Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros and the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets are fighting to cut partner Comcast Corp.’s claim for a $100 million loan to the bankrupt cable network that televises the teams’ games, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The largest U.S. cable provider would have its claim reduced to as little as $16 million and no more than $23 million under a revised restructuring plan filed yesterday for Houston Regional Sports Network LP, which is jointly owned by the teams and Philadelphia-based Comcast. The sports network filed a plan this month to exit bankruptcy protection and ditch Comcast for AT&T Inc. and DirecTV in a deal for them to buy all of the reorganized company’s equity and sign new media rights agreements with the teams. The new media rights deals would more than double the network’s availability in its home market and more than triple affiliation-based revenue, according to the restructuring plan.
