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News Corp. will not make a bid to buy the Dallas Stars

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The bidding for the Dallas Stars is apparently back to just two interested parties. While we reported a while back that News Corp., the company that owns Fox Broadcasting, was interested in purchasing the Dallas Stars, it turns out things have changed. Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News breaks the news on Fox stepping away.

I was filing some e-mails and making some calls today, and I got put in touch with Chris Bellitti, the vice president of communications for all of FSN. He said that Fox will not be bidding for the Stars.

Here is his one-line statement:

“Fox will not be submitting a bid for ownership of the Dallas Stars.’'

Bellitti said that he believes Rupert Murdoch has decided to get out of buying sports teams and is instead focused on getting television rights. The Stars television contract with FSN expires after the 2013-14 season, so this is not an immediate issue.

Well that certainly takes the high-profile angle out of this story as Rupert Murdoch’s involvement in NHL ownership would’ve been tantalizing at the very least. The thought of having Murdoch sitting in on a Board of Governor’s meeting and trying to keep up with some of the other owners is something you’d imagine happening in a movie. Instead, the future of the Stars will be in the hands of either Canadian oil man Bill Gallacher or Vancouver investor Tom Gaglardi.

There is still hope for things to get interesting as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who had been rumored to be thinking about getting involved in buying the Stars, has yet to make a comment one way or the other about purchasing the team. If you thought the idea of Rupert Murdoch owning an NHL team was interesting, getting Cuban into the NHL owners club would be startling and incredible from a high-profile perspective. Of course, Cuban has already been turned down once before by the NHL Board of Governors so I wouldn’t hold your breath there even if he made a Balsillie-like bid for the team.