LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- A 61-year-old sportscaster for a 79-year-old animated rabbit?

Such are the deals being made these days in Hollywood as new Walt Disney Co. DIS, -1.19% Chief Executive Robert Iger indicated that his company would be extending another olive branch within the entertainment community.

This time, Iger is trading "Monday Night Football" sportscaster Al Michaels to NBC Universal GE, -2.19% for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a cartoon character that was the predecessor to Mickey Mouse.

It doesn't stop there, though, as Disney's ESPN gets the rights to broadcast Ryder Cup golf, extended Olympics highlights and various cross-promotion deals.

Michaels told ESPN last month that he wanted to move over to NBC with colleague John Madden to do that network's Sunday-night football broadcasts. Michaels also pointed out several key behind-the-scenes crew members were making the jump with Madden.

"It was more a case of me being very comfortable if I could stay with my group," Michaels said in a news conference Thursday. "It couldn't have gotten any better than it was the last four years."

Under a new National Football League licensing agreement, ESPN will give up its Sunday broadcasts to NBC and take over the popular Monday-night games from its sister network, ABC.

Michaels and Madden had been broadcasting the games on ABC since 2002. Michaels, a 30-year veteran of ABC who also broadcasts National Basketball Association games, has been the Monday play-by-play man for 20 years.

He had said in July that he would join the ESPN broadcasting team and signed a contract in November, but Michaels changed his mind in January, according to ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys.

The cable network let Michaels out of his contract in relatively short order, Soltys said. "Once [Michaels] said that [he wanted to switch], we quickly moved in another direction on both the NFL and NBA," he added.

ESPN's Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser will take over the Monday-night broadcasts.

The deal primarily was negotiated between ESPN and NBC, but Disney executives got involved when they sought to gain rights to Oswald.

Early inspiration

The rabbit was a creation of company founder Walt Disney's in 1927, and the source of 26 cartoons that he produced for Universal Studios. Disney discovered, however, that Universal wanted ownership of Oswald, so he set out to create a new character. That gave birth to Mickey Mouse.

Disney did not spell out what it planned to do with Oswald -- whether the character will be revived and marketed in some fashion.

But the deal does suggest that Iger's early tenure will be marked by détente. After taking over from the mercurial Michael Eisner last year, Iger has mended fences with dissident shareholders Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, and patched up relations with animation partner Pixar PIXR enough to forge a merger pact between the two companies.

This latest deal returns a long-lost character that some in the Disney family had cherished.

"When Bob was named CEO, he told me he wanted to bring Oswald back to Disney, and I appreciate that he is a man of his word," said Diane Disney Miller, Walt Disney's daughter, in a statement. "Having Oswald around again is going to be a lot of fun."

In addition to the Olympics and Ryder Cup rights, ESPN will be able to promote its Monday-night games on NBC's Sunday games through 2011. It also gets expanded video-highlight rights from NBC Sports properties through 2011.