Fox won't renegotiate NFL media rights before current deal expires, CEO Lachlan Murdoch says

Fox won't negotiate a new NFL media rights deal until closer to 2030, when its current contract with the league expires via an opt-out clause, Chief Executive Officer Lachlan Murdoch said during a Thursday earnings conference call.

The NFL has held preliminary discussions with both Fox and CBS-parent Paramount Skydance about reworking the deals to eliminate the league's opt-out clause and raise the cost of the live rights, CNBC previously reported. Fox and CBS own the NFL's Sunday afternoon packages of live game rights.

Without the opt out, Fox and Paramount's deals with the league extend until the end of the 2033-34 season.

Murdoch said Thursday that those preliminary discussions led Fox to decide it won't strike a new deal.

"In advance of the season, we've had a recent thorough and productive discussions with the league, and as a result, we will not be making any amendments to our existing contractual relationship, which extends to the completion of the 2029 season," Murdoch said. "We'll be ready to engage with the NFL on the opt-out seasons and beyond at a date closer to the 2030 season, which has been the customary timetable."

The NFL maintains flexibility to renew deals early with its other media partners, including adding new partners, as it has in recent years with YouTube and Netflix . An NFL spokesperson declined to comment on Murdoch's remarks.

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told CNBC last year he felt the league's rights were relatively undervalued compared with other sports. The NBA nearly tripled its media rights revenue with an 11-year, $77 billion deal struck in 2024 .

The NFL signed its most recent media rights deal, worth more than $100 billion, in 2021.

"I think our partners would want to sit down and talk to us at any time, and we continue to dialogue with them. I like that opportunity," Goodell said in September . "Obviously, it's not going to happen this year. But it could happen as early as next year. That could happen."

NFL programming is consistently the most watched on television. Murdoch said Fox's relationship with the NFL "is an incredibly positive one."

The NFL had discussed an increase of nearly $1 billion per year in rights costs in early talks with Paramount, CNBC reported earlier this year. In return, the league would guarantee carriage on CBS until 2034. Under the terms of the current contract, the NFL can walk away from the deal with all of its partners except Disney at the end of the 2029-30 season. Disney has one extra year.

Disney Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston told CNBC earlier this week that the NFL hasn't yet engaged Disney on a new deal.

"We really have pretty much all the sports rights that we need locked up into the 2030s. The NFL, you've seen they have commented a few times on reopening that, but they have not talked to us about that. So we'll see how that plays out," Johnston said in an interview.

— CNBC's Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.

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