Disney Sells YES Network to Amazon, Sinclair Investor Group

Walt Disney Co. has sold its 80 percent stake in the YES Network to a newly formed investor group that includes Amazon.com Inc., Yankee Global Enterprises and Sinclair Broadcast Group. YES Network is a regional sports pay-television company that broadcasts games of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and the National Basketball Association’s Brooklyn Nets. Burbank-based Disney acquired its portion of the YES Network not already held by the Yankees for $3.46 billion, as part of the Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. acquisition. The U.S. Department of Justice required Disney to sell Fox’s 22 regional sports networks, including the YES Network, as a condition of the acquisition. “This transaction brings the YES Network and all of its popular programming even closer to the organization that inspired its very development,” Hal Steinbrenner, chief executive of Yankee Global Enterprises, said in a statement. “Along with our partners, we look forward to greatly expanding the way that sports content is delivered and consumed by fans everywhere.” The deal was announced last week. Shares of Disney (DIS) closed Tuesday down 95 cents, or less than 1 percent, to $136.31 on the New York Stock Exchange.