Walt Disney Company
(Redirected from Disney)
Under Michael Eisner's guidance, the Walt Disney Company completed the purchase of the California Angels from Jackie Autry, widow of Gene Autry, in 1999. They had already become minority stockholders in 1996 and had pushed to rename the franchise the Anaheim Angels in 1997. Tony Tavares served as the team's President during that time. In 2003, they sold the franchise to Arturo Moreno, who in turn ne-named it the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Still, that short ownership period coincided with the Angels only World Championship to date.
In 2017, the Company returned to baseball by purchasing BAMTech (which stands for Baseball Advanced Media Technologies), the company behind the technological innovations responsible for MLB.TV and Statcast.
In 2019, the company's decision to purchase 21st Century Fox, in large part to get control of the company's programming archive for its new Disney+ network, had indirect consequences for baseball. 21st Century Fox was the owner of Fox Sports, and because Disney already owned ESPN, the U.S. Department of Justice saw the purchase as a dangerous concentration of power in the sports broadcasting industry and made it a condition of the sale's approval that Disney divest itself of these properties. They were acquired by the Diamond Sports Group which re-named the network "Bally Sports". The local cable broadcast rights of 14 major league teams were affected by the transaction.
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