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Did Lachlan Murdoch just tackle the NFL?
The Fox CEO on Thursday surprised investors by announcing that Fox’s current deal with the National Football League would remain as is through its end after the 2029 season, despite
the league’s recent interest in using an “opt-out” clause baked into the 11-year pacts it struck with all of its media partners that would allow it to update terms to match market levels.
“We don’t see any changes” to Fox’s current pact with the NFL until the 2030 season, Murdoch said during a call with investors. The company “will not be making any amendments” to the rights deal it has at present. Murdoch said the decision came after recent talks between Fox and the league, but declined to elaborate.
The NFL has been in discussions with many of its rights partners, which also include Amazon, Disney, NBCUniversal and CBS, about updating its current contracts. The league has good reason to do so. It deliberately struck its most recent pacts with the opt-out clause, knowing full well that sports are one of the few things in the current media sector that continue to win the large, live audiences that advertisers and distributors crave. The value of sports deals continues to increase at an exponential rate — so much so that NBC is believed to be paying the NBA more for its current rights contract with that league than it is paying the NFL for “Sunday Night Football.”
A spokesperson for the NFL could not be reached for immediate comment.
The appeal of sports continues to play out in real time. Disney on Wednesday announced it had sold out all its commercial time tied to its 2027 broadcast of Super Bowl LXI — months ahead of the actual play date. TV networks with rights to the Big Game typically don’t unveil that status until the end of August or sometime in the fall.
More to come…
