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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.

A bankruptcy judge has approved the sale of three James River Coal Co. mining complexes to a subsidiary of Kentucky-based Blackhawk Mining LLC, The Associated Press reported yesterday. The sale includes the Hampden complex in West Virginia, the Hazard complex in Kentucky but excludes the assets of Laurel Mountain Resources LLC and the Triad Mining complex in Indiana. Blackhawk subsidiary JR Acquisition LLC will pay $20 million in cash and assume $32 million in liabilities. Richmond, Va.-based James River filed for chapter 11 in April.

Energy Future Holdings, the Texas power company that filed for bankruptcy last April, said that it will present a proposal for auctioning the company after it scrapped an earlier plan to exit chapter 11 under control of unsecured creditors, Reuters reported yesterday. The company was evaluating potential proposals that it received from financial and strategic bidders, and is opting for an auction that may indicate increasing interest in the company. The company had previously said that it was in discussions with potential bidders, which included Hunt Consolidated and NextEra Energy Inc. Energy Future's crown jewel is its regulated power distribution business known as Oncor. NextEra had presented a proposal for acquiring post-bankruptcy control of Energy Future, but the Florida company withdrew that on Tuesday because an auction process would soon be presented. The case is In re Energy Future Holdings Inc., U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 14-10979.

The auctioneers hired by the estate for Truland Group, the Reston, Va.-based electrical contractor that filed for bankruptcy last month, have begun selling off the company’s 300 trucks, trailers and vans in an effort to recover money for creditors, The Washington Post reported yesterday. Auction Markets and Blackbird Asset Services opened the bidding process online Saturday for the first batch of 37 vehicles. The starting prices range from $200 for a 1992 pull-behind trailer to $3,500 for a 2007 Chevrolet Silverado Classic extended cab. Bidding for the first round of vehicles will close Sept. 5 and more auctions for the remaining vehicles are planned in the coming weeks. The money recovered from the sale of the vehicles will eventually go toward repaying creditors, including Truland employees who were not paid for their last work periods. Prior to filing for chapter 7 on July 23, Truland was the 10th-largest electrical contractor in the U.S. with about 1,000 employees, and was working on more than 250 unfinished construction projects.

A bid by television personality Marcus Lemonis and Dippin' Dots owner Fischer Enterprises to relaunch the closed Crumbs Bake Shop moved closer to reality this week after a deadline to trump the pair's $6.5 million offer came and went with no other takers emerging, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The cupcake chain, which abruptly closed its doors in July and sought chapter 11 protection, will ask a judge to sign off on the bid at a Tuesday hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, N.J.

Mall snack staple Hot Dog on a Stick has been purchased from bankruptcy by a portfolio company of Los Angeles private equity firm Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, the Los Angeles Times reported today. The firm's Global Franchise Group has bought HDOS Enterprises, parent company of the fast-food chain known for hot dogs and lemonade, for about $12.2 million in an auction from Bankruptcy Court. HDOS filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in February after struggling with declining foot traffic in malls and expensive leases. Before filing for bankruptcy protection, Hot Dog on a Stick tried to slash its expenses and cut its workforce.

The $6.5 million bid for Crumbs Bake Shop fronted by CNBC star Marcus Lemonis went unchallenged yesterday, setting the stage for the cupcake shop to emerge from bankruptcy on Aug. 26, the New York Post reported today. Crumbs’ new owner, Lemonis Fischer Acquisition Co., includes serial entrepreneur Fischer Enterprises in addition to the host of CNBC’s “The Profit.” The pair decided to make a run at the cupcake chain within days of its unexpectedly laying off all of its workers and closing all 48 shops in 10 states on July 7. By July 11, when Crumbs filed for bankruptcy, Lemonis Fischer had already stepped up with $1 million in financing to minimize damages to the chain throughout what promises to be a short stay in chapter 11. That financing, coupled with a $5.5 million secured loan previously made to Crumbs by Fischer, became the basis of a “stalking-horse bid” that the public was invited to beat by noon yesterday.

Revel AC Inc., the struggling Atlantic City, N.J.-based casino operator, is still pursuing potential sale offers as it plans to shut down operations by Sept. 2 to stanch its cash loss of about $2 million a week, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “It is still our goal and hope that we will have a successful sale,” John K. Cunningham, a Revel lawyer, said today at a hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, New Jersey. He said that the casino’s losses were reflected in offers, and Revel would have to be shut down to entice acceptable bids. Revel is “bleeding money every week,” Cunningham told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gloria M. Burns. “The current bids we have don’t value Revel as an ongoing operation,” and the offers show bidders look at Revel’s losses like they would be “stepping into a black hole,” he added. Revel, which employs about 3,140 people, told workers in June, when it filed its second bankruptcy in two years, that it may be forced to close for good if it fails to attract a buyer.

Bankrupt James River Coal Co., after repeatedly postponing an asset auction, chose a unit of Blackhawk Mining LLC as the lead bidder, with an opening offer of $50 million, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The Blackhawk unit will be the stalking-horse bidder at the auction to be held today in New York, according to court papers. A sale hearing to consider Blackhawk’s or other possible bids is scheduled for Aug. 20 in Richmond. Blackhawk Mining, based in Lexington, Kentucky, operates mines and coal-processing facilities. James River’s Hamden mining complexes, assets of the Logan & Kanawha Coal Co. and the Triad complex are up for sale, according to court filings. The buyer will also assume some liabilities. James River, based in Richmond, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors April 7, listing more than $800 million in debt and $1 billion in assets. Declining coal prices caused it to idle a dozen mines.

Bankruptcy lawyers for Crumbs Bake Shop Inc. are preparing to hold an auction on Thursday to see who else has a sweet tooth for the chain, whose 49 cupcake stores closed suddenly on July 7, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. An investor group that includes Dippin’ Dots owner Fischer Enterprises and reality TV show host Marcus Lemonis plan to open the auction with a multimillion-dollar offer. The group’s approximately $6.5 million credit bid would forgive loans Fischer and Lemonis have extended to Crumbs, including a $1.1 million loan that is paying for the company’s bankruptcy.