FOX Paying $550M Per Year For “Thursday Night Football” Package, Up $100M From Last Year

Update:

The NFL officially announced their five-year agreement with FOX Sports for the “Thursday Night Football” package.

“This agreement is the culmination of over 10 years of strategic growth around Thursday Night Football, a period during which this property has grown from a handful of late season games on NFL Network to a full season of games and one of the most popular shows on broadcast television with additional distribution via cable and digital channels,” said Roger Goodell. “As one of the leaders in sports television and a recognized innovator of NFL game broadcasts for many years, we’re excited to be extending our partnership with FOX Sports, one of our most trusted and valued partners, to include Thursday Night Football.”

“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 21^st 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.”

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Scott Soshnick and Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, are reporting that FOX is close to a deal for the rights to the “Thursday Night Football” package.

• According to the report, FOX’s bid is higher than the $45 million a game CBS and NBC agreed to pay last year. However, nothing is finalized and there’s still a chance that the deal could fall apart.
• John Ourand reports that FOX will have 11 Thursday Night NFL games, sharing with NFL Network and a digital partner. Beyond that, FOX gets expanded mobile rights.
• Ourand adds that it does not look like Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will do the Thursday night games.
• According to Ourand the Fox deal will pay the NFL $550 million per year, which is $100 million more than the prior deal with CBS and NBC.
• Sources have told Ourand that CBS and NBC actually submitted bids that were less than current deals and ESPN and Turner both decided not to place bids for the package.

In total, CBS and NBC paid a combined $450 million to air 10 games last year and they were reportedly in the mix for the “Thursday Night Football” package again this time around.

There was a lot made about the NFL’s 2017 ratings, as they were down 9.7 percent on the year. Although, it appears as though that decline may not have been enough to dissuade FOX from offering an even better deal for Thursday games.

FOX offloaded some assets to Disney a few months ago, so this could be them shifting money to target a specific audience. Bloomberg notes that FOX ranks last among the broadcast networks in total audience and is tied for second among viewers 18 to 49.

We’ll have more regarding the “Thursday Night Football” package as the news is available.