Department of Justice Approves Disney Bid, But There’s A Catch

disney fox merger

The deal between Disney and Fox has moved one step closer to being finalized as the Department of Justice has approved Disney’s bid to acquire Fox properties, but Disney must sell off the 22 sports regional networks that it would acquire in the deal. DOJ officials argued that anti-competitive issues would arise from Disney owning both ESPN and the sports networks acquired from Fox.

“American consumers have benefitted from head-to-head competition between Disney and Fox’s cable sports programming that ultimately has prevented cable television subscription prices from rising even higher,” said Delrahim, assistant attorney general and head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. Today’s settlement will ensure that sports programming competition is preserved in the local markets where Disney and Fox compete for cable and satellite distribution.”

RELATED: Disney Raises Bid To Acquire Most Of Fox To $71.3 Billion — Fox Agrees?

A statement from Disney:

“The parties have worked diligently since announcing the acquisition last December to provide the DOJ the information that it needed for its investigation of the transaction. We are pleased that the DOJ concluded that, with the exception of the proposed acquisition of the Fox Sports Regional Networks, the transaction will not harm competition, and that we were able to resolve the limited potential concerns to position us to move forward with this exciting opportunity that will enable us to create even more compelling consumer experiences. ”

This is good news for Disney and also for comic book fans who are seeing it more and more likely that estranged Marvel properties such as X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and Deadpool will at some point in the future finally be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s also possible that Comcast isn’t done either, and that they may counter Disney’s latest offer, however, Disney is way ahead of them in the regulatory process.

Disney raised its offer from $52.4 billion to $71.3 billion last week, outbiding Comcast’s $65 billion dollar offer to Fox.

Are you hoping this deal works out for Disney? Let us know in the comments down below!

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Source: Deadline

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