John Nallen: FOX Will ‘Probably Look’ at ESPN MLB Package

FOX Sports has been a broadcast partner of Major League Baseball since 1996, but the landscape surrounding the media distribution of games has been altered significantly since that time. As the company works on bringing a proprietary direct-to-consumer product to market later in the year, it continues to look at its sports portfolio that features baseball, along with rights to the NFL, Big Ten Conference, NASCAR and FIFA World Cup.

The enterprise recently added broadcast rights for MotoGP, IndyCar and LIV Golf to its sports oeuvre as well, further broadening its offerings for consumers. On top of that, FOX Sports just attained record viewership for its broadcast of Super Bowl LIX, averaging 127.7 million viewers on FOX, FOX Deportes, Telemundo and NFL digital platforms to claim the all-time U.S. television record.

John Nallen, the president and chief operating officer of Fox Corporation, expressed during an appearance at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference that there were not many sports rights available at the moment. With that being said though, the company is ostensibly keeping its options open with the MLB regular-season slate of games approaching, referencing a mutual opt-out between the league and ESPN that terminates their broadcast agreement following the 2025 campaign.

“I think what will come to market in some form will be some baseball product, particularly after baseball and ESPN announced that after the season their relationship would change,” Nallen said. “So baseball has been a great product for us, and we’ll probably look at that and look at it in the context of how it makes sense to us overall. But absent that from a product standpoint, there’s not a lot out there that we’d be attracted to at this point.”

Nallen also discussed the ability for the NFL to opt out of its national television media rights deals after the 2029 season. The company is currently in the midst of an 11-year agreement with the league for which it pays a reported $2.25 billion per annum. Having recently completed its 31st season broadcasting games, Nalle recognizes the product offered by the league while also recognizing the potential for the opt out to be invoked following the Super Bowl broadcast to conclude the 2029 season.

“I have no idea whether the NFL will invoke that termination right or change the character, change the games, whatever,” Nallen said. “At this moment, I have no idea, but what I do know is that in any negotiation we’ve had with the NFL, the discussion around it happens well before the termination date. So in prior pre-contracts we’ve had with the NFL, the discussion is two years ahead of time or 18 months ahead of time.”

Nallen emphasized that revenue at FOX is split evenly between advertising and affiliates, functioning as drivers that support nearly all of the businesses within the media conglomerate. Advertising has particular importance for its sports contracts in the NFL, and he articulated that it “will be an important element” in the evaluation as the league works with eight different platforms to present games across broadcast, cable and streaming television. FOX Sports attained an average of 18.4 million viewers for NFL game broadcasts during the 2024 regular-season slate of games, which is down 3.1% from the previous season.

“Look, the NFL is vitally important to us,” Nallen said. “We provide them with great production quality, the ability to do national and regional games. We give them the reach for broadcast that they can’t get elsewhere.”

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