Fox Sports Films will continue its swings within the sports documentary genre with an FS1 special on baseball superstar Julio Rodriguez that will air tonight (July 16) after Fox’s coverage of Major League Baseball’s All-Star game. 

The documentary, Welcome to the J-Rod Show, follows the Seattle Mariners outfielder and 2022 American League Rookie of the Year from his roots in the Dominican Republic to his major-league debut. The documentary is part of Fox Sports’ strategy to develop original content to complement high-profile live sports events, VP of development and original programming Barry Nugent said. 

“We thought it would be great if we did a documentary on a guy who's just starting out but who is a leading face of the league,“ Nugent told Multichannel News. ”We’ll have this introduction to him and his career, and what we found is that the dude has an infectious way of loving baseball.”

Also Read: Sling TV Starts Free 4K Viewing With Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game … in ‘Select’ Markets and on ‘Select’ Devices

Prior Fox Sports documentaries include The Game that Changed Everything: Yankees vs. Red Sox ‘04 ALCS, which debuted prior to the World Series last October, and I Am Kevin Harvick, a profile of the NASCAR driver and Fox analyst that aired on FS1 this past February after Fox’s Daytona 500 telecast. 

“We tend to target our films as shoulder programming for the big events that we have,” he said. “There’s no greater lead-in than the live events  that we have … it’s so exciting and so important for the subject.”

Along with tying in with marquee Fox Sports events, Nugent said the documentaries also benefit from having Fox Sports’ on-air talent participate. For the J-Rod documentary — executive-produced by Derek Jeter’s Cap 2 Productions — Fox MLB studio analyst and former Mariners great Alex Rodriguez talks about the emerging superstar.

Both Jeter and Rodriguez also appeared in the Yankees vs Red Sox ‘04 ALCS documentary, with the Yankees teammates speaking for the first time about the infamous series in which Boston defeated New York after trailing 3-0.  

“We would have only done [that documentary] if we could get the New York Yankees side of the story, because up to that point [Rodriguez] and Jeter had never talked about it because it was so heartbreaking to them,” he said. “With our documentaries, we’re trying to show a more intimate portrait both on and off the field.” 

Fox Sports is developing more documentaries that revolve around tentpole Fox Sports live events, Nugent said, including the Super Bowl in February and the network’s NASCAR coverage. “We bring in a certain number of people into the tent to watch the live event, so you want to have them stick around with more in-depth stories to tell on some of those subjects,” he said.  

As for Fox’s coverage of tonight’s 94th MLB All-Star Game, Joe Davis and John Smoltz will handle play-by-play and commentary, with Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci providing inside information and in-game reports from the field, Fox said. Fox will open its 25th broadcast of the Midsummer Classic with a pregame show hosted by Jeter, Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Kevin Burkhardt. 

The United Football League is off to a strong ratings start halfway through its inaugural spring season as it continues to establish its brand in a schedule crowded with baseball, basketball and hockey action.

Through the first five weeks of the season, the UFL — the league formed from the merger of the USFL and XFL — averaged 845,000 viewers over 18 telecasts on Fox, ESPN, and ABC. That’s a 25% increase over the combined total of last year’s USFL and XFL games through Week 5, according to Nielsen numbers provided by the league. 

The mark also represents a 38% increase over the combined 2023 USFL and XFL regular-season average across all linear networks. The league is also drawing in younger viewers, posting a 33% increase in viewership among 18-to-49-year-olds.

Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill told Multichannel News the company is pleased with the numbers, adding that the nearly 1 million viewers tuning in to games on Fox are comparable to typical ratings for regular-season hockey and college basketball games.

“The most important thing is to put a credible professional football product on the field, and I think we’re really happy with the quality of play,” he said. “I think what we’ve always tried to stress is that we want this league to rate at a level that’s comparable to very well-established sports, and I think that’s where we’re at.” 

ESPN president of content Burke Magnus added that the ratings show that spring football is on a “growth trajectory” and is resonating with fans. “We look forward to continued collaboration with the UFL and more success in the second half of the season,” he said.

For the UFL to maintain and potentially increase its ratings fortunes during the second half of the regular season, it will have to compete against marquee spring sports events, including the NBA and NHL playoffs and Major League Baseball’s regular season. Mulvihill believes the league can break through the sports clutter as it continues to appeal to young football fans. 

“There really isn’t an easy part of the calendar … you’re going to have to face tough competition no matter where you go,” he said. “I’m confident that we can hold viewership and confident that we can build.” 

Fox Sports said it hired two veteran advertising sales executives, with Jen Durda and Kathy Lydon both named VP.

Durda previously was a VP with Warner Bros. Discovery and Turner Sports. She will work from Fox’s Detroit office.

Lydon was with ESPN/Disney leading a multimedia sales team. At Fox, she will lead sales for the Big Ten Network.

“We’re thrilled to be welcoming two executives, with an exceptional level of knowledge and expertise in the field, to the best sales team in the business” said Fox Sports executive VP of ad sales Mark Evans. “Kathy and Jen have each had a tremendous amount of success in their respective careers, and we’re excited to have these talented leaders — and their unmatched skill sets — join the Fox family.”

Fox Sports and The Basketball Tournament (TBT) have partnered on a multiyear media-rights agreement involving 27 game telecasts across Fox, FS1 and FS2.

TBT is a 10-year-old , 64-team single-elimination open tournament involving teams slotted across eight regionals. Regional rounds are hosted by teams made up of alumni from major men’s college basketball programs. TBT will launch July 19, with the Fox broadcast network airing the first of its three telecasts on July 20, Fox Sports said.

Fox will also air the $1 million, winner-take-all championship game on August 4. 

 “We are thrilled to make Fox Sports the new home of TBT,” said TBT co-owner and Golden State Warriors guard Chris Paul. “The event has experienced tremendous growth these past few years, and this agreement will take it to new heights. With a growing number of players I've crossed paths within the league committed to play, this summer will be both competitive and entertaining for TBT."

Added Fox Sports executive VP and head of programming and scheduling Bill Wanger: “Fox Sports is always looking to expand our basketball offerings and TBT is a perfect opportunity to provide more top-notch action to basketball fans across the nation. We are thrilled to showcase TBT across the Fox Sports family of networks this summer and in years to come.” 

Making perhaps the boldest alliance since NBCUniversal and the erstwhile News Corp. formed Hulu 16 years ago, Disney/ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp. on Tuesday announced the broad outlines for a new joint venture which will pool each of the media companies' linear sports channels into a virtual MVPD-like offering. 

Also read: TV Giants Team Up for Sports Comeback vs. Streamers

As former Fox executive turned sports media consultant Patrick Crakes told us, “the devil is in the details” for a service that hasn't announced a management team, a consumer price point, or even a name yet. 

Crakes' immediate reaction to the news: Cord-cutting has whittled down the number of homes from which channels like ESPN, Fox Sports 1 and TNT can draw first-tier program licensing fees, the kind of fees needed in order to pay the NFL its $110 billion.

“Re-bundling has to happen if there’s any hope to meet T1 content costs in any cogent and effective way,” Crakes said to us via text.

“We need to learn more about this deal, but if distributors are in on it as well (thanks to the Charter-Disney deal) this could be a first step towards getting some scale, some pricing power and even consumer commitment for a product that enables some of the consumer friendly attributes of digital distribution,” the consultant added. 

Meanwhile, in a shareholder letter titled “The Skinny Sports Bundle We have Been Waiting For,” MoffettNathanson noted the unique ability of Disney, WBD and Fox to pull this DTC product off.

“What Disney, Fox and WBD have in common is that they have each thus far largely refrained from ‘cheating” the linear ecosystem — that is, leaking their best linear content to DTC,”  the equity research firm said. “NBC and CBS’s NFL games are available for often discounted monthly fees through Peacock and Paramount Plus, but to date the only place to watch Monday Night Football or Fox’s Sunday NFL games has been on linear. WBD’s sports content recently became available to view through Max’s Bleacher Report Add-On. The delay to initially charge Max subscribers $9.99 for this sports tier this spring now can be viewed with a different understanding.

“With live feeds of most of the critical networks for a sports fan, this is in a sense a version of the ’skinny bundle‘ that kicks out all the cheaters that we have long been calling for.”

Here are five other things to consider about this exciting new JV:

The Current Pay TV Ecosystem Simply Can't Afford the NFL and NBA

The economics just for the NFL’s current TV deal, valued at over $110 billion, can't be rationalized by the state of the current pay TV ecosystem. There just aren't enough consumers left willing to pay $10 a month for ESPN in a cable bill. 

The infrastructure will be further taxed when the NBA demands compensation of around $75 billion for its next rights deal. 

Connectivity-Focused Distributors, Namely Charter, Have Been Asking Specifically for This Kind of Service

Amid the tense run-up to what has been termed a “landmark” carriage renewal deal between Charter Communications and Disney, the cable company outlined a bleak, self-perpetuating scenario in which the best content continues to bleed from the pay TV ecosystem and into subscription streaming, with customers exiting right along with it. 

In this presentation delivered last September as the carriage war started, Charter outlined a reformed relationship with programmers and distributors:

Step one: “Aggregate the ad-supported streaming apps from cable-network brands into packaged linear products at an affordable price point, creating the most compelling consumer proposition in the marketplace.” 

Step two: “In parallel, [Charter will] help market programmer streaming apps to broadband subscribers utilizing the full complement of Charter’s sales and marketing distribution capability”

The result: “Compelling video product for consumers with the best value proposition and more consumer choice.”

The NBA Is Looking for (Again) $75 Billion in Its Next National TV Deal

The new JV will bundle linear channels ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNews ABC, Fox, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS and truTV.

That locks up virtually all of the national live TV rights for the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NHL. A roll-up would, as Crakes noted, benefit consumers, who are often vastly confused as to where to watch the games amid the cross-purpose workings of competing media companies. 

It also might benefit Disney/ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery, which are in the next month set to start renewal negotiations with the National Basketball Association. The current national TV agreement expires after next season (which ends in April 2025), and the NBA is reportedly looking for as much as $75 billion combined in a new multi-year deal. 

For Disney and WBD, having a unified distribution asset can't hurt leverage. 

"In short, we do not expect an immediate impact on sports rights in the current iteration of this JV because ESPN, Fox and WBD are all expected to continue to independently bid on their own rights,” MoffettNathanson said in its Tuesday-evening letter. “However, especially given the nature of long-term sports rights, we must consider what this new sports JV could evolve into that could change the shape and leverage of future sports rights negotiations.”

League Partners Would Rather Be Streaming

About the only major sports league that the new JV doesn't control is NFL football, which has a far more diversified distribution portfolio, extending out to non-JV entities including Comcast, Paramount and Amazon. 

The NFL has voiced its contentment for the results it has received through its $1 billion distribution pact with Amazon Prime Video for Thursday Night Football, a platform that delivers the league its youngest TV audience by far. 

The NFL has simultaneously stated its pleasure with distribution of NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. 

Clearly, the NFL wants to stream. And its a good bet the NBA, as well as the JV's other league partners, also want to. 

YouTube TV and Google Are Pulling Away

On Tuesday morning, hours before the big JV announcement, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan told the world that his company’s seven-year-old virtual MVPD, YouTube TV, has amassed more than 8 million subscribers. 

That’s up from YouTube's last disclosure of 5 million customers made just about 18 months ago. 

As all (or most) of the aforementioned Disney, WBD and Fox sports networks are distributed by YouTube TV, that's not terrible news for those companies. 

As MoffettNathanson noted in this Thursday-morning graphic, YouTube TV's rapid growth is keeping the rate of linear pay TV's cratering kind of flat:

Another way to look at it: Comcast lost more than 2 million subscribers in 2023, while Charter bled more than 1 million. So someday soon — not this year, but within the decade — Google will be the biggest seller of linear pay TV bundles … that is, if not for a “re-bundling.”

Curt Menefee has been named co-host of WNYW New York’s Good Day New York. He will co-host the program with Rosanna Scotto starting January 16 while continuing his Fox NFL Sunday co-host role. 

During the NFL season, Menefee’s Good Day New York duties will be Tuesday-Friday. 

WNYW, part of Fox, is known as Fox 5. 

“Curt is a standout member of Fox Sports as well as the ultimate team player,” said Lew Leone, senior VP and general manager, WNYW-WWOR. “He’s got the rare ability to combine his journalistic skills, approachability, and innate curiosity to connect with morning viewers. I’m thrilled to welcome him to Fox 5 and Good Day New York.”

Bianca Peters, who has been co-host of Good Day New York since summer 2021, will transition to co-host of Fox 5’s The Noon with Chris Welch and The Fox 5 News at 6 p.m. with Natasha Verma.

Menefee joined Fox Sports in 1997 as a sideline reporter. He has co-hosted Fox NFL Sunday since 2007. He also hosts The OT. 

Menefee started at WNYW in 1995 and spent five years as sports anchor. Before that, he was at KTVT Dallas. He also worked at WTLV Jacksonville and WISC Madison. 

“I’m beyond thrilled to be returning to Fox 5 as a member of the Good Day New York family, while also continuing my weekly hang with my brothers on Fox NFL Sunday,” said Menefee. “And how cool is it that I get to share this homecoming with the legendary Rosanna Scotto? Way back in the day, my Fox journey began in that same New York studio sitting beside Rosanna on the 10 o’clock news. This full circle moment is a dream come true. There’s no place like New York. No place. I can’t wait to get back to the energy of the city, the culture, the restaurants, the people, everything that makes it the greatest city in the world.”

In 2016, Menefee authored Losing Isn’t Everything: The Untold Stories of Hidden Lessons Behind the Toughest Losses in Sports History.

“Curt is a pillar of the Fox Sports family. We’re so fortunate to have him guiding Fox NFL Sunday and welcoming in our viewers each Sunday for almost two decades,” said Brad Zager, president of production & operations, Fox Sports. “He’s a tremendous talent with a versatile skill set, and we’re thrilled to share Curt with our Fox 5 family in New York.”

The Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks have provided a solid World Series matchup, with two teams with loyal fanbases getting hot at the end of the season. 

National TV-wise, however, let's just say the World Series is lacking a national draw like the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers or Boston Red Sox. 

Also Read: After Resurgent Regular Season, MLB Is Seeing Its Playoffs Strike Out With TV Audiences

The first three games of the so-called Fall Classic have yielded the worst TV numbers in recorded history, with each game producing smaller audiences than the last one … and all of them falling behind what had previously been the all-time low-water mark, the 2020 Game 3 pandemic “bubble” matchup between the Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays, which was also on Fox. 

Consider these numbers (courtesy of Nielsen and Sports Media Watch):

Noted The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, “The Diamondbacks and Rangers are not national draws based on historic television data outside of when they are playing a team with broad appeal or a series going long (which is what Fox has to really hope for with this series).” 

The Rangers are up 2-1 over the Diamondbacks going into Tuesday night’s Game 4.

The aforementioned Sports Media Watch post has a robust history of recent-era World Series TV ratings. 

Last season’s matchup between the eventual World Series champion Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies averaged 11.76 million viewers and didn’t have a game that came close to dipping into the single digits, total audience-wise. 

Basebal’'s biggest event has had trouble in recent years competing with the juggernauts pro and college football, as well as the start of the NBA regular season.

As Sports Business Journal noted for context, the late-night Saturday college football game between Coach Deion Sanders’s media-darling Colorado Buffaloes and the Colorado State Rams back on September 16 averaged 9.3 million viewers. That was a regular-season game that finished after 2 a.m. on the East Coast. 

But it’s hard to believe the national pastime has lost all its luster in just the last few years. 

Just six years ago, Fox’s presentation of the 2017 World Series featuring the Astros cheating their way to a seven-game “victory” over the Dodgers averaged 18.78 million viewers, with Game 7 delivering 28.24 million watchers. 

Major League Baseball enjoyed a resurgent regular season, with overall linear TV viewership up 26% through the first three months of the 2023 campaign and full-season ballpark attendance having its biggest year-over-year spike ever (9.6%) to more than 70.7 million ticket buyers. 

With marquee teams including the Yankees, Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals not in the postseason, however, and the Dodgers bowing out early, numbers for the divisional and league championship series were off, leading to speculation that World Series numbers would be bad, too. 

Few, however, could have predicted they'd be this bad. 

Fox on Friday (October 27) takes the field for its coverage of baseball’s World Series, featuring a pair of surprise teams in the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers.

Fox hopes the series will continue the ratings momentum built by the League Championship Series, which averaged 5.19 million viewers across two seven-game series — up 6% from last year’s 4.8 million viewers. Game 7 of the Diamonbacks-Philadelphia Phillies National League Championship Series on October 24 averaged 8.9 million viewers across TBS and truTV, the most-watched game of either series.

Multichannel News caught up with Fox Sports lead Major League Baseball director Matt Gangl and president, insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill ahead of Game 1 to discuss Fox Sports’s strategy in producing this year’s Fall Classic.  

MCN: How will Fox Sports tailor its World Series coverage with two teams that are not particularly well-known to casual baseball fans?

Matt Gangl: I wouldn't say it changes our strategy, but maybe it changes a little bit from the point of how we cover the teams. The teams may not be as known across baseball as much as if you had the Dodgers or the Yankees in the World Series, but we're still covering baseball at a high level. A lot of fans embrace the underdog, and you have two teams that two seasons ago lost over 100 games and now are playing for the title. I think that gives a lot of fans of other teams a sense of hope moving forward that their team can someday end up in the World Series. The [Diamondbacks and Rangers] are playing their best baseball at the right time. They both started out hot in the first half of the season before faltering a little bit through the second half, but have fought their way to play for the biggest prize. Our job is to make sure that the teams and the players in the series become recognizable faces by telling their stories. Part of our task is trying to bring that to the average baseball viewer who may not know anything about them. 

MCN: Has Fox tempered viewership expectations given the lack of a big-market team? 

Mike Mulvihill: The approach for us from a business perspective doesn’t change much. We come to the World Series every year with the same expectations and hopes — that the games will outrate everything on television except the NFL, and that the series will go as long as possible. We root for volume more than we root for matchup, so if we can get to a Game 6, or Game 7, that's more important to us than whatever the matchup might be. We feel like what we’re signing up for is basically 20 hours of primetime TV that's going to rate at the level of the number one show on television outside of the NFL, whether it's Yankees-Dodgers, or Rangers-Dbacks. That expectation doesn’t change at all. 

MCN: Have this year’s rules changes forced you to alter how you produce the games this year, as opposed to prior World Series?

MG: It just makes everything more condensed, which is obviously great for the time and pace of the game. The pace will be quicker and there will be less dead time without guys constantly backing out of the [batter’s] box and pitchers wandering around the mound. It’s made us a little more focused on maybe getting to replays a little sooner because you can't get as much in due to the pace of the game. For me, it’s about getting the best three or four shots in. So it's about trying to be a little more selective and trying to make sure there's a little sense of urgency getting to certain things as well. 

MCN: Will Fox look to feature any new technological wrinkles in its World Series coverage? 

MG: We have two new technical things. We’ll feature the umpire cam during the series — we’ve had it during our regular-season telecasts, but this will be the first time we’ve had in the World Series. It will give people a front-row view of what it’s like to face pitching in the 2020s. The other thing is that we are going to do is something we did in the All-Star game and feature a live drone inside the stadium that can be in over the field during dead-ball moments. When there is a stoppage in play, whether that's during a home run, the end of a half inning or a pitching change, we'll have a drone that would be over the field that can follow the players as they run around the bases for a home run and those types of things.

Major League Baseball enjoyed a resurgent regular season, with overall linear TV viewership up 26% through the first three months of the 2023 campaign and full-season ballpark attendance enjoying its biggest year-over-year spike ever (9.6%) to over 70.7 million ticket buyers. 

Meanwhile, the league also said that MLB.TV enjoyed its most streamed season in its 21-year history, with engagement increasing 9% to 12.7 billion viewing minutes and the number of users up 14%. 

But this resurgence, fueled by the new “pitch-clock” rules, baseball experts speculate, has not carried into the post-season, which this year returned a relatively new format that started last season. 

Total viewing across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 for last week's MLB "wild card round" was down 18%, according to Nielsen data, with four two-game sweeps averaging 2.25 million viewers vs. 2.73 million last season. 

Meanwhile, through Tuesday, the four MLB Division Series on TBS, truTV, Fox and FS1 are collectively down 15% in viewership, averaging 2.78 million viewers vs. 3.28 million for the comparable first 10 games of the 2022 divisional round, according to Nielsen data compiled by Sports Media Watch. 

Three of the four divisional-round series have already ended in three-game sweeps, with the only competitive matchup, the Philadelphia Phillies's defeat of the Atlanta Braves in four games, scoring the largest TV audience, 4.05 million viewers through Tuesday, up 19% over Turner's comparable audience in 2022. 

Sports media pundits don't expect the news to get any better for the upcoming American and National League championship series, not to mention the World Series.

The upcoming ALCS between the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers (Fox, FS1) seems confined to intense but limited regional appeal. Pundits don't seem too impressed by the audience potential of an NLCS (TBS) pitting the up-and-coming Arizona Diamondbacks against the Philadelphia Phillies, either. 

Meanwhile, the big-market draws like the New York Yankees, who didn't make the playoffs, and Los Angeles Dodgers, who meekly succumbed to the Diamondbacks Wednesday evening, are not in the forward-looking playoff picture. 

Notably, a very possible rematch of last year’s World Series (Fox), which saw the Astros defeat the Phillies in six games, would probably not be, er, boffo. The 2022 iteration averaged 12.03 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming, making it the second least-watched Fall Classic ever. 

Fox Sports and Religion of Sports will profile the memorable 2004 New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox American League Championship Series in a new sports documentary debuting October 18. 

The Game That Changed Everything: Yankees vs. Red Sox ‘04 ALCS will focus on Game 4 of the baseball series in which the Red Sox — already down 3-0 in the series — scored a come-from-behind win, which served as a prelude to the team’s historic defeat of the Yankees in the series and eventual World Series championship. 

The documentary will feature interviews with players involved in the series, including Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, Mariano Rivera, Johnny Damon, Kevin Millar, Dave Roberts and Orlando Cabrera. 

The Game That Changed Everything: Yankees vs. Red Sox ’04 ALCS is executive produced by Gotham Chopra, Ameeth Sankaran, Victor Buhler, Eric Shanks, Mark Silverman, Charlie Dixon and Barry Nugent.

“Fox Sports is thrilled to commemorate one of the most iconic stories in baseball as retold through varying perspectives of some of the best players and sports personalities in Major League Baseball,” Fox Sports VP of development and original programming Barry Nugent said in a statement. “As Fox is the exclusive home of the ALCS this postseason, we’re excited to present a never-before-seen interpretation of arguably one of the greatest games in ALCS history to reignite fan enthusiasm behind this iconic series.”

After competing against each other this past spring, the XFL and the USFL will combine to create one spring football league that hopes to take the field in 2024. 

The USFL and XFL announced Thursday their intent on merging, subject to customary regulatory approvals. "This historic combination will anchor professional spring football with the substantial capabilities and resources to ensure future growth and continue to enhance the development of the collective players, coaches, and staff that are coming together," the entities said in a joint statement. 

The eight-team XFL league, owned actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Danny Garcia and RedBird Capital Partners, launched its inaugural season this Spring, while the the eight-team USFL -- owned by Fox Corp. --  completed its second season this past May. 

Details regarding the new league -- including when it will begin play, and who will televise the games -- will be announced at a later date. Fox and NBC held the television rights to USFL games, while ABC, ESPN and FX aired XFL games.

The combined league will look to solidify what to date has been a spotty history of spring football in the U.S. The USFL re-launched in 2022 after a previous iteration of the league failed three decades earlier. The XFL initially launched in 2001 as a collaboration between the WWE and NBC before shutting down after one season. The WWE's Vince McMahon resurrected the league in 2020 but shut down operations in the middle of the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Julian Edelman has joined Fox NFL Kickoff and begins on the show this fall. Edelman won three Super Bowls with the Patriots, and was MVP of the 2019 Super Bowl. He retired in 2020 and spent a couple of seasons on Inside the NFL. 

He joins host Charissa Thompson, analysts Charles Woodson and Michael Vick and reporter Peter Schrager on the Fox program. It airs Sundays at 11 a.m. ET, leading into Fox NFL Sunday. 

“We are thrilled to welcome Julian Edelman to the Fox Sports family,” said Brad Zager, president of production and operations and executive producer. “His passion for the game, experience as a Super Bowl champion, and ability to connect with fans will unquestionably make him a valuable addition to our team, both on and off the screen.”

Edelman was a quarterback at Kent State and a receiver in the NFL. He spent 12 years in the NFL, all with the Patriots. 

“Joining Fox Sports is a dream come true,” Edelman said. “I grew up watching the NFL on Fox on Sundays, and now being an analyst for Fox NFL Kickoff feels full circle. Twelve years in this league has given me insight and opinions that I’m eager to share alongside the talented Fox NFL cast and crew.”

After he retired from the NFL, Edelman joined Inside the NFL on Paramount Plus as an analyst. 

Edelman is also a partner in Coast Productions, producing scripted and unscripted projects. 

Edelman was the star of the Showtime documentary 100% Julian Edelman. 

Fox Sports is hoping to continue to ride the on-the-field success of the U.S. Women’s National Team heading into Sunday’s (August 6) knockout round match against Sweden.

Fox has averaged 4.3 million viewers for its three US Team Group Stage telecasts, a record for USWNT Women’s World Cup English-language telecasts, according to Nielsen numbers supplied by Fox Sports. The viewership is up 11% from the 2019 USWNT Group Stage average from France. 

Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill said Fox’s ratings numbers will continue to build alongside the U.S. Team’s success in seeking an unprecedented tournament three-peat.  

“The viewership for the three U.S. matches have so far been record-setting,” Mulvihill told Multichannel News. “We love the way that the country is responding to the national team and the ratings are a payoff for the team’s sustained success.”

Overall, Fox and FS1 averaged a combined 610,000 viewers for the first 46 games of the Women’s World Cup tournament, down 37% compared to the 2019 tournament’s group stage performance and down 33% compared to the 2015 tournament. This year's Women's World Cup viewership is up 9% and 143% compared to the 2011 and 2007 Women’s World Cup tournaments, respectively, according to Nielsen.   

While the U.S. Team is fueling Fox Sports’ Women's World Cup ratings, Mulvihill is confident that viewers will continue to tune into the tournament even if the U.S. Team doesn’t make it to the finals. He pointed to the strong performance of the 2022 men’s World Cup finals sans the U.S. team as an example of the overall appeal of international soccer tournament play on television. 

“We’ve seen on the men’s World Cup side what happens when the US Team is eliminated,” Mulvihill said. “There is a certain moderation of viewers [without the US team], but I think the numbers that we’ve seen for non-US games so far have actually been pretty good, and I think we will continue to see some interest in some of the stronger countries that would go on, whether that’s France, Sweden or whomever it might be. We would still be optimistic.” 

The U.S. Women's soccer team’s first World Cup match was the most-watched live sports event last week.

Fox Sports’ telecast of the July 21 U.S.-Vietnam Women’s World Cup event averaged 5.26 million viewers to top all events, according to Nielsen numbers published by SportsMedia Watch. Overall, Fox Sports posted two Women’s World Cup telecasts in the top 10, including its July 20 match between Nigeria and Canada. 

NBC’s coverage of golf’s Open Championship — often referred to in the U.S. as the British Open — drew three top 10 slots last week, including a second-place finish for the July 23 final round that drew 3.35 million viewers. 

USA Network’s July 23 coverage of the NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 averaged 2.8 million viewers to draw a third-place ratings finish. The performance was up 8% from last year’s race and was NBC Sports’ most-watched Cup Series race on cable since 2019. 

Also finishing in the top 10 was Univision’s July 21 coverage of international soccer star Lionel Messi’s Major League Soccer debut with Inter Miami, which averaged 1.75 million viewers. The game was the biggest MLS single-network audience since 2004, according to SportsMedia Watch.

Fox Sports and ESPN’s coverage of Major League Baseball All-Star festivities generated a ratings home run among last week’s live sports telecasts.  

Fox’s July 11 All-Star Game broadcast drew 7 million viewers to top all sports events for the week, according to Nielsen numbers published by SportsMedia Watch. The contest, won by the National League for its first victory over the American League since 2012, was the least-watched baseball All-Star game, dropping 7% from the previous low set last year. The game, however, still remains the most-watched All-Star Game among the major sports, according to SportsMedia Watch.

ESPN’s July 10 Home Run Derby telecast was the second-most watched live sports event last week with 5.52 million, but the number was down from last year’s 6.8 million viewers, and was the lowest since the 2018 event, according to Sports Business Journal. 

The conclusion of the CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer tournament placed several telecasts among the top 10 most watched events, including Univision’s coverage of the July 16 Mexico-Panama tournament final, which drew 4.32 million viewers. 

ESPN's July 16 telecast of the Wimbledon men's finals between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic finished fourth for the week with 3.19 million viewers, which was the biggest audience for the event since 2019. 

Also, ABC's July 15 WNBA All-Star Game drew 850,000 viewers, making it the league’s most-watched All-Star game in 16 years, according to ESPN. 

Fox Sports will kick off coverage of the month-long soccer Women’s World Cup Thursday (July 20) from Australia and New Zealand, looking to build on the momentum generated by the two-time defending champion United States team as well as from last fall’s Men’s World Cup. 

Fox and FS1 will offer English-language coverage for all 64 World Cup matches while Telemundo, Universo and Peacock provide Spanish-language coverage of the games. The U.S. women’s team will take the field July 21 against Vietnam, followed by the Netherlands on July 26 and Portugal on August 1. 

The Women’s World Cup final will take place on August 20 from Australia, according to Fox Sports. 

Fox Sports hopes its World Cup ratings success from the 2022 men’s tournament in Qatar, which posted a 30% audience increase over the 2018 Men’s World Cup tournament from Russia. The Argentina-France final set a record for a Men's World Cup English-language telecast with more than 16 million viewers tuning in across Fox and Fox Sports streaming services, Nielsen reported.

Fox Sports president of production and operations/executive producer Brad Zager spoke with Multichannel News about the upcoming Women’s World Cup soccer tournament, a lightly edited version of which appears below.   

MCN: What are the advantages of the Australian venue for the Women’s World Cup?

Brad Zager: The advantage is you're in one of the prettiest, amazing sites to be able to host the Women’s World Cup. We feel like that will definitely come across to the viewers at home from our location at Campbells Cove with the iconic Sydney Opera House behind us. We’re excited about showcasing Sydney through our coverage as well as the other venues including New Zealand where most of the early U.S. team matches will be.

MCN: Will the time differences between the U.S. and the World Cup venues serve as a detriment to viewership?

BZ: When you sign up for the World Cup, you know that is part of it, so you just go with it. The first couple of matches have the U.S. team in New Zealand, and that two-hour difference with Sydney does help us, especially on the East Coast. Hopefully we'll get off to a great start and gain momentum. The U.S. team is such a big story and I think it'll transcend any time zone issue. That’s a story everybody likes to get behind in this country, no matter what time they’re playing.

MCN: How much momentum does women's soccer have going into the World Cup?

BZ: I can’t imagine any more momentum than the U.S. team going for a three-peat. This is just an amazing group of athletes representing the U.S., and nobody has any less expectations than another win, so I think there’s a ton of momentum. Then you have the fact that the men’s World Cup soccer tournament just played this past fall, so there hasn’t been a huge gap between the momentum created for soccer by the amazing World Cup final in the fall and the beginning of the Women’s World Cup tournament.

Fox Sports will use technology to bring baseball fans closer to the action during its live telecast of the 93rd Major League Baseball All-Star Game tonight (July 11) from Seattle’s T-Mobile Park.

For the first time, Fox during its  All-Star Game coverage will employ aerial drone technology to capture the action from unique angles throughout the ballpark, Fox Sports president of production and operations/executive producer Brad Zager said. “We’ll utilize the drone as players come on and off the field at the end of half innings, which is a first for us,” he said. “We’ll continue to push access and let viewers at home learn and hear from these all-star players more than they may get during the regular season.”

Also Read: Fox Sports Finds Success With a Time-Tested Playbook

Fox Sports will also look to provide a window into the player’s perspective during its telecast by placing live microphones on players, said Zager. The pregame studio booth featuring former MLB All-Stars Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Derek Jeter — who played in nearly 40 All-Star Games between them — will also provide analysis from a player’s point of view, he said.

“Having those guys there will allow viewers to get their perspective and offer context into what it’s like to play in an All-Star Game,” Zager said.

Overall, Zager said baseball’s new rules implemented this season, including a pitch clock to speed up the game, will not alter Fox’s production of the All-Star Game. “We think the rule changes that baseball has put in has done nothing but make this great game even better,” he said. “We look at the All-Star game as an opportunity to look at the game almost half-inning by half-inning in terms of who’s on the field and what stories we can tell.”

Fox’s 2022 MLB All-Star Game telecast averaged 7.51 million viewers, which was down 7% from the year prior. Zager believes that the league's momentum stemming from the strong play on the field and enhanced by the rule changes should bode well for All-Star game viewership.

“It’s been a great year for baseball with the changes that they’ve made, which has translated to fans being excited about watching games,” he said. “With the All-Star game you’ve got a great mix this year of established stars like [Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder] Mookie Betts as well as some of the younger guys you want to show off like [Baltimore Orioles catcher] Adley Rutschman and [Atlanta Braves outfielder] Ronald Acuna Jr. We’re looking forward to a great game.”

Play-by-play announcer Joe Davis and analyst John Smoltz will call the game for Fox. It will also air live on Fox Deportes as well as on the Fox Sports app.

Fox Sports has teamed with production company Religion of Sports to co-produce new original sports documentaries.

The first project of the multi-production deal, Baseball’s Greatest Moments With The Kid Mero: The MLB All-Star Game, debuts tonight (July 10) on FS1, and will feature highlights of unforgettable moments and fascinating stories from past All-Star games, according to Fox Sports. 

The two companies have worked together on such sports documentaries as The Great Brady Heist and Searching for Shohei: An Interview Special. “Fox Sports is excited about collaborating with Religion of Sports to spotlight captivating sports stories that are deeply ingrained in the heart of American culture,” Fox Sports VP of development and original programming Barry Nugent said in a statement. “These new films will feature the renowned legends and intense rivalries that have thrilled fans for generations.”

Religion of Sports CEO Ameeth Sankaran added: “ROS has built a foundation around storytelling and this deal marks new and exciting territory for the company. We are thrilled to be able to partner with Fox Sports.”

Baseball’s Greatest Moments with The Kid Mero: The MLB All-Star Game is executive produced by Gotham Chopra, Ameeth Sankaran, Victor Buhler, Eric Shanks, Mark Silverman, Charlie Dixon and Barry Nugent.

As expected, Reggie Bush will be replaced on Fox Sports college football pre-game show Big Noon Kickoff by former NFL Pro Bowler Mark Ingram II. 

New York Post reporter Andrew Marchand telegraphed the move a month ago, citing a “contract dispute” between Bush and Fox.  And on Thursday evening, Fox sent out a press release confirming that Ingram, who won also won a national championship in college at Alabama, will join an on-air cast that includes Bush’s former USC teammate, ex-QB Matt Leinart, along with Brady Quinn, Urban Meyer and Rob Stone. 

There has been no official confirmation that Bush is out, but the hiring of Ingram appears to be the next surest indicator.

Bush was an electrifying runner in the aughts for the college football dynasty assembled by former head coach Pete Carroll. That legacy was undone by a controversial investigation conducted by the NCAA, which resulted in USC being put on a paralyzing probation in 2010. Bush's 2005 Heisman Trophy was also taken away. 

Bush went on to have a solid but unspectacular pro career in the NFL before joining Fox Sports in 2019. 

Meanwhile, Los Angeles is currently festooned with billboards, funded by the owner of an outdoor advertising company, petitioning for the return of Bush’s Heisman. 

Fox Corp. said that Fox Sports executive Mike Mulvihill has been named president, insights and analytics, a new post at the company.

In his new role, Mulvihill will oversee the research, analytics and strategic planning teams at Fox Sports, Fox Entertainment and Tubi.

Mulvihill, who had been executive VP, head of strategy and analytics for Fox Sports,  will continue to report to Mark Silverman, president and COO of Fox Sports, while also reporting to the leadership of Fox Entertainment and Tubi.

“Mike has been an unbelievable asset to the Fox Sports team, providing unmatched insightful analysis, and helping us grow our business to new heights,” said Silverman. “We are thrilled to see Mike expand his portfolio and bring his unique talents to our Fox Entertainment Group and Tubi.”

Mulvihll joined Fox Sports in 1995 as a research analyst and was promoted to senior VP in 2011.

NFL Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe on Tuesday signed off from the long-running FS1 talk show Undisputed with co-host Skip Bayless, ending his seven-year run on the daily series.

Sharpe, who earlier this month reportedly reached a contract buyout agreement with Fox Sports, joined Bayless to create Skip and Shannon: Undisputed in 2016 after Bayless left ESPN’s First Take sports talk show with Stephen A. Smith. 

Despite occasional on-air friction between the two hosts over the years, Sharpe complimented Bayless in his departing remarks. “The opportunity you gave me to become what I became ... I’m forever indebted to you and I'll never forget what you did for me,” he said. “You’ve helped me grow more than you’ll ever know.” 

Fox Sports has not named a replacement for Sharpe on Undisputed. In a statement, the company said that Sharpe has been an “invaluable member of the show's success” along with Bayless since its launch. “We appreciate his dedication and are grateful for his contributions to Fox Sports,” Fox Sports said in the statement. “The Fox Sports family wishes Shannon the very best and we look forward to his next chapter.”

Fox Sports will take the field March 7 for its coverage of the World Baseball Classic international tournament.

Fox, FS1, FS2, Tubi and Fox Deportes will combine to carry live all 47 games of the three-week, 20-team international elimination baseball tournament that kicks off with the Cuba-Netherlands matchup on FS1. 

Fox will televise the first game for Team USA, which features such players as Mike Trout, Trea Turner and Adam Wainwright, as it meets England on March 11. Fox Sports announcers Joe Davis and John Smoltz will call the Team USA opener, according to the company. 

Also:  Eric Shanks, Fox Sports Find Success With a Time-Tested Playbook

All World Baseball Classic games will be played across four venues, including Chase Field in Phoenix and LoanDepot Park in Miami, as well as the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, and Taichung Intercontinental Stadium in Taichung, Taiwan.

Team USA won the last World Baseball Classic in 2017; the 2021 tournament was canceled due to the pandemic. Japan won the first two WBC tournaments in 2006 and 2009, while the Dominican Republic won in 2013.

“What a fantastic way to build excitement around the 2023 baseball season, with the best players in the world facing off for pride of country,” Fox Sports president and chief operating officer Mark Silverman said in a statement. ■ 

This weekend’s full lineup of top live TV sports action begins on the soccer field as Major League Soccer launches its 28th season exclusively on Fox and FS1.

Fox will telecast the New York City FC-Nashville SC MLS match on Saturday, while FS1 will air the Seattle Sounders FC-Colorado Rapids game. The games officially launch Fox Sports’s four-year linear TV deal with MLS.

On the NBA court, ABC will air a Saturday primetime matchup between Eastern Conference rivals the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers. On Sunday ABC will air an afternoon NBA doubleheader featuring the Phoenix Suns-Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers-Dallas Mavericks contests, while ESPN’s primetime doubleheader includes the Minnesota Timberwolves-Golden State Warriors and L.A. Clippers-Denver Nuggets games. 

Week two of pro-football league the XFL will launch Saturday with the D.C-Vegas game on FX, while ESPN on Sunday will air the San Antonio-Orlando game and ESPN2 will offer the Arlington-Houston contest.

In the ring, YouTube star Jake Paul on Sunday will look to advance his boxing career when he faces Tommy Fury in the main event of an ESPN Plus pay-per-view boxing card on Sunday. On Saturday, Showtime will telecast a live fight card headlined by the junior welterweight championship fight between Subriel Matias and Jeremias Ponce.

The men’s college basketball lineup begins with top-ranked Houston traveling to face the Pirates of East Carolina on ESPN2, second-ranked Alabama taking on Arkansas on ESPN2, third-ranked Kansas taking on West Virginia on ESPN and fifth-ranked Purdue hosting No. 17 Indiana on Fox. On Sunday, fourth-ranked UCLA plays Colorado on CBS. 

Saturday’s women’s college basketball schedule of top-ranked teams includes fourth-ranked UConn playing DePaul on Fox. On Sunday, top-ranked South Carolina hosts Georgia on ESPN2, second-ranked Indiana battles No.6 Iowa on ESPN, and fifth-ranked LSU meets Mississippi State on the SEC Network. 

On the links, NBC and Golf Channel will offer weekend coverage of the PGA Honda Classic golf tournament, while Fox will continue its NASCAR coverage with the Sunday telecast of the Pala Casino 400 race. 

On the ice, ABC on Saturday afternoon will telecast the N.Y. Rangers-Washington Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins-St. Louis Blues NHL games. ■

Fox Sports will launch its new exclusive Major League Soccer package Saturday, with a major focus on providing linear TV exposure for the league's 28th season.

Fox Sports will distribute approximately 34 regular-season games as part of the four-year deal, with at least 15 regular-season games on Fox. The remainder of the games will air on FS1. Fox Deportes will air all Fox and FS1 telecasts in Spanish.

Fox will open up its coverage on February 25 with Nashville SC-New York City FC, while FS1 on Sunday will air the Seattle Sounders FC-Colorado Rapids contest, according to Fox Sports. 

Fox Sports’s MLS deal does not include streaming rights, which Apple TV purchased as part of a 10-year deal that includes all MLS regular season and postseason games. Apple TV's MLS Season Pass will feature all MLS regular and post season games for $14.99 per month.

Still, Fox Sports President and CEO Eric Shanks said that the deal emphasizes the continued value and importance of live sports programming on linear TV.

Also: Eric Shanks, Fox Sports Find Success With a Time-Tested Playbook

“Sure, [MLS] did an [Apple TV] streaming deal, but they really wanted to have games on broadcast every week,” he said.■

Tim McCarver, a World Series-winning catcher tuned Hall of Fame baseball broadcaster, died Thursday at age 81.

McCarver played for teams including the St. Louis Cardinals, where he won championships, and the Philadelphia Phillies, where he was the designated catcher for lefty legend Steve Carlton. He once joked that he and Carlton would be buried 60 feet, six inches apart.

But McCarver was best known for his talent behind a microphone, winning three Emmy Awards as a color commentator working for local teams, including the New York Mets, and all four broadcast networks.

“Tim McCarver was an All-Star, a World Series Champion, a respected teammate, and one of the most influential voices our game has known,“ Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said. “As a player, Tim was a key part of great Cardinals and Phillies teams in his 21-year career. In the booth, his analysis and attention to detail brought fans closer to our game and how it is played and managed. Tim’s approach enhanced the fan experience on our biggest stages and on the broadcasts of the Mets, the Yankees and the Cardinals.

“All of us at Major League Baseball are grateful for Tim’s impact on sports broadcasting and his distinguished career in our National Pastime,“ Manfred added. “I extend my deepest condolences to Tim’s family, friends and the generations of fans who learned about our great game from him,” he said.

McCarver started his broadcast career in Philadelphia calling Phillies games on WPHL. He’d later do local broadcasts for the Mets and Yankees in New York, where he was known for predicting plays based on the situation and the way certain players were positioned.

On national networks, he broadcast a record 24 World Series for ABC, CBS and Fox. 

“We are saddened by the passing of our longtime friend and former colleague, baseball legend Tim McCarver," said Fox Sports CEO and executive producer Eric Shanks. 

"To a generation of fans, Tim will forever be remembered as the champion whose game-winning home run during the 1964 World Series echoes throughout time; to another, his voice will forever be the soundtrack to some of the most memorable moments in the game’s history; to us, he will forever be in our hearts. On behalf of the entire Fox Sports family, we offer our deepest condolences to the entire McCarver family," Shanks said.

McCarver retired from Fox after the 2013 season, calling the Boston-St. Louis World Series. He became a part-time analyst for Cardinals games in St. Louis. He retired from broadcasting in 2022. ■

Super Bowl LVII drew 113 million viewers, which Fox said was the highest turnout for the big game since 2017, citing data from Nielsen Media Research and Adobe Analytics.

Last year’s Super Bowl had a total audience delivery of 112.3 million viewers, according to research done for NBCUniversal.

The tune-in across Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox and NFL digital properties makes the Kansas City Chiefs’ last second victory over the Philadelphia Eagles the third most-watched television show of all time.

A total of 182.6  million viewers watched all or part of the game, up from 167 million a year ago. The game had a 40 household rating and 77% share.

Also Read: Woof! The Farmer’s Dog Spot Scores At Super Bowl: iSpot

Super Bowl LVII was the most streamed Super Bowl in history, delivering an average of 7 million streams, up 18% from last year and up 103% from Fox’s last Super Bowl in 2020, according to Adobe.

Also Read: Super Bowl Viewing Up Slightly to 36.7 Million Households: Samba TV

Fox said the halftime show featuring pregnant singing star Rihanna was watched by 118.7 million viewers. It was the most watched halftime show since Katy Perry performed in 2015.

The game drew its highest local-market rating in Kansas City, where the game had a 52 rating and 87 share. Philadelphia was No. 2 with a 46.3 rating and 77 share. Other strong markets included Cincinnati, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.

Fox Sports Deportes had an average audience of 951,000, up 25% from 2020

Final Nielsen data is expected to be available Tuesday.

In the aftermath of Lionel Messi and Argentina’s thrilling FIFA World Cup win over France this past December — ending arguably the greatest tournament in the history of the sport — no one would have begrudged Fox Sports from taking its own victory lap. Fox Sports’s successful coverage of the international soccer tournament wrapped up one of the most successful performances in the 28-year history of the organization.

In a year in which live sports programming firmly secured its position as the foundation for the struggling linear television universe, Fox Sports was the category’s North Star, led by its CEO and executive producer Eric Shanks. In 2022, the company’s live sports programming — which ranged from the World Cup and Major League Baseball’s World Series to Big Noon Saturday college football games, Fox NFL Sunday “America’s Game of the Week” coverage and NASCAR races — aggregated an industry-high 265.3 billion minutes of live event consumption this year. It’s the fourth straight year Fox Sports has led all sports distributors in minutes viewed while continuing to embrace the traditional TV bundle for distribution of the majority of its marquee events.

“The thing that’s worked very well for Fox Sports and for Fox is their increased emphasis on broadcast,” TV sports consultant Lee Berke said. “They’ve placed most of their major events on broadcast, buttressed by [cable networks] FS1 and FS2. Sports is a growing percentage of primetime programming on broadcast in general and Fox early on has taken a leadership position on that.”

Fox Sports programming was so prevalent on the Fox network, particularly in the fall, that more than 90% of all the broadcaster’s viewing from Labor Day to New Year’s Eve was attributed to sports. The remarkable amount of consumption was bolstered by Fox Sports’s World Cup coverage. The morning and afternoon telecasts — which aired in November and December, instead of the typical summer, due to host country Qatar’s desert heat — averaged 3.6 million viewers across Fox and FS1, up 30% over Fox’s 2018 World Cup coverage from Russia.

Shanks, the former DirecTV programming executive who joined Fox Sports as CEO in 2010, continued to fortify the division’s portfolio in 2022 by reaching long-term TV rights deals with several important properties. Under Shanks’s tutelage, Fox Sports worked alongside the Big Ten college conference to negotiate a new, seven-year rights deal with Fox, NBC and CBS worth a reported $7 billion. 

Fox Sports in October renewed its Big 12 TV rights as part of a reported $2-billion deal that also includes ESPN and keeps the conference on Fox through the 2030 season. Fox also renewed Major League Soccer in a four-year deal, shutting out ESPN and ABC, which had aired MLS games since the U.S. league’s inception in 1996.

Fox Sports also forged a league of its own with the April 2022 launch of the United States Football League (USFL), the spring league it owns and manages. 

Industry executives said Shanks’s ability to build strong relationships with content partners has helped Fox Sports lock down most of its high-profile sports properties through the latter part of the decade.

‘A Moving Force’

“Eric is a moving force,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said. “He’s always coming to us with ideas about things that we might consider rather than him just being receptive to ideas that we have. That’s what makes for a good partnership.” 

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell commended Shanks for being a key member of the team that has helped foster the three-decade relationship between Fox and the league. “Quite simply, Eric has made the NFL better,” he said. “He’s been an incredible partner who’s never afraid to challenge us, which is something I really appreciate.” 

Under Shanks, Fox Sports has also helped evolve the way viewers watch live sports content through technological innovations that have added to the enjoyment of fans rooting for their favorite teams. Whether it’s aerial drone usage and virtual production technology in its NASCAR productions to the introduction of a helmet cam for its USFL telecasts, sports executives said the company’s on-air technical innovations are second to none. 

“Working with Eric Shanks and Fox Sports has been nothing short of phenomenal,” NASCAR president Steve Phelps said. “We love how Fox Sports is willing to push the envelope from a technology and production perspective when it comes to covering NASCAR.”

Not one to rest on laurels, Fox Sports in 2023 will air a second season of the USFL, new baseball and NASCAR campaigns and the FIFA Women’s World Cup. First up this month is Super Bowl LVII, the network’s first telecast of the Big Game since the pre-pandemic 2020 contest. 

“Eric thrives in constantly innovating while consistently executing at the highest levels,’  News Corp. executive chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch said. “From launching the new USFL this past spring to the epic fall calendar consisting of the best coverage of college and NFL football, the World Series, World Cup and preparing for the Super Bowl, Eric and his team have performed masterfully in bringing our audience the best in sports.”

Fox Sports on-air veteran Kevin Burkhardt will call his first Super Bowl after succeeding the ESPN-bound Joe Buck as Fox’s top NFL play-by-play announcer. Burkhardt said the Fox culture under Shanks’s direction is to remain aggressive and innovative in its approach to working marquee events.

“We go after things that we want and get big properties and hire good people to work on those properties,” he said. “It’s a message and attitude of being loose, having fun and embracing being on the big stage.”

Shanks, who is the B+C Multichannel News Sports Executive of the Year for 2023, spoke about Fox Sports’s phenomenal 2022 performance and discussed the future of the sports TV in a wide-ranging interview, presented here with edits for clarity and space.

B+C: Put Fox Sports’s 2022 campaign into perspective. Did it meet your
expectations?   

Eric Shanks: Clearly, we couldn’t have predicted such an unprecedented year. When we set our budget in 2021, we couldn’t have predicted that we were going to have probably the greatest sporting event of all time in the World Cup final. The performance of everything that we’ve put on the network just validated the strategy that Lachlan Murdoch and [Fox chairman] Rupert Murdoch put in place, which is to be very focused on being the leader in live television, whether it’s sports or news. It feels to me like we’re unique in that there’s no doubt that we know who we are, and we aim to be the leader in live sports and news every day. By any metric, whether it’s total consumption or whether it’s the individual performance of our events or our leagues, that’s the case. And in the areas where we’re not quite No. 1, I mean, that’s the challenge that we have going forward. 

B+C: You mentioned the World Cup. Fox Sports had some daunting challenges going into the tournament, including an unprecedented fall start plus unfriendly time differences with Qatar. How was Fox Sports able to overcome those challenges? 

ES: It really is all about planning. We were in Qatar two and a half years before the World Cup to start setting all of the pieces in place for the planning. So when that month [of the tournament] comes on the air, it’s the result of this amazing team that we have here to put a plan in place and to execute it. Of course, we can’t predict that an event will unfurl where the biggest stars in the sport actually show up and are the key components of the event at the end. So that’s what kind of paid off: the planning was there and then the stars showed up. 

B+C: Fox Sports continues to offer all of its marquee sports events, whether it’s all 64 World Cup games, the Super Bowl, or even USFL games, on linear television. In a TV environment when more content distributors are moving to streaming, why is Fox Sports so invested in the traditional television platform? 

ES: I actually look at it a little bit differently. If you look at the big rights deals that have been done, there might be media companies that are trying to move things into their streaming services. But if you look at what the professional leagues are doing, the NFL deal had clear priority on broadcast. There are more games on broadcast now for the NFL than ever before. If you look at the Big Ten deal, it’s a move away from cable to three broadcast entities. You look at the MLS deal that we just did. While they did a streaming deal [with Apple TV Plus], they really wanted to have games on broadcast every week. The biggest events from the biggest leagues are still on broadcast television. So our focus is there because we know that being a leader in news and sports is the driver of value in the bundle. 

B+C: So what is Fox Sports’s streaming strategy going forward? 

ES: A big chunk of our consumption comes from streaming — it’s just not direct-to-consumer streaming. We still have great products and availability for people to watch on any device, anytime. So we’re not against streaming; we just aren’t in the business model of direct-to-consumer. For the World Cup, we did a unique deal with Twitter, where we showed the first few minutes of every game live, which set social records for us. We used [Fox Corp.-owned streaming service] Tubi for highlights and on-demand replays which help set streaming records. When the games ended there was a message to go to the Fox Sports App, so the conversion of those fans was tremendous for us. 

B+C: Having said that, could we see a Fox Sports direct-to-consumer streaming service in the next five years? 

ES: We have the rights and the flexibility if we ever wanted to jump in and go DTC. Whether it’s the NFL or Major League Baseball, we have the same rights as everybody, so it’s our choice what to do with them. We can look at our crystal ball and know some of the things that will happen in five years. We know in five years that Fox’s [NFL] ‘America’s Game of the Week’ is still going to be the No. 1 one show on television. We’re still going to have the NFC package and the Super Bowl. We’re still going to have the World Series. Those are the core properties that drive our business. There are a lot of things outside of our strategy that can’t be predicted, such as how many streamers will be around in five years and how many direct-to-consumer offerings there will be in five years. There are things that we have already solidified while letting others help us make future decisions without us having to make the investments. 

B+C: In an era where sports rights are seemingly moving from network to network or to streaming services, Fox Sports last year was able to secure TV rights to such marquee properties as the Big 12, Big Ten and Major League Soccer. How have you been so successful in securing rights deals in such a competitive marketplace?

ES: From a non-business standpoint, we pride ourselves on being a good partner in terms of promoting, cross-promoting and producing content. If you look at our core rights for football, including the NFL, Big Ten, USFL, Pac-12, and also the core rights of NASCAR, Major League Baseball and FIFA international soccer, we really focus on promoting them on-air and being good partners which drives value for us and for them. Our core partners are not commodities; they’re not interchangeable. So I think we’re good partners and because we have identified our core rights, we know that they’re a part of our value equation. I also think one of our success stories was getting more upstream in the rights process, whether by starting our own league or acting as a true partner to the Big Ten as a media rights consultant and playing that role that we did with securing the rights. That’s another thing that we feel sets us apart this year, other than our distribution strategy. 

B+C: Do you see a more competitive marketplace over the next few years as Google, Apple, Amazon and other digital/streaming companies negotiate for sports rights? 

ES: Every time you think that it’s going to be less competitive, it’s always more competitive and a competitive marketplace doesn’t drive prices or costs down. That’s a good thing: You want your partners to be successful if they’re driving value for you. Just like earlier when we talked about our crystal ball, I don’t know in five years if there’s going to be more people bidding for rights or less, but I think they’re in that mode right now. You have companies that aren’t in the sports business now looking to be in the sports business. We’ve always been used to competition, but this is the first time that we’ve competed against $2 trillion companies that aren’t even in our business for rights. So it’s yet to be seen in this competitive environment what will be a success for them and whether they’ll keep going or revert back to their traditional business. 

For us, we’re in the sports business. It’s existential to us. To our newest competitors, it’s not existential; it’s kind of a toe dip in the water to see where it goes. That’s why I’m not sure if there will be more competition or less. History says there’s never less. Even with that, they really can’t impact our business in the next six years because we’ve wrapped up about 80% of our core rights deals, and I think we’re in a really good position to renew those other contracts like NASCAR when it comes up. So at least from our position, the window for them to really impact us has closed. 

B+C: One way to protect rights fees is to create your own league, which Fox Sports did with the USFL last April. Given spring football’s failed history, what made you confident that you could pull this off? 

ES: Well, it was a big jump into the deep end, and I credit my bosses here who believed in the vision. We were born to do football and we believe that in America there is demand out there for more high-quality football across more parts of the year, and we knew that we could make the media part of it a success. In year one, it performed as well as any longstanding sports event in that second and early third quarter. We have a long-term plan for growth. We took our media expertise and put a group together that actually was able to do the football operations, health and safety protocols for the players, ticket sales and marketing for the whole league. We even sold rights to another media partner at NBC. One of the most unique things we did in 2022 was having a media company actually run a league. The crowning of a champion, for the first time since the ’80s, of a spring football league was definitely a unique moment for Fox Sports. 

B+C: Fox Sports is televising Super Bowl LVII. The last time Fox had the big game was in February 2020, just a month before the pandemic. Are you approaching post-pandemic Super Bowl coverage differently than in 2020?

ES: The other thing that was interesting for our last Super Bowl was that it was the NFL’s 100th anniversary, so the content, pregame and everything that the NFL wanted to accomplish along with us was totally different than this year’s event. That being said, every year the network is really responsible for making the Super Bowl bigger than the one before, so we work hand in hand with the NFL on what moments to discuss, what we want America to remember from the event and making the event as big as possible.

B+C: Will we see any new technological innovations during the game?

ES: We’re trying to do some things to get fans closer to the game, whether it’s with audio or new cameras. We usually end up doing some really interesting things from a graphics perspective or data perspective. I think this year, obviously, the thing that’s on top of everybody’s mind is the continued improvement of Damar Hamlin, so we’ll be figuring out how we could celebrate his recovery or improvement. Whatever that ends up being is going to be a great moment. 

B+C: Fox Sports has been aggressive in creating content around sports wagering. Do you believe that such content will inevitably have a major influence on the overall sports television marketplace?

MS: I think we were really aggressive moving into the wagering space, not just as a vehicle for advertising or taking advertising dollars. I’m pretty sure we’re the only media company that has an investment in horse racing wagering, with our 40% ownership in [the New York Racing Association]. We have Fox Bet, and we have our 18.66% [purchase] option in FanDuel. We’re in poker and iGaming and we’re the leading free-to-play app. We’re the only media company that is really invested from an ownership standpoint. So yes, wagering is having an impact and will have an even bigger impact as more states roll out [legalized sports betting]. 

I would say that specific wagering-only content is probably less important because that’s speaking to a niche of a niche. Rather, what’s happening is, in every NFL pregame show and college pregame show, someone is talking about odds, spreads, odds to win a championship or even prop bets. It really has become integrated into the mainstream. I think that’s the biggest impact — everybody feels more free to talk about and use wagering in an event. People now understand odds, so I think those things have the biggest impact today, but we haven’t been able to figure out yet whether wagering is having an impact on viewership. 

I think that the amount of sports on television clearly impacts wagering, because the more sports that you have and the bigger that you make those events, the more [bets] there are. But we don’t really see any evidence yet of wagers impacting viewership.

B+C: In 2019 Fox Sports exited the regional sports business. Given the recent upheaval and evolution within the category, do you see any value in potentially getting back into the regional sports business?

ES: I think there’s a lot of forces that will cause it to evolve, whether it’s a new business model for consumers, whether it’s technology, whether it’s owners and leagues having an expectation of economics that they eventually use to pay players and to put a product on the field. So there’s no question that it’s going to evolve. 

I feel like it will create opportunities for us at Fox, because I’m not sure that the … volume of games will still be played on what we consider to be an RSN. There still may be some, but there may also be the ability to put more games on broadcast television that used to be on an RSN. Look at what [Los Angeles Clippers owner] Steve Ballmer did out here with the Clippers — he just took more games off of his RSN to put them on a broadcast platform. When you’re in 210 markets around the country with a broadcast station, that gives you the opportunity to do a few local over-the-air pro game telecasts and take advantage of our structure, our broadcast nature and our broadcast reach. That might be the evolution of some of that RSN product.

B+C: What’s on your wish list for Fox Sports in 2023? 

ES: As we look at 2023, we have another really unique event in the Women’s World Cup, which is something that we’ve been planning for for years. It’s an event where you really root for the U.S. women’s national team to bring home another World Cup. It’s exciting for us to be able to serve as the flagbearer for women’s sports in this country at the highest level. I don’t think there’s anybody that invests more in the success of women’s sports. Also for us, it’s the beginning of the new NFL contract next year, so working with the NFL on some of the new rules around scheduling and what games we get.

I also want to continue to be the leader in holiday sports fare. It used to be that the holidays were not a great time to put sports on television, but now it’s the best time. Owning Thanksgiving, Christmas, and being around with sports content on New Year’s and Thanksgiving Friday and Saturday is really exciting for us, and that’s only really come around in the last three years for the most part. ￭

Hall of famer Derek Jeter is joining Fox Sports as part of its Major League Baseball announcing team beginning with the 2023 season.

The announcement was made during Fox’s pregame coverage of Super Bowl LVII. Jeter walked out to join Fox Sports announcers Curt Menafee, Alex Rodriguez and Michael Strahan. Rodriguez was Jeter’s teammate on the New York Yankees.

Jeter is the latest high-profile retired athlete to join Fox Sports. NFL legend Tom Brady will be joining Fox Sports during the 2024 season as a game analyst.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Also: Touchdown: Fox Sells Out In-Game Super Bowl Commercials

Jeter, who was reserved with the press during his time as captain of the Yankees, in 2014 helped start the Players Tribune, a website that allowed players to tell their stories without going through traditional media. The site was sold to MInute Media in 2019.

At MLB on Fox, Jeter will work with Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Frank Thomas and Kevin Burkhardt. ■

Fox Sports’ telecast of Super Bowl LVII telecast Sunday will feature the familiar voices of its lead National Football League announcing team of Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen, but for the announcers themselves the game marks their first time on the NFL’s biggest stage.

After taking over Fox’s lead NFL announcing team at the beginning of the season — replacing Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, who left for ESPN — Burkhardt and Olsen will deliver the play-by-play action for Fox’s Philadelphia Eagles-Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl telecast. Burkhart becomes the first play-by-play announcer other than Buck or Pat Summerall to call a Super Bowl for Fox since the network first acquired NFL television rights in 1994.

The significance of the opportunity is not lost on Burkhardt. A former reporter and substitute play-by-play announcer for New York Mets games on regional sports network SNY, he joined Fox Sports in 2013 to call the NFL and host Major League Baseball studio coverage. Burkhardt said he’s grateful for the opportunities that Fox Sports and its CEO and executive producer, Eric Shanks, have provided him over the years leading up to the Super Bowl LVII gig. (Shanks will be profiled in February’s B+C Multichannel News magazine as our 2023 Sports Executive of the Year.) 

Also: Tom Brady Announces NFL Retirement. When Will Legend Suit Up For Fox Sports?

“It’s amazing … the whole experience is going to be so unbelievable,” he said. “I owe a ton to [Shanks] — he’s taken multiple chances on me,” he said. “I was doing TV for the Mets and he brought me on as a baseball studio guy, and then right away as a NFL play-by-play guy as the [number] two crew with [former Fox Sports announcer] John Lynch,” he said. “Then this year Joe and Troy leave and we had the A (team) to fill. Just because I was on the B crew didn’t mean I was automatically going to get the gig, but [Shanks] pretty much said ‘you’re our guy.’ To entrust me with that responsibility is a big deal.”

Despite the high-profile nature of the Super Bowl, Burkhardt says he’s not doing things much differently to prepare for the Super Bowl than he does preparing to announce a regular-season matchup. “I know this won’t be like every other game, but I’m just preparing like I do every game,” he said. “When I got promoted this year, I said I was going to keep doing what I’m doing and keep the same prep routine because that’s what got me here. If I did something completely ridiculous for the Super Bowl I’d be an idiot.”

Burkhardt, who began his career calling high-school football games at a Northern New Jersey radio station in the late 1990s, says once the Super Bowl action starts, he’ll call it as he has every football game throughout his career.  

“The beauty for me is once the ball kicks off, it’s no different than any high school game I did,” he said. “I know how to do the game, so I think I’m just going to focus on that.” 

Fox Sports will deploy more than 94 cameras and 29 field-level microphones during its Super Bowl LVII telecast as it looks to provide in-depth coverage of the event. “We’re trying to do some things to get fans closer to the game, whether it’s with audio or new cameras,” Shanks said. “We usually end up doing some really interesting things from a graphics perspective or data perspective. But we'll be putting our second-to-none talent out front, from Kevin and Greg to our pre- and post-game talent. We always remember to put the game first.” ■  

Fox said it has sold out all of the in-game commercials available during Super Bowl LVII, overcoming a slow economy and the collapse of the crypto market.

Some of the 30-second commercials during the February 12 game sold for more than $7 million, people familiar with the situation said, with most costing between $6 million and $7 million.

The spots give advertisers a chance to be seen by what is usually television’s largest audience each year as the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles. More than 150 million people across platforms watched Super Bowl LVI, according to iSpot.tv.

Last year, in-game advertising in the Super Bowl generated $578.36 million in revenue for NBC, up $143.8 million from the previous year, according to Kantar, which tracks ad sales. The average cost of a 30-second spot in a Super Bowl LVI was $6.5 million. Including pregame and postgame ad revenue, NBC raked in $636 million during the Super Bowl in 2022. (NBCUniversal said the Super Bowl brought in $519 million.)

This year, there are still a couple of commercials available for a last-minute sale in the pre-kick segment just before the games starts, and one and a half units — a 30-second spot and a 15-second spot — in the post-gun, or the first national break immediately following the game, according to Fox Sports executive VP for sales Mark Evans. 

“The official sellout was somewhere in the middle of last week,” Evans said. “What I can say now, is we’re focusing on overtime, which if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen, but we’re still prepared should the game go to overtime,” Evans said. “We were, fortunately, the only network to ever have an overtime Super Bowl game, in Houston, which I was very much in the middle of. We learned a lot of lessons from that game, so we handle overtime a little bit differently.”

Before the National Football League season started in September, Fox said it was 95% sold out of its Super Bowl inventory — earlier than usual. Evans said there were a number of factors that kept Fox from selling out the game until last week.

Evans explained that once an advertiser agrees to buy a Super Bowl spot, it owns it. Unless Fox has another buyer lined up or there’s an “extraordinary circumstance,” Fox will put that money across the rest of its portfolio rather than return it. But this year, a company in the crypto business that had bought multiple spots blew up and “more or less ceased to exist,” creating extra inventory for Fox to sell. As CNN noted, four crypto or crypto-affiliated companies advertised in the Super Bowl a year ago. Of them, FTX collapsed altogether while Coinbase, Crypto.com and eToro "have fought against industry headwinds." 

Late Sales Gains

As the economy turned south in the fall, “the enthusiasm to spend $7 million on 30 seconds waned a little bit,” Evans said. “As things have now settled down a bit and people feel better about the economic trajectory, a few of those units that were available picked up in earnest the last week.”

In some cases those last spots were bought by companies that had already bought 30-second or 60-second slots, but wanted to expand them because they had hired high-priced talent to appear in their commercials and wanted to double down on that investment, Evans said. 

For this year’s game, Anheuser-Busch InBev, brewer of Budweiser and other beers, gave up its exclusivity, so multiple brands will appear during the game, a departure from past seasons.

As usual, autos, telecommunications companies and salty snack foods will be well-represented in the game. Other big spenders include movie studios and streaming services, Evans said.

According to Kantar, buying a Super Bowl commercial has been a good investment.

Kantar’s Super Bowl LVI Ad Effectiveness Report found that 2022 Super Bowl ads delivered an average ROI of $4.60 per dollar spent, with ads for T-Mobile, Verizon Communications, AT&T, Disney Plus, Sam’s Club and General Motors achieving the best results. 

“Telcom had the strongest financial return for their ads in Super Bowl LVI,“ Kantar partner for brand & marketing ROI Alfredo Troncoso said. “All three advertisers — T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon — saw double-digit ROIs for their ads. Financial services had a very soft performance in 2022, mainly driven by the crypto ads that did not achieve strong ROIs across the board.”

Last year, the Super Bowl halftime show alone generated $32 million in ad revenue.

A recent Kantar study found that of people who regularly watch the Super Bowl, 26% do so specifically to watch the halftime show, which this year will be sponsored by Apple Music, replacing Pepsi. In 2022, the Super Bowl LVI halftime show had more than 120 million viewers. Interest in the halftime show has grown since 2021, when viewers said watching commercials was a bigger reason for watching the Super Bowl than the halftime show.

Inclusive Ads Break Through

While Super Bowl ads offer a captive audience, promoting diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) in Super Bowl creative can deeply impact a brand’s return on investment (ROI). According to Kantar's Super Bowl Creative Evolution – DEI in the Big Game 2023 Report, 29% of respondents claimed they would stop using brands that do not promote inclusion and diversity during the Super Bowl. The majority also expected talent in ads to be inclusive and diverse — especially through inclusion of people of color, women, and younger generations.

In 2022, 89% of Super Bowl ads featured one or more underrepresented groups and 40% of ads had three or more groups represented. While there was greater racial representation, other groups including LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities are still underrepresented in lead roles, as well as inclusion of women, Kantar said.

“Having more diversity in Super Bowl advertising is part of a larger trend where brands are participating more in social and cultural dialogue — which is what consumers want,” Kantar creative solutions lead Kerry Benson said. “This new brave and purpose-oriented world requires brands to lean into an expanded sphere of social dialogue, which may require a point of view about politically polarizing subjects or pre-existing controversies.” ■

Legendary quarterback Tom Brady said today (February 1) that he is retiring (for real) from the National Football League. Now the question is, when he will start his career with Fox Sports?

Fox will be airing Super Bowl LVII on February 12 but it’s unclear if the network plans to add him to its lineup. Fox’s current top analyst, former NFL tight end Greg Olsen, has been getting high marks for his work during the playoffs.

Last May, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch announced that Brady had agreed to join Fox Sports as lead NFL analyst after his career concludes. Brady had briefly signaled he would retire at the end of the 2021 season, but returned to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

“Tom will call our biggest NFL games with Kevin Burkhardt and serve as a client ambassador for us,” Murdoch said at the time. “We are delighted that Tom has committed to joining the Fox team and we wish him all the best in this upcoming season.“

Press reports at the time said the Fox deal would pay Brady $375 million over 10 years. The deal also called on him to serve as a client ambassador for Fox.

Fox reached out to Brady after its top NFL announcing team of Troy Aikman and Joe Buck moved to ESPN after 20 years.

Brady made his announcement on Twitter, saying “I’m retiring, for good.”

Playing with the New England Patriots and the Buccaneers, Brady led his teams to seven Super Bowls, winning more playoffs games than many teams have played in. He spent 23 seasons in the league, playing until he was 45 years old, making him the oldest player in the NFL. ■

On the eve of Super Bowl LVII, Fox Sports will air a new documentary saluting 10 football icons who have won both the Heisman Trophy and were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The documentary, The Perfect 10, debuts February rings together seven of the 10 athletes -- Marcus Allen, Tim Brown, Earl Campbell, Tony Dorsett, Barry Sanders, Roger Staubach, and Charles Woodson -- who have achieved the rare dual accomplishment in football. O.J. Simpson, Paul Hornung and Doak Walker round out the "perfect 10" list. 

Actor Andre Braugher narrates the 90-minute documentary, according to Fox Sports.

“Fox Sports is thrilled to present audiences with the captivating and inspiring stories behind these legendary football icons while celebrating their individual legacies as we head into Super Bowl Sunday,” said Fox Sports Vice President of Development & Original Programming Barry Nugent said in a statement. “We are delighted to be working with renowned actor Andre Braugher who graciously lent his powerful voice to bring each of these athletes personal and professional achievements to light.”

The Perfect 10 is executive produced by Brown, Woodson and Nugent, along with Eric Shanks, Mark Silverman and Charlie Dixon.■

The overtime World Cup final drew 16.78 million viewers on Fox Sunday, the most-watched World Cup telecast in English-language television history.

The previous World Cup finals telecast record was set in 1994 when Italy beat Brazil.

The Fox telecast topped the previous record of 15.5 million people tuning in to watch the United States tie England earlier in the tournament.

The Spanish-language telecast on Telemundo and Peacock drew a total audience of 9 million viewers, making it the most-watched and most-streamed match of the tournament. Viewing was up 65% from the 2019 final.

The final match was the most-streamed soccer match in U.S. media history regardless of language, with an average per-minute audience of 3 million viewers, Telemundo said.

"Telemundo’s coverage of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 with NBCUniversal’s partnership across all platforms culminated as one of the most exciting and successful World Cups in history," said Beau Ferrari, chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.

"Years of preparation led to record-breaking viewership and revenue across the Telemundo network, local stations and Peacock. This World Cup represents a historic outcome for our entire company," Ferrari said. "Now, the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is upon us, and we look forward to being the home of the World Cup, 'La Casa del Mundial' in 2026, when the tournament comes to the U.S., Mexico and Canada." ■

With two more games left in the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Fox Sports Digital is already looking to shift focus from its unprecedented and successful coverage of the soccer tournament to future big Fox Sports events. 

Fox’s World Cup coverage — led by its FIFA World Cup NOW pre- and post-match series for every tournament game — has garnered record usage across Fox Sports’s app, website and social media platforms, executives said. While digital live-game coverage was available only to subscribers of a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) or virtual MVPD service, nearly one-third of all Fox Sports digital app downloads came during the last three weeks, according to Fox Sports senior VP of digital Michael Bucklin.

“Even if you removed all World Cup content from our app, almost every day over the last two weeks would have been a record traffic day,” he said. “That new exposure for so many fans who came to us for our World Cup coverage but learned about our NFL and college football coverage will pay dividends for our upcoming NASCAR, USFL and college basketball coverage as we look to serve fans better digitally.”

Also: Fox Sports’s World Cup Coverage Plays on Broadcast and Cable Field

Bucklin said Fox’s exclusive English-language rights to the World Cup has helped push fans to its digital offerings to get up-to-the-minute information, statistics and highlights from the tournament. 

“Unlike many other sports, we are the only ones people can turn to get that action and those live rights from those matches,” he said. “What we saw our task being is to maximize that gift of live, exclusive rights by providing every single goal, big save and big moment in under 5 minutes from when they happen on our website, app and social-media page.”

The result has been unprecedented use of the digital platform. FIFA World Cup NOW, a 20-minute digital pre- and post-match show for every game of the tournament, had generated a total of 79 million views through the semifinal round games — the most-viewed original project ever developed by the group, Fox Sports said.

Bucklin added that digital viewing and usage continued to grow even as some of the biggest and most popular teams, including the U.S., were eliminated. The December 9 lineup of games that included Brazil’s loss to Croatia generated as much traffic on its digital platforms as did the November 25 lineup of games that included the U.S.-England matchup, Bucklin said. The December 10 Morocco-Portugal post-show was the most-watched show of the tournament, he added, with 1.6 million viewers.  

Also: Despite U.S. Loss, Fox Sports Expects World Cup to Keep Surging

Fox Digital’s World Cup experience will better help the group shape its offering for other big events across multiple sports, including Fox’s February 12 coverage of Super Bowl LVII.

“The novelty of the World Cup is hard to replicate, so we want to bring some of that passion as producers for events that we have ahead of us, including the [NFL] NFC championship [game], the Super Bowl, the Big East Tournament, Daytona 500 and the Women’s World Cup next summer,” Bucklin said. “We want to try to instill that into everything that we do that we want to own and dominate in the future.” ■ 

Fox Sports on Saturday drew nearly 13 million viewers for its United States-Netherlands World Cup game, but will now have to finish its tournament coverage without arguably its biggest draw after the U.S. lost 3-1 and was eliminated from competition.

The audience for Saturday’s U.S.-Netherlands knockout-stage match was up 163% from Fox Sports’ 2018 round of 16 average from Russia, which averaged 4.9 million viewers, the network said. The U.S.-Netherlands audience peaked at 16.3 million viewers between 11:30 and 11:45 a.m. (ET).

Going into Saturday, the U.S. team’s games averaged 11.7 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Cup group stage ever in the U.S. on English-language television. Viewing was up 10% from 2014, the last time the U.S. competed in the World Cup.

Nevertheless, Fox Sports executive VP and head of strategy and analytics Mike Mulvihill — in an interview on the eve of the game — told Multichannel News he believes World Cup ratings will continue to spike despite the U.S. loss for live coverage on Fox and FS1, as well as on the Fox Sports app and for replays on Fox-owned streaming service Tubi. Here’s an edited transcript of that conversation. 

MCN: Have you been surprised thus far by the Fox Sports’ ratings performance for the World Cup, given the crowded market and the fall start of the tournament?

Mike Mulvihill: Honestly, no. I don't think we are surprised. I think we had a lot of confidence that this was going to transfer to the fall just fine. It is a more crowded time of year as far as marque sports events, but it's also Fox’s best time of year, so our ability to promote the World Cup, is so much stronger in the fall than it would be in the summer. And we’ve really pushed it as hard as we’ve ever pushed anything through our NFL and in college football games. It's a higher TV usage during this time of year and it’s the most powerful time of the year for our brand, and I think we’ve been able to capitalize on those promotional platforms. Our expectation was that we would see pretty substantial growth. 

MCN: How dependent are the ratings on the U.S. continuing to advance in the World Cup? If they lose, are you fearful that the audience may dissipate a bit?

MM: No, I'm actually not fearful of that at all. This is a 64-match tournament, so each match, no matter how big it might be, only represents something like one and a half percent of the total tournament. So if the U.S. is eliminated this weekend, I don't think it's gonna have any negative impact on our story going forward. I still think we're gonna finish up plus 20% to 30% for the entire tournament. It would be amazing to see the U.S. advance, not even so much because of the growth story, but just because of what it would mean for continued growth of soccer in the US and continued growth and interest in the national team. But we don't need them to go any further than this to have a really successful tournament. 

MCN: How has having all of the English-language World Cup games airing on linear television bolstered audience viewership?

MM: We're obviously believers in traditional broadcast TV — our biggest events are always on the broadcast platform. We still think that there’s a lot to be said for the reach, ease and familiarity of traditional broadcast TV. Because of the football conflicts we actually have fewer matches on [the Fox broadcast network] this year than we had four years ago, but we have a lot more than had ever been on broadcast prior to our company getting the rights. And so we do believe that just using your biggest stage aggressively is a pretty positive contributor. 

MCN: Having said that, Fox Sports has thus far experienced strong numbers on the digital side. How are you using the digital platform to your advantage? 

MM: Not only are we breaking records on the digital side, we’re breaking them by margins that you just never see. We’re having increases of several orders of magnitude in our social interactions and our video views. Our live match streaming is the highest it’s ever been. We’re obviously really proud of the linear story and that’s where the bulk of the viewership is and where the bulk of the revenue is. But the growth trajectory on the digital side is just extraordinary. You never see percentages like 600% to 700% increases, but we’re actually seeing them right now. ■

The U.S. men’s national team’s victory over Iran in the World Cup drew more than 12 million viewers on Tuesday, propelling the team to the global soccer tournament’s knockout round and powering record ratings for Fox.

Viewing of the game peaked at 14.6 million between 3:45 p.m. ET and 4 p.m. ET.

The game was also the most-streamed World Cup match in Fox history with 949,004 viewers.

Fox Sports said the three U.S. games averaged 11.7 million viewers, making it the most watched World Cup group stage ever in the U.S. on English language television. Viewing was up 10% from 2014, the last time the U.S. competed in the World Cup.

Overall the World Cup is averaging 3.145 million viewers on Fox and FS! Through the first 31 matches, up 44% from the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

In a tweet, Fox Sports ratings whiz Michael Mulvihill noted that the 11.7 million viewers watching the U.S. play in the World Cup at 2 p.m. “easily beats the average of every non-NFL show on TV this fall.”

The viewership is 33% better than 60 Minutes, the No. 1 non-NFL show in primetime, he said. 

Top markets for the U.S.-Iran match were Washington D.C. with an 8.4 ratings and 34 share, Providence 7.9/26, Boston 7.8/30, Baltimore 7.8/30 and Kansas City 7.7/30. ■

Michigan’s victory Saturday (November 25) over Ohio State in “The Game” drew 17 million viewers on Fox, making it the most-watched regular-season college football game ever on the network.

Viewership was up 3% from last year's Michigan-Ohio State rivalry game and was part of a huge weekend for Fox Sports.

It was also the most-watched regular-season college football game on any network since 2011.

Viewership peaked at 19.6 million viewers, Fox said.

The markets with the highest ratings for the game were Columbus at 32.6 with a 70 share; Cleveland 26.9/67, Detroit 24.7/65, Cincinnati 20.1/52 and Indianapolis 13.4/39.

The game was part of a big sports weekend for Fox. It had its most-watched soccer telecast with the U.S.-England draw in the World Cup, attracting 15.4 million viewers, and with the Thanksgiving Day NFL game, where the Dallas Cowboys beat the New York Giants, drawing a regular-season record with 42 million viewers.

“Three evers in three days,” tweeted Mike Mulvihill, the Fox Sports ratings guru. ■

Fox Sports’s live 2022 FIFA World Cup coverage kicks off Sunday with a heavy emphasis on linear television for the 64-game tournament despite an unprecedented fall start, heavy competition from other North American major sports leagues and an unfriendly time difference between the U.S. and World Cup host country Qatar. 

Still, Fox executives are confident the World Cup will attract both the hard-core sports fan and casual viewers with its coverage of the premiere soccer tournament. The Fox broadcast network will air 35 matches throughout the tournament, including the semi-final round games and the World Cup final, according to the network. FS1 will air the remaining 29 games live. Most Fox televised matches will air between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. ET.

The November start of the World Cup — prior tournaments took place during the summer — presented some logistical problems for Fox. The network airs a full complement of afternoon and evening college football games on Saturdays as well as Sunday-afternoon NFL contests. Fox Sports VP of programming and scheduling Daniela Jeffries said Fox Sports was able to work around its crowded schedule and the eight-hour time difference between Qatar and New York to develop a lineup allowing consumers to watch most of the games during reasonable viewing hours. 

“There was a little concern about how this was all going to fit,” Jeffries told Multichannel News. “As the tournament revealed itself, we saw that it wasn’t so bad. There are some challenges in the sense that there are games that probably would have been Fox games versus cable games at a different time of the year, but overall we’re pretty happy and positioned to have over 200 hours, which is comparable to what we would have done in the summer when the schedule would have been lighter.” 

Jeffries also said Fox Sports worked hard to make sure it could distribute all the games on broadcast or cable TV to broaden viewership. “We felt good about being able to get in as much linear coverage as we were,” she said. 

Fans who wish to view World Cup games live online can watch on FoxSports.com, but only if they subscribe to a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) or virtual MVPD service. Replays of every game will be available on the app, as well as on the Fox-owned Tubi.com streaming service through its World Cup FAST channel, including in high-resolution 4K format.

Fox will also make in-match previews and live pre- and post-match shows for every World Cup game available via the Fox Sports soccer Twitter account. 

The addition of the digital outlets offers fans more options to consume World Cup news and highlights compared to 2018, as well as provides a powerful marketing tool to promote upcoming telecasts. “We’ll be able to offer more features and highlights available on the app and have replays on Tubi — all of which we weren’t able to offer in 2018,” Jeffries said.  

Also different from 2018’s World Cup is this tournament will include the U.S. men’s soccer team, which was eliminated from participating in the World Cup four years ago. The network hopes to draw huge viewership for its USA-England Group B matchup, which will take place in the early afternoon on Black Friday, November 25. 

Given the U.S. men’s team’s participation and Fox Sports broad distribution of the games, Sports TV analyst Lee Berke said the World Cup should perform well from a ratings perspective. In 2018 Fox and FS1 combined to average 2.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen. 

“The games are airing during the busiest time of the sports year, but there’s a built-in audience for the games, and with matches airing early in the morning they’ll avoid  running directly against college and pro football games,” he said. “It should achieve the numbers that they want to achieve this time around.”

NBCU’s Spanish-Language Coverage

NBC Sports Group holds the Spanish-language rights to the World Cup and will offer every World Cup game on Telemundo and, for the first time, on NBCU’s streaming service Peacock. Peacock will offer the first 12 matches free before making the remaining 52 games available to Peacock Premium (pay) subscribers, according to NBC Sports. 

For NBC Sports and Telemundo, having both the broadcast and streaming platforms available for fans to view the games will help boost both awareness and viewership, said Berke.

“The two growing platforms for sports right now are broadcast and streaming,” he said. “The Peacock component in particular will provide a substantial boost overall across different screens.”

The U.S. soccer team’s group stage games are listed below (all times ET). The full 2022 World Cup schedule can be found here. ▪️

• Nov. 21: U.S.-Wales (2 p.m.)
• Nov. 25: England-U.S. (2 p.m.)
• Nov. 29: Iran-U.S. (2 p.m.)

Fox Corp. and Vizio said they signed a multi-year expansion of their distribution agreement that will bring Vizio SmartCast users access to the Fox Sports app and Fox Weather.

To mark the launch of the Fox Sports app, the Vizio home screen will feature a “sports blitz” execution showcasing the live college football and NFL games airing the weekend of November 12 and 13.

The app offers live and on demand sports from Fox, FS1, FS2 and Fox Deportes, including live games and studio shows.

Fox Weather will be available as part of Vizio’s WatchFree Plus platform.

“We are pleased to extend and expand our long-standing relationship with Vizio as we bring Fox Weather and the Fox Sports app to Vizio users and provide them with greater access to our industry-leading portfolio of news, sports and entertainment,” said BJ Elias, executive VP, distribution advanced services, Fox Corporation.

Vizio already carries Fox’s Tubi, Fox Nation, and Fox Now apps, as well as Fox Soul and LiveNow on WatchFree Plus.

“Fox and Vizio have been working together for several years to bring audiences the best in entertainment. We are very pleased that our strategic relationship continues to grow, and our expanded agreement means Vizio users can enjoy a wide range of sports, live events, news and lifestyle programming for years to come,” said Katherine Pond, group VP of platform content & partnerships at Vizio. ■

This weekend’s list of live TV sports events begins in the boxing ring as Fox Sports distributes a Saturday night pay-per-view boxing card featuring former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder.

Wilder, whose last three PPV fights against heavyweight champion Tyson Fury combined drew more than 1.7 million pay-per-view buys, will fight division contender Robert Helenius as part of the PPV boxing event offered via In Demand and PPV.com. Also on Saturday, ESPN will distribute the lightweight championship rematch bout between titleholder Devin Haney and George Kambosos Jr.

In addition, ESPN Plus will stream a Saturday afternoon main event bout between women’s middleweight champion Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall. 

On the baseball diamond, the division series playoff round continues on Saturday with TBS airing game four of the NLDS Atlanta Braves-Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers-San Diego Padres series. Both series were tied one game apiece heading into Friday’s action. 

FS1 will air game three of the ALDS series between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians, with the Yankees holding a 1-0 game lead prior to Friday’s game, as well as the Houston Astros-Seattle Mariners series, with Houston holding a two games to none lead in the best-of-five series.  

College football launches its seventh week of regular-season action starting with top-ranked Georgia against Vanderbilt on the SEC Network, third-ranked Alabama against No. 6 Tennessee on CBS, fourth-ranked Clemson traveling to face Florida State on ABC and fifth-ranked Michigan battling tenth-ranked Penn State on Fox. Also on tap for Saturday is No. 7 USC-Utah (Fox), No. 8 Oklahoma State-TCU (ABC) and No. 9 Ole Miss-Auburn (ESPN).

NBC on Saturday will air the Xfinity Alsco Uniforms 302 playoffs race and Sunday’s NASCAR Cup South Point 400 playoffs race. 

NBC on Sunday will air its Sunday Night Football game telecast featuring the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles and their NFC East division rival Dallas Cowboys.■ 

Tubi said Wednesday it launched a channel dedicated to the FIFA World Cup, working with Fox Sports, which will be televising the global soccer tournament from Qatar starting in November of this year.

At launch the free ad-supported streaming TV channel will have content looking ahead to Qatar 2022 as well as classic games and highlights from past tournaments.

Special Fox Sports Digital content celebrating FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 will also appear on the channel in the lead-up to the tournament. During this year’s tournament, the channel will roll out event coverage featuring highlight compilation videos.

The channel will appear exclusively on Tubi.

“We’re proud to be the ultimate streaming destination in the U.S. to celebrate the highly anticipated FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 tournament,” said Farhad Massoudi, Tubi's founder and CEO. “We’re thrilled to give our viewers different entry points to enjoy one of the largest global sports events, whether they want to drop into the experience via our FAST Channel or actively engage through VOD, Tubi is making sure soccer fans never miss a moment of this historic winter World Cup.”

Tubi is part of Fox Entertainment.

Tubi said now has a lineup of FAST channels covering 150 sports including the NFL and Major League Baseball. ■

With the new season about to kick off, commercials in National Football League games are selling out earlier than ever, with spots in the Super Bowl already nearly gone at prices topping a record $7 million.

Network sales execs this year’s haul from NFL games -- TV’s highest rated programming -- should top the $4.43 billion generated during the 2021-22 season.

Also: New Nielsen Study for NFL Finds 208 Million Watched Super Bowl LVI

As viewers shift to streaming, sports remain one of the few places on traditional TV where advertisers can reach large audiences. So instead of waiting till after upfront entertainment deals are done, sponsors began snapping up NFL inventory ahead of the network presentations in May, Mark Evans, executive VP of ad sales for Fox Sports, told Broadcasting+Cable.

“Coming out of the upfront, we found ourselves over 90% sold for the full year,” Evans said. “We typically come out of the upfront market about 80% to 85% sold.”

Demand was particularly strong for special games on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

Evans declined to talk about price increases, but a source familiar with the situation said Fox was getting increases ranging from high single digits to low single digits on a cost-per-thousand viewers (CPM) basis.

Fox, which also has the FIFA World Cup and baseball's World Series coming up, is looking at a big football postseason as the first network in 40 years to carry two Wild Card playoff games, two NFC Divisional Playoff Games, the NFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl.

Sponsors are enthusiastically buying up spots in Super Bowl LVII. Usually, most Super Bowl sales take place after the start of the season, in September and October. This year, Super Bowl deals were done in concert with upfront deals. “That was very different for us,” Evans said. “We’re months ahead of where we typically are.”

Immediately after the upfront, Fox had 90% of its Super Bowl inventory sold, he said. Now its up to about 95% with just a handful of units still available. The good news for prospective advertisers is that Fox still has spots available in both the first half and the second half of the game, giving sponsors more flexibility. 

Again, Evan’s declined to discuss price, but sources said 30-second commercials were going for more than $7 million, up from the $6.5 million NBC received for its highest-priced  commercials in the February 2022 Super Bowl. 

Also: Fox Super Bowl Ads Getting Record Prices: Lachlan Murdoch

"We feel excellent about what we’ve sold, the pricing structure and how we’ve managed our inventory,” Evans said, adding he has warned potential advertisers that the price of Super Bowl ads will only rise. As far as the remaining spots go, “we’re open for business and we’ll transact for a deal that makes sense.”

For the Super Bowl, Verizon will be Fox’s halftime sponsor. (Pepsi has pulled out as sponsor of the NFL’s halftime musical performance. No replacement has been announced.) 

Sellout levels are also high for Fox’s Super Bowl pre-game programming. Some of the half hours have presenting sponsors and a vast majority of those are already gone, with just two half-hours still available.

All in, Super Sunday is expected to generate upwards of $500 million for Fox.

Sean Hanrahan, senior VP, Disney Advertising Sports Brand Solutions, says Monday Night Football spots on ESPN are also well sold at this point. 

”Sell-throughs are tremendous, with double-digit price increases,” Hanrahan said. “We’re happy to have the Manning-cast back again. That was a big hit for us last year,” he added, referring to the simulcast on ESPN2 featuring Peyton Manning, his brother Eli Manning and special guests.

On Monday Night Football, Target is the new sponsor of the half-time highlights that lead into the start of the third quarter. Progressive returns as the pre-kickoff programming sponsor. Subway is back as the sponsor for the Countdown show leading into MNF and Snickers is back for Sunday night’s NFL Countdown.

Evans said Fox’s regular season sales were bolstered by adding 28 new advertisers who hadn’t bought the NFL on Fox last year. Those advertisers generated more than $100 million of new business for the NFL on Fox. 

The bulk of Fox’s NFL sales remain in familiar categories, such as insurance, technology and autos. But there were also some categories registering double-digit increases, up as much as 30%. Those include travel and entertainment, with theatrical films and streaming services spending big, and the dining category also up strongly.

Given the run on NFL inventory, Evans said he’s seeing more clients looking to strike multi-year deals. ■

On the heels of this past Saturday’s Anthony Joshua-Oleksandr Usyk heavyweight championship pay-per-view fight, the PPV boxing industry is gearing up for two more heavyweight fight cards heading into the fall.

Fox Sports will deliver the September 4 PPV bout between former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz and top contender Luis Ortiz, followed by an October 15 fight between former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and Robert Helenius.

Fox Sports Executive VP and head of programming Bill Wanger said that the two fight cards look to take advantage of increasing interest in the heavyweight division, which has featured several PPV events over the past four years. 

Since 2018, six PPV boxing events featuring either Wilder, Ortiz or Ruiz have drawn collectively more than 2 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. The fights are led by the second bout between Wilder and current heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, which drew more than 800,000 PPV buys, according to industry sources.

Wilder is stepping into the ring in October for the first time since losing his last two fights to Fury, with the hopes of eventually regaining the heavyweight championship belts. Ortiz and Ruiz are both looking to position themselves for another shot at the title by winning their September matchup.

All three fighters are chasing the current WBO, WBA and IBF heavyweight champion Usyk – who on August 20 defeated former champion Joshua for the second straight time in the rematch of their September 2021 fight – as well as Fury, who holds the WBC title. Fury announced his retirement earlier this summer, but industry observers say a potentially lucrative unification fight against Usyk could lure him back into the ring. 

Outside of the heavyweight division, the PPV boxing category is counting down to the September 17 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin trilogy fight. The first two Alvarez-Golovkin fights in 2017 and 2018 generated a combined 2.4 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. ■

In a major college sports TV development, the Big Ten Conference has reached seven-year distribution deals with Fox, CBS and NBC for rights to the conference’s marquee football and basketball games.

The agreement, which goes into effect in 2023 and will pay the conference a reported $1 billion a year, is modeled after the NFL, which offers live games across multiple networks and platforms. As part of the deal, Fox, CBS and NBC will all air Big Ten football games on Saturdays beginning in the fall of 2023. 

The three networks will also split the Big Ten Football Championship game telecasts, with CBS airing the game in 2024 and 2028, Fox in 2023, 2025, 2027 and 2029 and NBC in 2026, according to the Big Ten. Fox and ESPN currently hold Big Ten rights deals.

“The new rights agreements are an incredible achievement for our entire conference and a true testament of what can be accomplished with teamwork,” Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said in a statement.

The deal puts the Big Ten at the forefront of the college sports television landscape. The 14-team conference, which includes high-profile schools Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan, will add Pac-12 schools USC and UCLA to its lineup in 2024. 

TV sports analyst Lee Berke said the Big Ten deal is a huge deal for the conference and the TV sports category. “College football content stirs the TV sports drink and [the Big Ten] offers a lot of it,” he said. “With the additions of USC and UCLA, they will offer more of it in major markets with major audience appeal, particularly during the fourth quarter of the year. That’s a tremendous amount of content that every major network wants to go after, and you’re seeing that with the players involved in this deal."

As part of the agreement, Fox will continue to televise football and men’s basketball games, while the Fox Sports-owned Big Ten Network will continue to televise the conferences' football, basketball, and Olympic sports competition.

"We are proud to expand upon our long-standing partnership with the Big Ten Conference and further bolster our position as the premier rights holder of  the conference," Fox Sports CEO and executive producer Eric Shanks said. 

CBS will offer seven Big Ten football games in 2023, which will ramp up to 15 games beginning in 2024, including an annual Black Friday game in the afternoon. CBS will continue to air Big Ten regular-season and postseason men’s and women’s basketball games, including the Big Ten Men’s semifinals and final games, as well as, for the first time, the women’s basketball tournament final. Paramount Plus will stream the CBS Big Ten basketball and football games.

“The Big Ten has been a valued partner for more than three decades, as we're thrilled to expand that relationship by adding Big Ten football to our portfolio of marquee properties," CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said. 

NBC and its streaming service Peacock will air 14 to 16 college football games as well as up to 47 regular season men’s college basketball games and 30 women’s basketball games. 

"We a re incredibly excited to be partnering with Kevin Warren and the Big Ten Conference on this robust package of sports," said NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua. ■

Fox Sports said it is launching a new ad campaign promoting its coverage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup starring actor Jon Hamm.

Hamm plays Santa Claus, who has to cut back his Hawaiian vacation because the soccer tournament has been moved to the holiday season. Traditionally played in the summer, this year’s World Cup is being played in Qatar where it is very hot so, for the first time ever, it will be played starting Nov. 21 through Dec. 18.

The campaign’s tagline is “ ’Tis the FIFA World Cup.”

“One of the unique things about the FIFA World Cup is that it’s a really communal experience where people want to get together with others to enjoy the event,” said Gottlieb. “To have that sync with the holidays this year for the first time ever, when we will all be gathering with friends and family, made for an incredible opportunity to embrace the holiday spirit in Fox Sports’ creative campaign,” said Robert Gottlieb, executive VP, marketing for Fox Sports. . We look forward to following Santa on his soccer journey as he meets more surprise guest stars and becomes captivated with this year’s long-awaited tournament.”

Hamm provides the voice for Fox’s upcoming animated series Grimsburg. Best known for his lead role in Mad Men, Hamm is also a star of the hit film Top Gun: Maverick.

Fox Sports will present all 64 World Cup matches live on either Fox or FS1 Every match will stream live on the Fox Sports app. Matches will also be available on demand after their conclusion on Fox’s streaming service Tubi. ■

The July 4 holiday weekend slate of live TV sports events begins on the football field as the upstart USFL concludes its inaugural season with its Championship Game between the Birmingham Stallions and Philadelphia Stars.

Also on tap for the weekend is WNBA action as ESPN televises the Phoenix Mercury-Chicago Sky contest on Saturday as well as Sunday’s Washington Mystics-Connecticut Sun contest. Also on Sunday, NBA TV will air the Seattle Storm-Atlanta Dream game and CBSSN will televise the New York Liberty-Los Angeles Sparks game.

On the links, CBS and the Golf Channel will offer coverage of the final rounds of the John Deere Classic PGA tournament.

On the racetrack, NBC Sunday will air the Honda Indy 200 IndyCar Series race, while USA Network will televise the NASCAR Cup Series Kwik Trip 250 race and ESPN covers the British Grand Prix Formula One race.

ESPN Plus on Saturday will distribute the UFC 276 pay-per-view bout between Israel Adesanya and Jared Cannonier.

ESPN will continue its Wimbledon tennis tournament coverage throughout the three-day holiday weekend. On Monday, ESPNNews will telecast live the annual Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Peacock’s Sunday afternoon baseball game will feature the Kansas City Royals against the Detroit Tigers, while ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball matchup pits the St. Louis Cardinals against the Philadelphia Phillies.

NBC, Peacock and USA Network on Saturday will offer live coverage of the Tour de France cycling event, with USA and Peacock offering third-round coverage on Sunday.

MLB Network will offer a full day of Independence Day baseball games featuring five regional telecasts scheduled to begin as early as 11 a.m., according to the network. ■

Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady has agreed to join Fox Sports as its lead NFL analyst after his playing career concludes.

The announcement was made by Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch in what he called "real time" during Fox’s earnings call with analysts Tuesday morning.

Brady would replace Troy Aikman, who left Fox along with Joe Buck to broadcast ESPN’s Monday Night Football games. Aikman and Buck worked as a team on Fox Sports for 20 years.

Also: Tom Brady Series ‘Man in the Arena’ on ESPN Plus

“We are pleased to announce that immediately following his playing career, seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady will be joining Fox Sports as our lead analyst,” Murdoch said.

Brady, 44, briefly signaled he would retire after last season but decided to rejoin the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The New York Post, owned by another Murdoch company, reported that Brady's deal will pay him $375 million over 10 years. Aikman is getting $18 million a year ESPN and Buck is getting $15.5 million.

“Tom will call our biggest NFL games with Kevin Burkhardt and serve as a client ambassador for us,” Murdoch said. “We are delighted that Tom has committed to joining the Fox team and we wish him all the best in this upcoming season.“

Murdoch also noted that Fox reached an agreement with the NFL to air an incremental game on Christmas Day. Last year’s Christmas game generated 28 million viewers, he said. ■

Pay-per-view content aggregator In Demand will look to serve fight fans online seeking to purchase DAZN’s May 7 Canelo Alvarez-Dmitry Bivol fight with its new, interactive-based PPV.com website that the company hopes will grow as more viewers look to access big events digitally. 

The site, which the Cox Communications, Charter Communications and Comcast-owned In Demand launched this past December in partnership with interactive video company Kiswe, offers online users the opportunity to purchase PPV events like Avarez-Bivol outside of the company’s traditional linear PPV offering. PPV.com has already distributed 10 to 15 sports-themed events and has another three events scheduled through the month of May, according to In Demand senior VP of programming and marketing Mark Boccardi.

In Demand will launch a PPV.com app and hopes to have deals soon for mobile platforms Apple iOS and Android, as well as deals with connected TV platforms such as Roku TV, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV by the end of the year. Boccardi recently outlined In Demand’s business plan for PPV.com with Multichannel News. Here's an edited transcript of that conversation. 

Also: Fite to Distribute Floyd Mayweather PPV Exhibition Bout 

Multichannel News: How does PPV.com fit into In Demand’s overall strategy of distributing major pay-per-view events to consumers? 

Mark Boccardi: In Demand along with our owners decided to launch a direct to consumer streaming platform because the pay-per-view business has become splintered. For every event, it’s become very confusing for the customer as to where they need to go to buy it – is it on Showtime? Is it Fox Sports? Is it DAZN? Is it Fite? Is it Triller? We already have relationships with all of these programmers and we’re carrying their content already via traditional PPV, so we thought we would consolidate all forms of pay-per-view distribution under one roof. We want it to be easy to find an event without having to subscribe to a whole new service. The beauty of PPV.com is that you just buy what you want.

MCN: Are you finding that more consumers are turning to the digital platform to purchase PPV events? 

MB: Absolutely. I think what we've recognized is that in order to be successful in this distribution environment, you have to be where the customers are. Clearly what we have seen happening across the entire TV landscape is a shift to digital as an option, and pay-per-view is a big part of that. It’s really just about customer options and being where customers are going to be. Having said that, the traditional pay-per-view platform with cable, satellite and telco distributors still represent the majority of pay-per-view buys for any one event. So what we're doing is really complimentary to the core business that we've always done. Now that we're in both, we can track and see how they move with each other, but the important thing for us is to be in both places.

MCN: What are some of the bells and whistles that PPV.com offers beyond the traditional event feed? 

MB: We offer a hosted chat where we bring in industry experts to guide the discussion between consumers on different subjects throughout the event. For [Alvarez-Bivol] we’re going to offer a bilingual chat. We also have an option for viewers to post video selfies to allow them to be part of the community. What we’ve heard from fans is that they love this more communal way to watch a pay-per-view event – you’re not just sitting alone at home but instead you’re part of this larger community. 

MCN: Will you look to expand PPV.com’s lineup beyond predominately ring sports events?

MB: I think everything is on the table. One of the nice things about having this new service is that we have a lot of programmers coming to us saying, ‘I have this concert or this sporting event.’ I’m confident that we’ll be carrying content outside of boxing, wrestling and soccer events. 

PPV.com May Event Schedule 

(Dates, Events and PPV Purchase Price)

May 7 – Boxing: Canelo Alvarez vs. Dmitry Bivol ($79.99)

May 14 – Boxing: Sergey Kovalev vs. Tervel Pulev ($29.99)

May 28 – Boxing: Gervonta Davis vs. Rolando Romero ($74.99)

May 29 – Pro Wrestling: AEW: Double or Nothing Price ($39.99)

Broadcast networks Fox and NBC on Saturday (April 16) will kick off the opening season of the United States Football League with a rare simulcast of the league's inaugural game, as the USFL looks to succeed where other spring football leagues have failed.

The eight-team, Fox Sports-operated league will play a 10-game regular season -- with all games played at Protective Stadium in Birmingham -- and a three-game postseason that will determine the league's champion. 

Fox Sports and NBC Sports will televise every game via the Fox and NBC broadcast channels, USA Network and FS1 cable channels, and the Peacock streaming service.

Mike Mulvihill, Fox Sports executive vice president and head of strategy and analytics, spoke to Multichannel News senior content producer R. Thomas Umstead about Fox’s operational and programming strategy for the league, as well as how USFL games will differ from the NFL on the field of play. An edited version of the interview appears below.  

Listen to the rest of Multichannel News’ interview with Mulvihill as part of its TV Sportsplay podcast.

Multichannel News: Why is Fox Sports confident that there is viewer demand for pro football in the spring? 

Mike Mulvihill: I think the foremost thing that gives me confidence is that the appetite for spring football has already been pretty well demonstrated. The numbers that we saw in 2020 for the [WWE-owned] XFL were really encouraging. Had the pandemic not turned our world upside down and forced the XFL to suspend operations we would probably be in our third season of XFL football right now. The numbers that they were doing were more than satisfactory – they were doing a little under 2 million viewers for their games on national networks. That’s a pretty good number in the current environment. I think that gives us a good baseline expectation for what we can do.

MCN: How is Fox looking to market and promote the USFL in a very crowded and noisy sports television marketplace? 

MM: I think we can come at that in a couple ways. One is that we’re very fortunate to have not just our own networks, but to have an incredible partner in NBC Sports. To have a scenario where we're able to leverage our own air time and our own promotional vehicles, and also rely on NBC for their own promotional power and production expertise is a really advantageous situation. There have been very few startups that have launched with the full support and the full power of not just one but two major traditional media companies. Hand in hand with that we've developed a schedule that has something like two-thirds of our games on free, over-the-air television networks at a time where a lot of sports content is going to streaming networks. For the viewer right now it’s a little bit tricky to find the content that they’re looking for – they don’t know what streaming platform to go to or what games are on what cable channels. When you have a lot of games on Fox broadcast or on NBC broadcast – the same networks that they go to to watch the NFL every Sunday – that's a huge advantage.

MCN: From an operational standpoint, does Fox’s control of the USFL increase the prospects for the league’s long-term success?  

MM: You raise a great subject, because when people examine the opportunity for success in a spring football league, what they tend to focus on is consumer demand and whether we can  generate an audience. But I think just as important is how we manage costs and how we keep those costs from getting out of control, which I think has been a big issue for previous spring leagues. We feel really confident that the consumer demand is there. Where we think we have a great business advantage is in the fact that we are an owner of the league, and we are able to use the vast resources of a company of this size to help manage the operations of the USFL.

MCN: How will the USFL differ on the field from the NFL? 

MM: I would tell you that probably 95 % of the USFL rule book is identical to the NFL rule book, because we don't feel a need to reinvent the game. When people tune in, we want this product to be instantly recognizable as professional football –  we don't want it to be excessively gimmicky. Where things get a little bit different is after a scoring play, we've got some innovations that we think are going to help keep games close. One of them is that a team can elect to either kick an extra point or try for a two-point conversion. We're actually going to introduce a three-point conversion as well, because when you have a three-point conversion in play that means that a game with a margin that's as much as 18 points is still a two-possession game. We think that's going to keep fans interested. We've got a mechanism in place where rather than attempt an onside kick, we're going to let a team bring their offense on the field and try to convert a fourth and 12 [play] from scrimmage. The play clock will go from a 40-second clock to a 35-second clock – it’s a subtle distinction, but again it should just result in more offensive plays per game. ■ 

TV Sportsplay is a new podcast from Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News that offers in-depth discussions with network executives and on-air personalities about the business of TV sports.

Multichannel News senior content producer R. Thomas Umstead talks pro football with Fox Sports executive VP and head of strategy and analytics Mike Mulvihill on the eve of the launch of the Fox-owned USFL league. Fox Sports and NBC Sports share the USFL TV rights and will simulcast the league’s first game on April 16 between the New Jersey Generals and the Birmingham Stallions.