NEW YORK (Reuters) - DirecTV Group and Comcast Corp said on Monday they have reached a deal to return Comcast's Versus sports network to the satellite operator's programing line-up.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Versus was pulled off DirecTV's programing packages in August 2009 after both sides were unable to agree on fee terms.

DirecTV claimed Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company, had forced it to pull down Versus even though it said it was already paying Comcast more than any other non-Comcast distributor to air Versus. It said at the time that Comcast was demanding an overall hike of 20 percent on top of that.

The No. 1 U.S. satellite operator, which has 18.6 million subscribers, prides itself on being a leading sports programing provider.

Comcast will be keen to avoid a protracted high profile programing fee dispute with a rival pay-TV provider at the same time as its proposed takeover of NBC Universal is being comprehensively reviewed by U.S. regulators. NBC Universal owns major cable networks like USA, MSNBC and CNBC among others.

Cable distributors have called on U.S. regulators to intervene in programing disputes to avoid blacking out signals to subscribers caught in the middle of unresolved commercial negotiations.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Richard Chang)