The NFL entered the offseason with a plan to approach its broadcast partners to discuss extensions that would entail paying more money immediately to televise games.
At least one partner won’t be doing that.
Via Drew Lerner of Awful Announcing, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said during a Thursday quarterly earnings call that Fox “will not be making any amendments” to its current arrangement with the NFL until after 2029, the last year of Fox’s contract (if/when the NFL exercises an opt-out provision).
The NFL can end after the 2029 season its current deals with Fox, NBC, Amazon, and YouTube. The ESPN/ABC deal can be exited early after the 2030 season. The CBS contract also runs through 2029, but the NFL could invoke a change-in-control provision and end the deal given the recent Skydance-Paramount merger.
“We don’t see any changes to our contractual terms until the 2030 season,” Murdoch said. “Our relationship with the NFL is an incredibly positive one. We engage with them all the time.” He said there’s “a clear path forward” with the NFL after the current deals end.
It doesn’t mean Fox won’t negotiate with the league for 2030 and beyond. It only means that Fox won’t be paying more than what it is committed to pay for the next four seasons.
The NFL, reportedly miffed at the massive NBA deals signed after the NFL’s latest round of contracts, had hoped to get more from the broadcast partners over the remaining years of the existing deals. That prompted an effort by Fox to push political buttons as to the broadcast antitrust exemption.
After Fox mounted thinly-disguised resistance to an effort to get it to pay more from 2026 through 2029, the league found itself in need of a win-win off ramp. It could be that the league will simply act as if it never tried to get more money before the expiration of the current contracts.
If the other networks follow suit and stand on the existing contracts, the stage could be set for chaos in the next wave of deals. But with all major broadcast networks currently having a full-season package — and with plenty of pressure from Congress on the league to not freeze out the FCC-regulated operations — the NFL may be less inclined to, for example, remove one or both of the Sunday afternoon packages from three-letter networks and sell them to a streamer.
Our prediction? In the end, new deals will be done. The NFL will be fully compensated for its product, which is more valuable than any other property. And the eyebrow-raising numbers will allow all parties to continue to work together in a way that allows everyone to profit.