• Bloomberg, Tuesday, August 4, 2009 10:51 PM

Dish Network has sued Walt Disney's ESPN over licensing agreements, claiming ESPN offered better deals to Comcast and DirecTV Group. Dish learned in May that the sports channel entered into licensing agreements with Comcast and DirecTV on better terms than those offered to Dish in violation of their 2005 contract, says the suit. Dish seeks at least $1 million in damages.

Dish's agreement says if ESPN offers a lower net effective rate or other more favorable provisions to others, it must make the same offer to Dish. But ESPN refused to give the same deals to Dish, according to the complaint.

Dish and ESPN entered their deal in September 2005 for Dish to distribute ESPN Classic and ESPNU, the college-sports channel, through 2013.

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