CBS Sports parent Paramount Global is now firmly back on track to merge with Skydance Media after media executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. withdrew his late-arriving bid to acquire the company.
Just a week after presenting his bid and then upping it to $6 billion, Bronfman is walking away. Multiple reports suggested he ran into financing issues. But the move gives resurgent life to an $8 billion Paramount-Skydance deal originally agreed to last month. Skydance’s backers include the billionaire Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners.
“We continue to believe that Paramount Global is an extraordinary company, with an unrivaled collection of marquee brands, assets, and people,” Bronfman said in a statement. “While there may have been differences, we believe that everyone involved in the sale process is united in the belief that Paramount’s best days are ahead.”
A special committee of Paramount’s board further confirmed the end of Bronfman’s bid, and the Skydance deal is now targeted to close in the first half of 2025.
“Having thoroughly explored actionable opportunities for Paramount over nearly eight months, our special committee continues to believe that the transaction we have agreed with Skydance delivers immediate value and the potential for continued participation in value creation in a rapidly evolving industry landscape,” said Charles Phillips, chair of Paramount’s special committee.
Though Paramount continues to face a variety of challenges, like any major media company, optimism remains within the CBS Sports operation, particularly as it relates to NFL game viewership.
More Issues for Bronfman?
Bronfman is also the chair of sports streamer FuboTV, and that company received a new broadside from Venu Sports, the high-profile entity involving Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery. After filing a notice of appeal last week against an injunction blocking the service’s debut, the trio of media giants have since argued that time is of the essence—particularly as they have claimed to have spent about $74 million toward the development of the platform.
“Each month that passes without a Venu launch has a tangible and dramatic negative financial impact on [the] appellants,” the three companies said in a new court filing. “An expedited appeal raises the possibility that [the] appellants can at least attempt to mitigate their losses with a launch in time to complete for subscribers ‘in advance of or during the college and NFL playoff games.’”
In pushing for that expedited appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, the Venu Sports backers also raised the argument that staff and fans are also suffering from being deprived of the service.
“Put simply, the injunction is causing significant harm to [the] appellants, the planned joint venture, and their employees—all to the detriment of consumers who would otherwise have been able to appreciate this new and different, but non-exclusive, product offering, sooner rather than later,” the companies said.
FuboTV has not objected to an accelerated timetable, but called out Venu Sports’ “numerous misstatements, unsupported factual assertions, and mischaracterizations of the district court’s decision.”
A pretrial conference on the case will be held Sept. 12. If the case does reach a jury trial, Judge Margaret Garnett is targeting February 2025 for that to start—after the entirety of the 2024 college and pro football seasons.
Editors’ note: RedBird IMI, of which RedBird Capital Partners is a joint venture partner, is an investor in Front Office Sports.
