Fox Sports Southwest, the broadcast home for most Stars, Mavs and Rangers games, is among 21 regional sports networks being bought by television station powerhouse Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.

Sinclair's deal to buy the networks from Walt Disney Co. will accelerate the Maryland company's push into major television markets, according to a person familiar with the deal. Besides Dallas, other regional networks are in major sports markets like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Miami and Detroit.

Disney acquired the sports channels in March as part of its $71 billion takeover of much of Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox. But the Burbank entertainment giant wasn't allowed to keep them. Last summer, the U.S. Justice Department demanded that Disney sell the regional sports networks as a condition of its takeover of Fox.

Antitrust regulators were concerned that Disney, which already owns sports juggernaut ESPN, would have too much sway in the TV sports market. The government gave Disney 90 days to unload the channels after it acquired them. The clock started ticking at the close of the Disney-Fox transaction.

Fox Business Network first reported that Sinclair had won the auction for the channels. The channels also drew interest from Liberty Media Corp. and Big3, an upstart basketball league run by the rapper-actor Ice Cube and Hollywood businessman Jeff Kwatinetz.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday that Sinclair had reached a deal valued at more than $10 billion for the channels. A person familiar with the auction but not authorized to comment confirmed that Disney and Sinclair had agreed to the sale.

The deal could be officially announced as early as Friday. Representatives of Disney and Sinclair did not respond to requests for comment.

The auction for the Fox Sports channels began last fall. But the hoped-for frenzied bidding war failed to materialize because such major entertainment companies as Comcast Corp., AT&T Inc.'s WarnerMedia and even Fox Corp., sat on the sidelines.

Fox, still controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family, had considered reclaiming the channels, but Fox executives were discouraged by the weakening economics of cable television. Consumers have been cancelling their pay-TV service in favor of lower-cost streaming platforms.

In addition, broadcasters have been staggered by the sky-high fees that professional sports teams have demanded in exchange for the rights to broadcast their games. Regional sports channels are no longer the growth business they were 15 years ago.

Disney had hoped Fox's 22 regional sports networks would fetch about $20 billion -- but they fell short of that goal. Sinclair's deal is for 21 of the 22 Fox sports networks.

The crown jewel, YES, which is home to New York Yankees broadcasts, reportedly is being purchased by Sinclair and online retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. for $3.5 billion. It was unclear Thursday whether Amazon also plans to invest in the larger cluster of regional sports channels as well -- or if Sinclair has lined up another equity partner.

Sinclair, which has its headquarters in the Baltimore suburb of Hunt Valley, Md., already owns the Tennis Channel, a cable outlet in Santa Monica.

The company spent part of last year trying to buy Tribune Media, but that deal was blocked last summer by regulators. Instead, Irving-based Nexstar Broadcasting Inc. agreed to buy the Tribune stations for $6.4 billion late last year.

Meg James,

Los Angeles Times