Fox Sports (United States)
The Fox Sports Media Group is the American sports programming division of Fox Corporation that is responsible for sports broadcasts carried by Fox Broadcasting Company, as well as operating television networks Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2, and Fox Sports Radio. In addition, the company is responsible for the streaming services Fox One and Tubi's sports programming, and it owns 61% of the Big Ten Network with the Big Ten Conference.
The division which was formed on August 12, 1994 with Fox getting awarded broadcast rights to National Football League games. In subsequent years, Fox has televised the National Hockey League , Major League Baseball , NASCAR, the Bowl Championship Series , Major League Soccer , the U.S. Open golf tournament, the National Hot Rod Association , WWE programming, the XFL, the United States Football League , the United Football League and the World Baseball Classic .
On December 14, 2017, the Walt Disney Company announced plans to acquire then-parent company 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion, which included key assets such as 20th Century Fox, the regional Fox Sports Networks, FX Networks, and Fox Sports International. Under the terms of the proposed acquisition, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, and other assets were spun off into the division's current parent company, which is independently owned by Fox Corporation.
History
Establishment
When the Fox Broadcasting Company launched in October 1986, the network's management, having seen how sports programming played a critical role in the growth of the British satellite service BSkyB, determined that sports would be the type of programming that would ascend Fox to a major network status the quickest; as a result, Fox tried to attract a professional football package to the network. In 1987, after ABC initially hedged on renewing its contract with the National Football League for the television rights to Monday Night Football, Fox made an offer for the package at the same price that ABC had been paying at the time – about $13 million per game. However, partly due to the fact that Fox had yet to establish itself as a major network, the NFL decided to resume negotiations with ABC, with the two parties eventually agreeing to a new contract, keeping what was the crown jewel of the league's television broadcasts on that network.Six years later, the league's television contracts for the National Football Conference package, American Football Conference package, as well as the Sunday night and Monday night packages were up for renewal. Fox placed an aggressive bid for $1.58 billion to obtain the broadcast rights to the NFC package, which for decades had been held by CBS. On December 17, 1993, the NFL selected Fox's bid and signed a four-year contract with Fox to award it the rights to televise regular season and playoff games from the NFC, beginning with the 1994 season; the initial contract also included the exclusive U.S. television rights to broadcast Super Bowl XXXI in 1997. The deal stripped CBS of football telecasts for the first time since 1955.
Fox lured commentators Pat Summerall, John Madden, Dick Stockton, Matt Millen, James Brown and Terry Bradshaw, as well as many behind-the-scenes management and production personnel from CBS Sports to staff the network's NFL coverage. The network's studio coverage originated from the Fox Television Center in Hollywood, California, later moving to the Fox Network Center by 1998.
In order to bolster viewership for the NFL telecasts, Fox parent News Corporation decided to strike affiliation deals with broadcasting companies that owned stations affiliated with ABC, NBC and CBS in order to raise the profile of Fox's affiliate body, which at the time mainly consisted of UHF stations that had little to no prior history as a major network affiliate, had weaker signals and largely did not carry as much value with advertisers as the Big Three's affiliates. During the late spring and summer of 1994, Fox reached separate agreements with New World Communications and SF Broadcasting to switch a total of sixteen stations to Fox between September 1994 and September 1996 as affiliation contracts with those stations' existing network partners expired. The NFL television rights and affiliation deals firmly established Fox as the nation's fourth major network. The network's relationship with the NFL would expand in 1997, when it began airing games and acquired partial ownership of NFL Europe, an agreement which ended in 2006 when all games were moved to NFL Network; the by-then renamed NFL Europa closed down the next year.
With a sports division now established, Fox decided to seek broadcast rights agreements with other major sports leagues. On September 9, 1994, Fox was awarded the broadcast television rights to the National Hockey League in a $155 million bid ; as a result, it became the first broadcast network to be awarded a national television contract to carry NHL games, which longtime NHL Commissioner John Ziegler had long thought to be unattainable. Again, Fox outbid CBS, which wanted to secure the rights as a result of losing the NFL to Fox, for the NHL package. Fox lost the NHL rights to ABC Sports and ESPN in 1999.
MLB, NASCAR, and BCS acquisitions
On November 7, 1995, Fox was awarded partial broadcast rights to Major League Baseball games, in a shared deal with NBC. Through the deal, which Fox paid a fraction of the amount that CBS paid to obtain the rights effective with the 1990 season, Fox would broadcast approximately 16 regular season Saturday afternoon games per season and offered different game broadcasts shown on a regionalized basis. As part of a six-year renewal of this deal – valued at $2.5 billion – in September 2000, Fox Sports became the exclusive over-the-air broadcaster of Major League Baseball, giving it the exclusive rights to the World Series beginning with the 2000 edition, as well as rights to the All-Star Game, select Division Series games and exclusive coverage of the League Championship Series. Under a clause in the contract, if some of the scheduled games were cancelled by a strike or lockout, Fox would still pay Major League Baseball for a full slate of annual games, while the league in turn had to compensate Fox with additional telecasts.In 1998, Fox obtained the broadcast rights to the Cotton Bowl Classic college football game. In 2007, Fox began airing most of the games of the Bowl Championship Series, including the BCS National Championship Game, in a deal worth close to $20 million per game. Due to a separate arrangement between ABC and the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association, events in the series that were held at the Rose Bowl stadium – such as the Rose Bowl Game and the 2010 BCS Championship – were excluded from the contract.
On November 11, 1999, Fox and sister cable channel FX were awarded rights to the NASCAR Winston Cup Series and Busch Series as part of NASCAR's first centralized television rights deal, beginning in the 2001 season. The contract covered the first half of the season, with the second half of the season being aired by NBC and TNT. Rights to the Daytona 500 and Pepsi 400 alternated annually, with Fox airing the 500 in odd-numbered years, and the 400 in even-numbered years. Fox's first telecast was the 2001 Daytona 500—an event that would be marred by a final-lap crash that resulted in the death of Dale Earnhardt. Later that year, Fox acquired the motorsports cable network Speedvision, and rebranded it in February 2002 as Speed Channel. Fox intended to use the network as an outlet for ancillary NASCAR content. In September 2002, Speed Channel bought out ESPN's contract to televise the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Fox lost the broadcasting rights to the Bowl Championship Series to ESPN beginning in 2010. In response, Fox introduced a Saturday "game of the week" on FX in 2011, featuring games from the Pac-12, the Big 12 and Conference USA ; Fox also signed deals to carry two new championship games created through conference realignments that occurred in 2010 and 2011: the Big Ten Conference Championship through 2016, and the Pac-12 Championship through 2017 on an alternating basis with ESPN. With the replacement of the BCS with the College Football Playoff, Fox lost the broadcasting rights to the 2015 Cotton Bowl Classic onwards again to ESPN.
Present day
In May 2010, Fox aired the final of the UEFA Champions League, marking the network's first ever soccer broadcast.In August 2011, Fox Sports announced it had reached a seven-year broadcast agreement with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, ending the mixed martial arts promotion's relationship with Spike. The deal included the rights to broadcast four live events in prime time or late night annually, as well as other UFC programming that would air on various Fox properties, including the Fox network, FX and Fuel TV. The contract expired in 2019, with the UFC moving its broadcast rights to ESPN.
On October 22, 2011, FIFA announced that Fox Sports had acquired rights to air its tournaments beginning in 2015, including the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, and the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup. In February 2015, Fox's contract was extended to 2026, in what was reported to be compensation for the rescheduling of the 2022 tournament to late-November/mid-December.
On August 6, 2013, Fox Sports announced a 12-year deal to broadcast the championships of the United States Golf Association, including the U.S. Open, beginning in 2015. In 2016, Fox began to air NHRA drag racing events—primarily on Fox Sports 1 and 2, and with selected flagship events airing on Fox proper. On May 12, 2014, Fox Sports announced a 7-year deal to broadcast Major League Soccer. The deal included the rights to air the MLS Cup on Fox in even numbered years.
On July 24, 2017, the Big Ten Conference announced that it had reached six-year deals with Fox Sports and ESPN to hold rights to its football games beginning in the 2017 season, with Fox's package expanding on its involvement in BTN. As part of the contract, Fox's contract to run BTN was extended through 2032.
On January 31, 2018, the NFL announced that Fox had acquired the sub-license for its Thursday Night Football package under a five-year deal, beginning in the 2018 NFL season. The deal is reportedly worth an average of more than $660 million per year. On May 6, 2019, Fox Sports announced a multi-year broadcast deal with the new incarnation XFL, which went on hiatus midway through its first season, but would return in 2023.
In May 2019, Fox Sports partnered with The Stars Group to launch co-branded sports betting operations, including Fox Bet, as well as the free football prediction game Fox Sports Super 6. As part of the partnership, Fox Corporation acquired a 4.99% minority stake in the company for $236 million, with an option to increase its stake to up to 50% within the next 10 years. The partnership made Fox the first major U.S. sports broadcaster to establish a sports betting operation, taking advantage of the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. With the company's sale to Flutter Entertainment, Fox would have an option in 2021 to acquire an 18.5% stake in its U.S. subsidiary FanDuel Group.
In June 2020, Fox exited its contract with the USGA and sold the remainder to previous rightsholder NBC. In June 2021, it was announced that Fox would be a minority investor in a new iteration of the United States Football League, which would operate as a successor to The Spring League.
In November 2021, it was announced that Fox Sports had acquired English-language rights to UEFA national team matches under a six-year deal from 2022 to 2028, replacing ESPN. This includes the UEFA Nations League beginning in June 2022, tournaments such as UEFA Euro 2024 and 2028, UEFA qualifiers for Euro and the FIFA World Cup, and UEFA-organized friendlies. In January 2022, Fox announced that it would sub-license portions of this package to FuboTV, focusing on the Nations League and selected matches from the European Championships. In January 2022, Fox Sports reached an agreement with the New York Racing Association for the rights to the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the horse racing triple crown, through 2030.
On February 6, 2024, Fox Sports announced a joint venture with ESPN Inc. and TNT Sports, named Venu Sports, that would include the three organizations' main linear sports channels and associated media rights, beginning in fall 2024. The service was ultimately cancelled.
On June 13, 2024, Fox Sports announced a multi-year deal to be the sole broadcaster of the IndyCar Series and its subsidiary series Indy NXT. On January 16, 2025, Fox Sports announced a multi-year deal with the Saudi PIF-backed LIV Golf, replacing The CW's sports division as its broadcaster.
On July 17, 2025, Fox Sports announced a content partnership with Barstool Sports and its founder Dave Portnoy, under which Barstool will produce a new daily studio program for FS1, Portnoy and other Barstool personalities will make appearances on Fox's college football pre-game show Big Noon Kickoff, and the two units will also co-develop new digital content.