Comcast Vs. ESPN...

In the next year or so, I would not be surprised to see Comcast create a national sports station. At this point, they have regional sports networks (RSN) in Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington DC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Sacramento and New York. Those are some of the top major markets in the country that are important to advertisers. If Comcast buys Versus (OLN), that will give the company over 60 million additional subscribers. Comcast considered purchasing Versus last fall.

Editor's Note: Last week "CSTV NETWORKS ANNOUNCED WEDNESDAY THAT cable operator Comcast has a 50 percent stake in its sports network devoted to the Mountain West Conference that launches Sept. 1."

ESPN has such a stronghold on fans watching its stations, I wonder if Comcast would be able to pull in any of ESPN's viewers. Comcast's RSNs have decent agreements with local sports teams, but who knows if they would be able to show the games on the new stations. Comcast might have to renegotiate a lot of television contracts with the different leagues. The other concern is that Versus sports programming isn't that exciting to the average viewer. They would need to spend a lot of money to recruit NASCAR or the NFL -- highly unlikely.

In the end, Comcast has a plethora of money so they might make a run at ESPN. It will be interesting to see how things unfold.