The Sportsman Channel and a slew of outdoor media will join the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment universe in a deal announced Friday.
Denver-based Kroenke Sports, which owns the Denver Nuggets, paid private-equity firm InterMedia Partners VII an undisclosed amount for InterMedia Outdoor Holdings, its one-time rival to acquire The Outdoor Channel (Kroenke last year.)
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“This is a nice complement to the other media assets that KSE has been acquiring,” Kroenke Sports chief operating officer Matt Hutchings said.
InterMedia’s portfolio includes Petersen’s Hunting, Guns & Ammo, In-Fisherman, North American Whitetail and Game & Fish. Overall, Kroenke adds one national TV channel, 15 magazines and 17 websites.
The Wisconsin-based Sportsman Channel, which launched in 2003, is one of the fastest growing TV channels among males 18 to 49, according to Nielsen ratings. In the third quarter, the channel in male viewers ages 25 to 54, compared to the same period a year earlier.
Kroenke Sports plans to keep the Sportsman Channel a separate network. The channel is available in the Denver area to customers of Comcast, DirecTV and Dish Network.
For now, the plan is to let the InterMedia brands continue to operate in their respective locations, Hutchings said.
When Kroenke Sports bought The Outdoor Channel last year, it moved the operation and its employees to Colorado. It also owns a 50 percent stake in World Fishing Network, which it also moved to the area.
“We’ve created a significant number of jobs and brought them back to our home state and our city,” Hutchings said. “Right now, everything (regarding InterMedia) stays as is, but the ownership for KSE is here in Denver.”
Kroenke Sports also owns Altitude Sports & Entertainment, the TV network it launched 10 years ago for its own teams, which now include the Nuggets, Avalanche, Rapids and Colorado Mammoth.
Kroenke Sports also owns the Pepsi Center, Paramount Theatre, Dick’s Sporting Goods Park and FirstBank Center.
Tamara Chuang: 303-954-1209, tchuang@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Gadgetress
