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Nexstar Media Group closed its acquisition of fellow broadcast station group owner Tegna after sealing regulatory approval, despite antitrust lawsuits filed against the deal in recent days.

Nexstar’s $6.2 billion merger with Tegna brings together more than 260 local broadcast TV affiliate stations across the U.S.

Nexstar and Tegna, like other broadcast station group peers, have been looking to consolidate as the industry faces the same challenges as its cable and entertainment media counterparts — namely the drop in pay-TV customers due to the rise of streaming and tech options.

“This transaction is essential to sustaining strong local journalism in the communities we serve. By bringing these two outstanding companies together, Nexstar will be a stronger, more dynamic enterprise—better positioned to deliver exceptional journalism and local programming with enhanced assets, capabilities, and talent,” Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said in a statement.

“We are grateful to President Trump, [FCC] Chairman Carr, and the DOJ for recognizing the dynamic forces shaping the media landscape and enabling this transaction to move forward.”

In February, President Donald Trump endorsed the merger between Nexstar and Tegna in a TruthSocial post after months of criticism about the potential effects of the deal.

The proposed acquisition, which was announced in August, had been expected to close in the second half of 2026.

Broadcast station owners run the affiliate stations of the major networks like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, and are known for airing local news, sports and other broadcast content. The companies remain profitable due to hefty fees they receive from pay-TV distributors, and have argued that consolidation would preserve local TV news.

However, decades-old laws have prevented such mergers from happening in recent years.

The greenlight from the FCC and DOJ allows the deal to go through by waiving law that prevents any one company from owning broadcast stations that reach more than 39% of the U.S. TV households.

However, in recent days two federal antitrust lawsuits were filed in a move to block the merger — one from attorney generals in eight states, including California and New York, and another from satellite and streaming TV provider DirecTV.

The lawsuits each argue that the combination is anticompetitive and would drive up customer costs, reduce competition, lead to the closure of local newsrooms and cause TV blackouts of stations due to carriage fights with distributors over pricing.

“DIRECTV supports the action taken by the states and has determined it is necessary to join this effort to protect competition and consumers,” said Michael Hartman, general counsel and chief external affairs officer at DirecTV in a release. “We have consistently made clear that this merger is anti-competitive and not in the public interest and, if it goes forward, will trigger a wave of similar consolidation.”

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Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of software company Atlassian Corp., in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 6, 2023.

Lisa Maree Williams | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Atlassian shares popped 14.9% after the software company blew past Wall Street’s fiscal second-quarter earnings and guidance expectations.

The stock hit a fresh 52-week high and closed at its highest level since April 2022. It was also the stock’s best day since November.

Adjusted earnings came in at 96 cents per share, ahead of the 76 cents per share projected by analysts polled by LSEG. Atlassian reported revenues of $1.29 billion, versus the $1.24 billion estimate.

For the third quarter, Atlassian said it anticipates $1.35 billion in revenue, above the $1.31 billion LSEG estimate and previous guidance.

Atlassian benefited from robust cloud and data center growth during the period as more customers turned to artificial intelligence solutions. That contributed to 30% subscription revenue growth over the prior year. Atlassian also said it now expects 26.5% cloud growth and 21.5% data center growth for the fiscal year.

“The momentum we’re seeing across the business reinforces our conviction around investments we are making in our key strategic priorities of serving enterprise customers, AI, and the System of Work to deliver durable, long-term growth,” finance chief Joe Binz said in an earnings release.

The Australian company, known for organization software tool Trello, has made a push into the artificial intelligence race alongside megacap technology competitors in recent years. In 2023, the company tapped OpenAI to bring AI capabilities to its Jira and Confluence solutions. Last year, Atlassian debuted its Rovo AI assistant.

Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss cited back-to-back solid quarters and 25 times year-over-year growth in Atlassian Intelligence among the reasons the company should “join the upper echelon” of software companies best situated for generative AI.

“1 million [monthly active users] for Atlassian Intelligence all point to a strong yield against investments in a unified Cloud platform ‘infused with AI’ and an improving enterprise motion. While the valuation gap narrows [after hours], we still see upside in TEAM,” he wrote in a Friday note.

Shares have gained 25% since the start of the year.

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Chicago Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon calls out to players during the first half of the team’s WNBA basketball game against the New York Liberty, May 23, 2024, in New York.

Frank Franklin II | AP

Startup basketball league Unrivaled announced on Monday it’s closed a Series A funding round, raising an additional $28 million before its inaugural season.

“Our players haven’t even taken the court yet and the foundation we are building with our partners unites unparalleled expertise, strategic insight, and an incredible product,” Unrivaled President Alex Bazzell said in a press release. “Together, we’re setting the stage for Unrivaled for years to come.”

The 3×3 women’s hoops league already secured $7 million in a seed round announced in May, meaning the league has received $35 million in total funds in 2024. The latest round was led by the Berman family and also included NBA champion Giannis Antetokounmpo and 28-time Olympic medalist Michael Phelps, among others.

Unrivaled was co-founded in 2023 by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier and advertises that the player-owned organization will give every Unrivaled player “equity and a vested interest in its success,” according to the press release.

The league has signed 36 top players and said it offers the highest average salaries across any women’s professional sports league.

While the Women’s National Basketball Association has seen exponential growth in the last few years, superstar rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese received base salaries just over $70,000, compared with star rookies in the National Basketball Association who received millions their first year.

Unrivaled announced last week it had signed Under Armour as its official uniform partner. It’s also signed an exclusive, multiyear media rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery to air its games on TNT and truTV, as well as streaming platform Max. WBD participated in the Series A funding round, the league said Monday.

The round also included private investor Marc Lasry, University of South Carolina women’s basketball head coach Dawn Staley, and USC guard JuJu Watkins. Previous investors include soccer phenom Alex Morgan and actor and investor Ashton Kutcher.

The inaugural season begins on January 17.

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A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar taxi drives along a street on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. 

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Waymo has closed a $5.6 billion funding round to expand its robotaxi service in and beyond Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix, where it operates today.

The autonomous vehicle venture is owned by Google parent Alphabet, which led the series C investment in Waymo, alongside earlier backers including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price.

In a statement to CNBC, Waymo co-CEOs Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov said the funding would go toward expansion and advancing the Waymo Driver for business applications.

“With this latest investment, we will continue to welcome more riders into our Waymo One ride-hailing service in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and in Austin and Atlanta through our expanded partnership with Uber,” they wrote.

The series C funding brings Waymo’s total capital raised to more than $11 billion after it raised $3.2 billion and $2.5 billion in two earlier rounds. Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat announced in July that the parent company would commit to a multiyear investment of up to $5 billion in Waymo.

While many companies are testing autonomous vehicles, or AVs, on public roads in the U.S., including well-funded upstarts such as Wayve, Waymo is the only one to operate a commercial robotaxi service in several major metro areas.

The service has been embraced by some women who have safety concerns about riding with unknown human drivers. And it has even been used by parents to send their teens to school when other transit options felt less safe or convenient.

Waymo now conducts more than 100,000 weekly trips for passengers in Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco, who can hail their robotaxis via the Waymo One app. More recently, Waymo partnered with Uber to launch its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas — home of would-be rival Tesla’s headquarters.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made promises about self-driving cars for more than a decade. This week, he said Tesla would offer a driverless ride-hailing service in Texas and California next year, once the company upgrades the partially automated systems in its existing vehicles, which still require a human driver today.

GM-owned Cruise had been Waymo’s closest competitor in the U.S. until it paused operations following an October 2023 incident in San Francisco in which a pedestrian was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise AV, after she was first struck by a human driver in another car. Cruise is working to reinstate its service and also plans to partner with Uber.

Self-driving vehicle makers in the U.S. must still prove their technology is safer to use than taxis and trucks with human drivers. As CNBC previously reported, nearly two-thirds of U.S. respondents to a Pew Research Center survey said they would not want to ride in a driverless passenger vehicle if they had the opportunity.

Waymo’s self-reported data suggests that their vehicles crash “far less often than human drivers on public roads,” according to analysis by Understanding AI author Timothy B. Lee.

Still, Waymo has initiated software recalls to improve the safety of its self-driving systems, and its AVs have sometimes blocked traffic, traveled the wrong way down the street, or been involved in collisions, though none resulted in a known fatality or severe injury.

The next-generation robotaxi from Waymo is a Geely Zeekr that’s equipped with its custom sensors and AI “Driver.” Waymo also recently agreed to a multiyear strategic partnership with Hyundai that will add the South Korean automaker’s Ioniq 5 electric vehicle to its robotaxi fleet.

In August, Waymo said it would also test its driverless vehicles in harsher, winter weather including in northern California, upstate New York and Michigan, with the hope of offering robotaxi services beyond the sunbelt, and eventually internationally.

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