![]() ![]() ![]() The league never played a single game.ĭespite having a few successful shows in its slate, the network did not have a significant market share until the early 1990s when Fox parent News Corporation (which became 21st Century Fox through the July 2013 spin-off of its publishing unit, now the current News Corp.) began to upgrade some of its local affiliates – and eventually purchased additional stations from other television station groups, such as New World Communications and Chris-Craft Industries' BHC Communications and United Television, making it the largest owner of television stations in the United States. Meanwhile, after the Fox Broadcasting Company was launched, David Dixon, founder of the above-mentioned USFL, proposed the creation of the "American Football Federation", a spring league that would be made up of ten teams and draft high school graduates who were declared academically ineligible to play College Football by the NCAA. However, the NFL, in part because Fox had not yet established itself as a major network, chose to renew its contract with ABC. Fox made an offer to the NFL to acquire the Monday Night Football contract for the same amount ABC that had been paying to carry the package, about US$1.3 billion at the time. In 1987, Fox's first full year on the air, ABC initially hedged on renewing its contract to carry Monday Night Football – then the league's crown-jewel program – and was in the middle of negotiations to reach a new contract, due to an increased expense of the rights. It notably passed on the original United States Football League (USFL), which had hoped to move to fall in 1986, the same time Fox was to debut, and was seeking a broadcast contract the USFL would shut down instead. To this end, Fox had bid aggressively for football broadcast rights almost from the start. Fox management, having seen the critical role that soccer programming had played in the growth of British satellite service BSkyB, believed that sports, and specifically professional football, would be the engine that would turn Fox into a major network the quickest. Though Fox was growing rapidly as a network, and had established itself as a presence, it was still not considered a major competitor to the more-established " Big Three" broadcast networks ( ABC, CBS and NBC). Coverage formally began the following month on September 4, with the premiere of Fox NFL Sunday, followed by a slate of six regionally televised regular season games on the first Sunday of the 1994 season. The network aired its inaugural NFL game telecast on August 12, 1994, with a preseason game between the Denver Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. In weeks when Fox airs a doubleheader, the late broadcast (which airs nationwide in nearly all markets, there typically being only one to three games taking place at the time) airs under the brand America's Game of the Week. The latter two shows feature the same studio hosts and analysts for both programs, who also contribute to the former. Game coverage is usually preceded by Fox NFL Kickoff and Fox NFL Sunday and is followed on weeks when the network airs a Doubleheader by The OT. The NFL on Fox (also known as Fox NFL) is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox broadcast network. Fox Network Center, Los Angeles (studio segments, pregame and postgame shows) ![]()
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