Posted on 01/31/2018 8:50:55 AM PST by EdnaMode
Fox has locked up rights to Thursday Night Football for five years, stealing the ball from NBC and CBS and breaking with the NFL’s previous one-year-at-a-time approach to the night’s prime-time rights.
For the broadcast network, the games will be a critical piece of programming as it prepares for life without its studio arm, which is set to migrate to Disney under the terms of the companies’ pending merger.
This fall, Fox will air 11 games, from the fourth through the 15th weeks of the NFL season, with simulcasts on the NFL Network and Fox Deportes in Spanish. The NFL network will carry the seven other Thursday night contests.
CBS and NBC had shared games this season, paying a reported $450 million combined, with Amazon also onboard as a streaming partner. Financial terms were not disclosed, but are believed to be well north of the previous $450M. Digital rights are still available, following successive seasons of Twitter and Amazon streaming games.
“Football is in our blood at Fox and we understand that nothing beats the NFL when it comes to television that captures people’s attention,” said Peter Rice, president of 21st Century Fox. “Our historic relationship with the NFL dates back to the earliest days of FOX, and we couldn’t be more excited to expand our deep and enduring partnership to include primetime games on Thursday night.”
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has been under pressure to shore up faltering TV ratings, said the Fox arrangement continues the league’s strategy — one that has prompted criticism for over-saturating the airwaves with games.
“This agreement is the culmination of over 10 years of strategic growth around ‘Thursday Night Football,'” Goodell said, “a period during which this property has grown from a handful of late-season games on the NFL Network to a full season of games and one of the most popular shows on broadcast television.”
Nobody seriously thought they would be......................
I hope Fox got a good deal, as ratings will continue to decline.
LOCK ‘EM UP!!
*YAWN*
Will not be watching at all.
Was anyone else bidding
Here’s hoping they lose a ton of money.
Well, that's the death knell for any decent quality productions from Fox Studio. Disney is the black hole of creativity.
I sure hope the contract has provision for rebates of rights fees, when the ratings don’t achieve the targets anticipated.
I’m sure the attorneys saw to that.
In the current environment, committing to five years seems like a long time. Between declining interest in the NFL, and ongoing erosion of the TV audience migrating away from cable, I’m sure hope the attorneys and spreadsheet bean counter types were listened to when they discussed these matters.
Thursday night is my night to re-arrange my sock drawer.
Unfortunately, the NFL isn’t going anywhere. They are a multi billion dollar enterprise and can afford to take a 10%-15% hit on ratings. It really does seem like they are firing their conservative customers and going all in with Generation Snowflake.
Boxing is still around, but it’s a shadow of what it once was.
I suspect we’ll see the same trajectory with the NFL.
I second that emotion.
Boxing is hot. Showtime and HBO going neck and neck and some Friday night son ESPN. Some judging still mindless or corrupt, but that’s been around along time. I have been a boxing fan since the 50s when my dad trained AAU fighters. i think boxing is better now that ever. It is the heavyweight division that is not what its was. The Klitchko brothers should have fought each other and review the division, but theres a couple of newbies rising. The other divisions are very competitive.
Need to drop an organization and unify titles in every division.
Fine with me as long as they lose those ridiculous ‘Color Rush’ uniforms for TNF games.
I wonder how much the NFL had to pay them?
Thursday nights, from a network perspective, are the key night of programming on their schedule.
Sunday garners the biggest audiences but Thursday has the biggest revenue share of the week. The main reason being big dollars are spent on advertising movies opening for the weekend.
I never watch Thursday night football unless Pittsburgh plays, well, used to anyways. I see it as a huge gamble.
You can develop a lot of pilots for $450-500 million and one or more will become a hit. From a network standpoint I don’t think I would have done a long term deal with the NFL for more than the current contract for obvious reasons.
The reasoning for doing this because of the loss of 20th Century Fox being sold to Disney is specious. Networks buy shows from competing studios all the time. The loss of financial interest in syndication though is a factor.
Still, bad move in today’s sports entertainment environment.
Bad deal for Fox, the NFL will shrink to half of what it was.
Maybe, they can find an audience without 35 million Mexican/Central Americans and other non American Born people.
There will be a few of us old goats boycotting them.
Who can name a single Heavyweight fighter these days?
In the 70s, you had Ali, Foreman, Frazier, etc., all household names.
Now what?
Of course there are still devoted boxing fans, but it’s more of a cult following now.
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