (FOXA), CBS (PARA) (PARAA) and even nascent sports-streaming competitors Amazon.com (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL). Along with the conflicts for the leagues, ESPN would be under new pressure to objectively cover sports that are partners in the enterprise.
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