21st Century Fox Stock Takes A Hit After Fox’s $3B ‘Thursday Night Football’ Deal

21st Century Fox Stock Takes A Hit After Fox’s $3B ‘Thursday Night Football’ Deal

Fox’s biggest bet yet on its post-Disney future, locking up rights to Thursday Night Football through 2022, has sent shares of parent company 21st Century Fox tumbling.

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The stock, which had been up modestly in 2018 to date, is down 4% for the day since this morning’s announcement of the NFL deal. It entered the afternoon trading at $36.90.

A source familiar with the negotiations between the NFL and multiple networks told Deadline that Fox paid north of $3 billion, more than 30% higher than the $450 million NBC and CBS paid to share last year’s slate. Fox and the NFL have declined to discuss the financial terms.

The stock wobble reflects skepticism about the long-term viability of the NFL, whose total ratings have declined 17% in the past two years. This season’s numbers have been hit by ongoing viewer dissatisfaction with anthem protests, as well as a flood of games on the schedule, something even Fox executives had previously criticized.

Thursday night in particular has been a mixed bag since its 2014 broadcast debut, posting strong numbers but yielding few memorable games and contributing to the recent NFL glut. According to the Standard Media Index, Thursday night contributes about 20% of the gross ad spend revenue from in-season games. Revenue in 2017 declined 3% compared with 2016 even as paid unit rates rose 7%.

The flip side of that coin, of course, is that all linear ratings are declining, so football offers an iceberg that may be melting, but at a slower rate than other programming. Fox also made the Thursday announcement with a major sponsor, Budweiser, and the beermaker’s involvement is likely to have offset some of the rights costs.

For Fox, which will be making a go of it as a network in a dramatically reduced environment once its studio arm is acquired by Disney as part of the companies’ pending deal, the deal ensures a flow of reliable programming. And yet, for schedulers and marketers, it will create more fall disruption. The network already juggles show premieres in October and the first couple of days in November due to baseball post-season and the World Series.

The interruptions in the fall schedule, which remains a key launchpad for primetime shows, may have been a factor in the thinking at CBS and NBC, each of which submitted bids to continue airing Thursday night games. For NBC in particular, the split schedule introduced tricky variables as it launched its Thursday lineup and then had to benched it for football before bringing it back.

“We made a competitive bid based on our two years of carrying TNF,” NBC said in a statement. “We’ll now continue to focus on keeping NBC’s Sunday Night Football in its perch as primetime’s No. 1 program.”

CBS said in a statement, “We explored a responsible bid for Thursday Night Football but in the end are very pleased to return to entertainment programming on television’s biggest night.” Big Bang Theory and freshman breakout Young Sheldon are mainstays of the Thursday lineup.