College sports will feel sting of Fox delaying NFL negotiations

With college athletics fixated on Capitol Hill last week as the landmark Protect College Sports Act ultimately stalled in the Senate, it was easy to miss another development that unfolded a few hundred miles north: At 345 Park Avenue, to be specific.

On Thursday evening, the NFL’s push to renegotiate its media rights agreement came to an unofficial halt — a twist that carries sweeping implications for college football and basketball, conference media rights deals and perhaps the next round of realignment.

During an earnings call with Wall Street analysts, Fox chairman Lachlan Murdoch indicated his network would wait until the end of the decade to re-engage with the NFL on a new broadcast contract.

“In advance of the season, we’ve had recent, thorough and productive discussions with the league,” he said on the call. “As a result, we will not be making any amendments to our existing contractual relationship.”

Murdoch’s strategy makes perfect sense given the NFL’s current contracts with Fox, NBC and CBS extend through the 2029 season. But commissioner Roger Goodell and the owners, seeing the greater-than-expected value of the NBA’s new media contract, had hoped to haul their network partners to the table several years early and squeeze another $6 billion or so out of them. (That’s $6 billion annually, by the way.) But Fox, understandably, is wary of spending the money until it has no choice.

That said, the NFL’s desire to renegotiate several years early also makes sense considering its position as the apex franchise in the American media food chain, frequently accounting for more than 80 of the 100 most-watched broadcasts per year on linear TV. Without the retransmission fees and advertising dollars generated by NFL games, Fox, NBC and CBS would lurch toward bankruptcy.

“The NFL is a need-to-have,” Justin Beitler, director of media rights consulting for Octagon, told the Hotline. “The networks would give up everything before they give up the NFL.”

As a result, other sports properties with media contracts expiring in coming years — that list includes the Big Ten and the Big 12 — have been closely tracking the NFL’s pursuit of new agreements.

The current deals with Fox, NBC, CBS, ESPN/ABC and Amazon generate about $11 billion annually for the league. According to industry sources, Goodell and the owners targeted an increase of at least 50 percent, valuing the new package at approximately $17 billion per year.

That’s $6 billion the networks would not have been able to spend on other sports and scripted TV.

“You can see the avalanche coming,” Beitler added, “and it’s not a good place for the other properties coming up.”

Had the NFL reworked its deals in 2026-27, the networks could have spent a few years recovering before negotiating new deals with the Big Ten and Big 12, whose rights expire in 2030 and 2031, respectively.

But Fox wasn’t willing to return to the table (and applied political pressure). If the NFL intends to keep all broadcast partners on the same contract cycle, which makes sense on multiple levels, then it could delay pursuit of new deals with NBC, ESPN/ABC and CBS.

That trajectory has mammoth consequences for college sports — starting with the richest conference of them all: The opening in the NFL broadcast contracts after the 2029 season coincides with the end of the Big Ten’s deals with Fox, CBS and NBC.

“Regardless of how much the NFL gets from whom, they are going to take a lot of the available pie,” Patrick Crakes, head of Crakes Media and former Fox Sports senior VP for programming, research and content strategy, told the Hotline via text message.

“That was always going to happen. However, what that exactly was would have least been a ‘known-known’ if the deals were redone this year.

“Now, what the NFL takes is a ‘known-unknown.’ You know they’re going to take a lot, and they’re the priority. But you don’t know how much and exactly when and with whom.”

In other words, a wave of uncertainty just hit major college football right where it matters most: at the ATM machines disguised as TV networks.

After all, media rights negotiations are the propellant for realignment decisions. When a contract cycle concludes, conferences look for ways to maximize their paychecks in the next round. As we saw with the Big Ten adding USC and UCLA in the summer of 2022, expansion is the standard solution.

With the NFL’s negotiations seemingly delayed until the end of the decade, the college conferences and other properties, including Major League Baseball, have fewer facts and exponentially more guesswork ahead.

Fewer “known-knowns” and more “known-unknowns.”

The best outcome? That’s easy.

“If I’m the Big Ten, Big 12 or college football,” Beitler said, “I’m hoping for chaos with the NFL negotiations — that a traditional legacy broadcast network loses its rights. If one of them doesn’t re-sign with the NFL, they could have as much as $2 billion to spend …

“College football wants a legacy broadcast network to get shut out, especially if streamers continue to stay out.

“So far, they haven’t shown an appetite for a full season of college sports rights.”

Within the college football space, inequality rages.

Fox will prioritize the Big Ten, according to multiple industry sources. But that doesn’t mean the conference can expect to repeat its 2022 success and secure a deal worth more than double ($1 billion annually) the previous agreement ($440 million).

“If the Big Ten thinks it will get the same size increase as last time, it has something else coming — not if its three partners (Fox, CBS and NBC) all write big checks to the NFL,” a media industry source said.

“There’s only so much money.”

For the lesser properties in the Fox lineup, including the Big 12, the situation is even more concerning.

The apex franchise apparently won’t gorge for several years.

What will be left for everyone else?

*** Previously published Hotline articles on sports media:

— Two early-season kickoffs show why Fox wants the CFP to expand
— The Pac-12 plus The CW plus ESPN equals a victory for Gonzaga
— How the Paramount-WBD deal could impact Power Four media rights
— Duke v Michigan: ESPN wants more non-conference games in February
— College football ratings soared: Thank the change in Nielsen’s measuring process
— The CFP rankings shows, ESPN’s insurgents and the need for credibility
— Fox, CBS should flip windows to help the Big Ten’s West Coast teams
— Brett Yormark’s “GameDay” pursuit and the Big 12’s media strategy
— Friday night football is a ratings success; are doubleheaders next?
— How the Week 5 games highlight CBS’ big whiff with the SEC
— Thanksgiving Eve is an open broadcast window the Big 12, Pac-12 should exploit