• by Wayne Friedman , January 18, 2012

Mark Cuban finally got a big NBA championship title for his Dallas Mavaricks: Now, he is looking for higher ground in TV.

Cuban, Ryan Seacrest, live entertainment impresario AEG and Creative Artists Agency (CAA) will rebrand Cuban's small cable network, HDNet, into a bigger new music-entertainment-lifestyle channel. The new network called AXS TV (pronounced "access") is scheduled to debut this summer, building on the content of AEG’s live events which are run in more than 100 venues worldwide.

The announcement says the agreement will included an expanded deal with Dish Network. Along with existing TV distribution deals, AXS TV will get into 35 million U.S. TV homes.