NEW YORK (Reuters) - The National Basketball Association is exploring selling a stake in its digital assets, which include its cable television network and Web site, to a media company, Commissioner David Stern said on Tuesday.
Stern, speaking at the Reuters Media Summit in New York, did not say with which companies the U.S. league might speak about a stake in NBA TV and NBA.com.
"We are thinking about expanding the ownership base of our digital assets to include a media company. We anticipate a new deal will make both NBA TV and NBA.com more robust. We have made it clear that for us a discussion of all of our assets on a global scale is available."
Time Warner Inc. (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) owns a 2 percent stake in NBA TV, and the league has TV deals with Time Warner and Walt Disney Co. (DIS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
"We believe we're at a point where if we could ... grow (the digital assets) even more, we're prepared to partner to another enterprise's benefit as well," Stern said.
"To be engaged with a company like Time Warner or a company like Disney on either a digital or global scale is to engage partners who bring their expertise and the scope of their businesses in ways that we don't have yet and might not even be the best investment of our resources," he added.
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