BAMTech invested an undisclosed amount in college sports streaming company Silver Chalice just weeks after Walt Disney (DIS) took a one-third stake in BAMTech.
The digital media rights, technology and investment partnership announced Monday between BAMTech, Major League Baseball's streaming media service, and Silver Chalice includes a new suite of live streaming products for college sports fans across mobile and connected platforms, to be released later this year. Financial terms of the BAMTech-Silver Chalice deal weren't disclosed.
Silver Chalice CEO Brooks Boyer said in a written statement that, "Silver Chalice has focused on building partnerships with rightsholders, producing compelling content and delivering it to college sports fans where they want it, when they want it."
It's BAMTech's first initiative in college sports programming. Silver Chalice is controlled by Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who is also chairman. Silver Chalice owns sports news and information site Campus Insiders and the Atlantic Coast Conference network, among others, according to Bloomberg.
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Silver Chalice networks are available on Verizon (VZ) offering Go90, Dish Network (DISH) streaming offering Sling TV, Twitter (TWTR), Microsoft (MSFT) unit MSN.com, Yahoo (YHOO) -- which is being acquired by Verizon for $4.8 billion -- Alphabet (GOOGL)-owned Google's YouTube and USA Sports, among others.
Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger disclosed the investment in BAMTech on Aug. 9, saying Disney is "investing for change," including its recent announcement of an over-the-top ESPN service, which could debut as early as end of this year.
Disney stock has been working on a flat base since mid-May with a 106.85 buy point. The House of Mouse has lined up five new Star Wars movies to roll out over as many years, and showed a trailer for the first one, "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," during the Rio Olympics. That movie is slated for release on Dec. 16.
Disney shares fell 0.5% to 95.87 on the stock market today. The stock is trading below its 50-day line as part of a downtrend that started in early November.
