A Time Warner Inc. unit must pay $281 million in damages to a Texas businessman for reneging on an oral agreement to sell him two professional sports team, a Georgia jury ruled.

Jurors in Atlanta found today that Turner Broadcasting System improperly canceled a 2003 accord to sell the National Basketball Association's Atlanta Hawks and the National Hockey League's Atlanta Thrashers to David McDavid, a former Dallas car dealer. The teams wound up in the hands of an Atlanta-based group of investors that included the son and son-in-law of TBS's billionaire founder, Ted Turner.

Today's verdict was the eighth-largest in the U.S. this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and equal to about 6 percent of Time Warner's 2007 net income of $4.39 billion. McDavid, 66, had sought about $450 million in damages and interest over the failed deal, a figure based on the value of comparable teams, his lawyers said in court papers.

"We are disappointed the decision of the court and the jury's interpretation of the facts in what was a complex business transaction," according to a statement distributed by Misty Skedgell, a TBS spokeswoman. "We will carefully consider all options, including appeal."

The state court jury awarded only actual damages to McDavid, a former part-owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks franchise. The panel won't consider punitive damages after finding that executives at Atlanta-based TBS didn't commit fraud.

The board of New York-based Time Warner, the world's largest media company, authorized TBS in August 2003 to sell the money-losing teams and the arena they play in, according to testimony in the case.

McDavid, who had pursued failed bids for the NBA's Charlotte Hornets and Memphis Grizzlies, negotiated with TBS officials for several months before being told he had a deal to buy the teams for $215 million, his lawyer told jurors.

TBS officials then turned around and sold the franchises for the same price to the Atlanta Spirit, an investment group that includes Turner's son Beau Turner and son-in-law Rutherford Seydel. That group still owns the teams.

TBS's lawyers countered throughout the two-month trial that McDavid never got a written agreement spelling out the deal's terms. Such a contract was required by the NBA and NHL before they would approve the teams' ownership transfers.

The lawyers also denied McDavid's allegations that TBS fraudulently hid last-minute negotiations with the Atlanta investors and turned over details about his offer to the group.