Fox Isn’t Mad About Losing Thursday Night Football to Amazon

On Monday, Amazon said that its major deal with the NFL to bring Thursday Night Football exclusively to the streaming service would happen in the 2022 season instead of 2023, as originally planned. And even Fox executives, who agreed to relinquish their broadcast rights to the package a year early, say there’s cause to celebrate. “Financially, it was absolutely the right decision, and we're proud of how we've been custodians of Thursday Night Football over the last couple of years,” Fox Corp executive chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch told investors today. Going into negotiations for the next NFL packages, “our intent was always to release Thursday Night and focus our future NFL investment solely on Sunday afternoon." By getting out of its five-year Thursday Night Football deal a year early, the company will end up with between $350-$400 more in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in the 2022 fiscal year, which the company will put toward future NFL rights deals, Murdoch said on a call discussing Fox Corp.’s quarterly results. “When we entered into that [Thursday Night Football] agreement some years ago, we were focused on building that brand for the NFL and really increasing its ratings and production quality and bringing it back to one home,” Murdoch said. “We achieved all of those goals. But having said that, it was expensive, and Sunday afternoon football is the home of football, frankly, for America and for Fox.” In the wake of giving up Thursday Night Football, Fox Corp. will waste no time expanding Sunday football’s presence on its digital properties, including free streamer Tubi. An NFL-branded video-on-demand channel will debut on Tubi this fall season to attract more attention to the games, Murdoch said. NFL Sets Huge New TV Deals With CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN/ABC and Amazon Prime Video Tubi revenue grows Tubi, which Fox acquired slightly over a year ago, is helping to shore up Fox Corp.’s digital future as the company tracks lower ratings as the shift away from linear television continues. And while other competitors in the space focus on subscriber counts and sign-up figures, Murdoch said the company is laser-focused on growing total viewing time on the service, which the company is able to translate directly into revenue driven by advertising served up on the platform. “We are entirely focused on engagement as measured by total view time—that is what we monetize,” Murdoch said. “The more we can grow total viewing time, as opposed to purely viewers—or in the case of subscription services, subscribers—the more we can grow total viewing time, the more we can translate very directly into increased advertising revenues.” That total view time has been climbing since the acquisition, and quarterly revenue for Tubi (which the company does not break out) increased 150% compared to the same time a year ago. In March, users streamed more than 275 million hours on Tubi, a monthly record, according to Murdoch. Earlier this week, Tubi presented to Madison Avenue during its second-ever NewFronts presentation, where it detailed its Fox-supported original programming strategy that includes original documentaries and titles across various genres and will grow to 140 hours of originals to start. While the investment in originals will be costly, Murdoch said that the investment is disciplined and small compared to Fox’s other properties. “We’re not interested in spending billions of dollars on driving subscriber bases with very expensive programming,” Murdoch said. "What we’re interested in doing is very efficiently scaling our programming to drive our total viewing time.” Fox also shared some details about the company’s direct-to-consumer streaming service branded for Fox News fans. That service, Fox Nation, has recorded a 40% increase in subscriber growth in the past quarter, and the highest number of customer acquisitions since launch, which Murdoch said was driven by live events and content from controversial opinion host Tucker Carlson. (Fox has not broken out the number of subscribers to that service, so those figures are hard to contextualize.) Acquiring Outkick Fox Corp. also announced Wednesday that it has entered an agreement to acquire Outkick, a conservative-leaning sports and sports betting outlet founded by online personality Clay Travis. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Murdoch said the Outkick fanbase "aligns with the Fox audience incredibly well," and that Fox’s investment in sports betting will continue. “We're going to continue to exploit that marketplace and continue to grow in that marketplace,” Murdoch said. “We wouldn’t have nearly the opportunity in wagering standalone without coupling it with the Fox Sports and overall Fox brand and Fox audience.” Read Next: Tubi Branches Into Originals to Build on Record Growth Under New Owner Fox

Programming & Performance

Fox Isn’t Upset About Losing Thursday Night Football to Amazon

Broadcaster is doubling down on Sunday football and sports betting

Kelsey Sutton

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Kelsey Sutton