News Corporation

"On the eve of the 1995 World Cup final, the chairmen of the South Africa, Australia and New Zealand rugby unions called a press conference to announce the formation of SANZAR (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia Rugby) and to make the shock announcement that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, News Corporation, would pay US$555 million over the following 10 years for exclusive rights to televise all international rugby tours to New Zealand, South Africa and Australia and a new competition between franchises that would be established in those countries. It was an astonishing sum of money for a code that had had no TV sponsorship until then. The figure stunned not only the rugby community but other sporting codes too. A final clincher in Murdoch’s enthusiasm seems to have been watching All Blacks star Jonah Lomu’s explosive game in the World Cup semi-final against England. Murdoch executive Sam Chisholm—who had helped open doors for Heatley and Jarvis when they were first signing up TV rights for Sky and who Murdoch had headhunted from Packer’s Channel Nine—says that in a call after that match Murdoch told him, ‘This is amazing. We’ve got to have that guy…’[5](private://read/01jectdbce729daxqkxt7cbe8r/#mn38)"

"Working from a Los Angeles office, Milken had created a $125 billion pool of capital that had helped tiny companies swallow giants and permitted obscure executives to gain control of world-famous busi- nesses. So effective was his operation that a mere statement that Milken believed he could raise a financial war chest in pursuit of a particular corporate quarry—a so-called "highly confident" letter—could cause panic at the company targeted for takeover. Secretive, feared by competitors, and closely monitored by securities regulators, Milken already played an enormous role in the communications industry. During his time at Drexel, he channeled some $26 billion into MCI, McCaw, Metromedia, Viacom, TCI, Time Warner, Turner, Cablevision Systems, News Corporation, and other cable, telecom, wireless, publish- ing, and entertainment companies."