Fox Sports (United States)

• 1. Introduction

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  Fox Sports was born on the 12th of August 1994, the day the NFL awarded Fox its broadcast rights to the National Football Conference. That single deal didn't just give a television network some football games. It stripped CBS of football telecasts for the first time since 1955, rewrote the economics of American sports broadcasting, and launched a division that would go on to carry everything from NASCAR to the FIFA World Cup. What made a scrappy fourth network think it could pull this off? And how did a $1.58 billion gamble on football become the foundation for one of the biggest sports media empires in the country?

• 2. The NFL Gambit

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  Fox Broadcasting Company launched in October 1986, and its management had already drawn a lesson from overseas. The British satellite service BSkyB had grown by putting soccer at the center of its programming, and Fox's leadership decided sports would be the fastest path to major-network status.

  By 1987, Fox was already making moves. When ABC hedged on renewing Monday Night Football with the NFL, Fox submitted a bid at roughly $13 million per game, the same price ABC had been paying. The NFL wasn't ready to trust a network that hadn't yet established itself, and it stuck with ABC. Fox had to wait.

  Six years later, the NFC package came back to the table. CBS had held those rights for decades. Fox bid $1.58 billion for a four-year deal covering regular season, playoff, and select preseason games from the NFC, starting with the 1994 season. The initial contract also included the exclusive U.S. television rights to Super Bowl XXXI in 1997. The NFL took the offer.

  To staff its NFL coverage, Fox lured commentators Pat Summerall, John Madden, Dick Stockton, Matt Millen, James Brown, and Terry Bradshaw, along with a significant portion of CBS Sports' behind-the-scenes management and production personnel. Studio coverage originated from the Fox Television Center in Hollywood, California, before moving to the Fox Network Center on the 20th Century Fox backlot in Century City by 1998.

  The network's affiliate situation required a separate fix. Most Fox stations at the time were UHF outlets with weaker signals and less advertiser value than the Big Three's affiliates. During the spring and summer of 1994, Fox struck separate agreements with New World Communications and SF Broadcasting to switch a total of sixteen stations to Fox between September 1994 and September 1996. Those affiliation deals, combined with the NFL rights, locked in Fox's status as the nation's fourth major network.

• 3. Hockey, Baseball, NASCAR

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  On the 9th of September 1994, less than a month after landing the NFL, Fox entered a $155 million bid for the national broadcast television rights to the NHL. That worked out to $31 million annually, and it made Fox the first broadcast network to hold a national television contract for NHL games. Longtime NHL Commissioner John Ziegler had long believed a national broadcast deal was unattainable. NHL games had not aired regularly on a national broadcast network since NBC's telecast of the 1975 Stanley Cup Finals, with networks unwilling to commit to carrying large numbers of games due to low viewership. Fox held those rights until 1999, when ABC Sports and ESPN won them back.

  On the 7th of November 1995, Fox entered Major League Baseball, sharing broadcast rights with NBC in a deal worth $115 million to Fox. That was a fraction of what CBS had paid to obtain the rights effective with the 1990 season. Fox's portion covered approximately 16 regular season Saturday afternoon games per season and offered different broadcasts on a regionalized basis. In September 2000, a six-year renewal valued at $2.5 billion made Fox the exclusive over-the-air broadcaster of Major League Baseball, granting it the World Series beginning with the 2000 edition, along with the All-Star Game, select Division Series games, and exclusive coverage of the League Championship Series.

  On the 11th of November 1999, Fox and sister cable channel FX were awarded rights to the NASCAR Winston Cup Series and Busch Series, part of NASCAR's first centralized television rights deal, beginning in 2001. The contract covered the first half of the season. Fox's first NASCAR telecast was the 2001 Daytona 500, an event marred by a final-lap crash that resulted in the death of Dale Earnhardt. Later that same year, Fox acquired the motorsports cable network Speedvision and rebranded it in February 2002 as Speed Channel, intended as an outlet for ancillary NASCAR content.

• 4. Cable Reorganization

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  On the 5th of March 2013, Fox Sports Media Group formally announced it would replace the Speed channel with a new general sports network called Fox Sports 1. The network launched on the 17th of August 2013, carrying Major League Baseball, the UFC, NASCAR, soccer, and multiple college sports events. Fox Sports Live debuted as a competitor to ESPN's SportsCenter, described at the time as a 24-7 news franchise providing around-the-clock coverage through regularly scheduled programs, hourly updates, and an information-rich ticker. Notable personalities featured on FS1 included Regis Philbin, Mike Tyson, Michael Strahan, and Erin Andrews.

  On the 17th of August 2013, the extreme sports-focused Fuel TV was rebranded as Fox Sports 2, a companion network serving primarily as overflow for FS1 and providing supplementary sports coverage.

  On the 2nd of September 2013, Fox Soccer was replaced by FXX, an entertainment network focused on comedy. Fox Soccer's sports programming shifted to Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2, while Fox Soccer Plus continued to exist as a premium supplement for soccer coverage.

  The 2017 announcement of the Walt Disney Company's plan to acquire then-parent company 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion required a structural separation. Under the acquisition terms, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, and related assets were spun off into what became the independently owned Fox Corporation. The regional Fox Sports Networks, included in the Disney deal, were later sold to Sinclair Broadcast Group, which rebranded them as Bally Sports on the 31st of March 2021.

• 5. Sports Betting and Fox Bet

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  In May 2019, Fox Corporation entered a joint venture with The Stars Group to develop sports betting products under the Fox Bet brand, moving quickly in the wake of the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. The offerings included free-to-play games such as Fox Bet Super 6 and a real-money mobile sportsbook operating in states where legal. As part of the agreement, Fox Corporation acquired a 4.99% stake in The Stars Group for $236 million, with an option to increase that stake to up to 50% within the next ten years. The partnership made Fox the first major U.S. sports broadcaster to establish a sports betting operation.

  The Stars Group was later acquired by Flutter Entertainment. Fox was given an option in 2021 to acquire an 18.5% stake in Flutter's U.S. subsidiary FanDuel Group, and it holds a 2.6% minority stake in Flutter overall.

  On the 30th of July 2023, Fox Corporation and Flutter announced they would shut down the Fox Bet platform in a phased closure ending on August 31 of that year. Fox retained future use of the Fox Bet brand and relaunched the free-to-play game under the name Fox Super 6, exclusive to the Fox Sports website and mobile app.

• 6. Broadcast Technology

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  For Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002, Fox Sports produced its first telecast in a 16:9, 480p enhanced-definition format marketed as "Fox Widescreen." It was promoted as the first U.S. sporting event produced completely in a widescreen format. It was not true high definition, but it matched the aspect ratio of HDTV sets.

  Fox Sports began producing selected events in 720p high definition starting on the 3rd of July 2004, with the Pepsi 400. Select NFL games, the 2004 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and that year's postseason also received HD production.

  In 2017, Fox Sports began producing selected telecasts in 4K ultra-high-definition, starting with NASCAR and college basketball events and adding a college football game per week for the 2017 season. Those telecasts were primarily available via DirecTV and supported providers. Fox began televising Thursday Night Football games in 1080p upconverted to 4K with HLG HDR on the 26th of September 2019.

  From 2016 until selling its virtual reality division FoxNext to Disney in 2019, Fox Sports produced a limited number of game telecasts in 360-degree virtual reality, mostly covering college football.

  The scoring graphics used on Fox Sports broadcasts shaped how sports coverage looks across American television. The first score bug appeared on Fox's NFL coverage and expanded to baseball and hockey. One composer whose work became embedded in this presentation is Scott Schreer, whose NFL theme contains a segment that echoes the notes of a Leroy Anderson song. During the Christmas season, Fox Sports broadcasts sometimes segueway from that theme into the other piece during commercial break outcues. In October 2010, the NFL on Fox theme became the uniform sound for all Fox Sports properties, though NASCAR and MLB broadcasts reinstated their own themes in 2016 and 2020, respectively.

• 7. Global Rights and New Deals

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  On the 22nd of October 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 cover 2026, in what was reported to be compensation for rescheduling the 2022 tournament to late November through mid-December, a window that competes with NFL regular seasons.

  In November 2021, Fox Sports acquired English-language rights to UEFA national team matches under a six-year deal from 2022 to 2028, replacing ESPN. That package includes the UEFA Nations League beginning in June 2022, UEFA Euro 2024 and 2028, UEFA qualifiers, and UEFA-organized friendlies.

  In January 2022, Fox Sports reached an agreement with the New York Racing Association for rights to the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the horse racing Triple Crown, through 2030.

  On the 13th of June 2024, Fox Sports announced a multi-year deal to become the sole broadcaster of the IndyCar Series and its subsidiary Indy NXT. In January 2025, Fox Sports announced a multi-year deal with LIV Golf, the Saudi PIF-backed circuit, taking over from The CW's sports division.

  On the 17th of July 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 and Portnoy along with other Barstool personalities will appear on Fox's college football pre-game show Big Noon Kickoff.