Lachlan Murdoch said Fox doesn’t anticipate changes to its contractual terms with the NFL until closer to the 2030 season.

“We will not be making any amendments to our existing contractual relationship, which extends to the completion of the 2029 season. We’ll be ready to engage with the NFL on the opt-out seasons and beyond at a day closer to the 2030 season, which has been the customary timetable,” he told investors on a call after earnings.

That was a surprise as League created a flurry of speculation when it indicated it wanted to renegotiate rights deals with partners a few years ahead of the window for packages expiring after the 2029 season.

Pressed by analysts during the Q&A, Murdoch said, “I can’t really give you any color in terms of the background to how we’ve come to that … We always err on the side of not going into specifics about discussions with our partners.”

“Suffice it to say that our relationship with the NFL is a is an incredibly positive one. We engage with them all the time. Obviously, we’ve been talking with them over the last period about the future of our rights, certainly for the next four years and then beyond the opt-out period. We feel we continue to have a great relationship with them.”

But, “when we sit down and talk about the contractual extension of our rights after 2029, I think we’ll do that much closer to that date.”

He noted that Fox has just taken NFL rights for Mexico “where we continue to promote and amplify their games and the League, which we’ve been doing for the last 30 years. So we’re very pleased with the relationship and we think we can see a clear path forward, certainly through the ’29 season and also beyond.”

He talked up the company’s successful World Cup broadcast to make a case “to all sports leagues” of the value of Fox.

The soccer bonanza “illustrated how Fox can take events like this and amplify them in a way that’s frankly unique in the market … Obviously Leagues are intent and focused on monetizing their IP and their properties the most efficiently. But it’s important to realize the strength of the marketing, the reach, the planning, the production that that we put behind events like this.”

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