Fox Scores Upfront Ad Dollars in Bad Market. The Trick? Lots of Sports

The overall market is down, but Fox is up.

Despite Madison Avenue pressures on TV’s annual “upfront” ad-sales market and a projection that advertisers’ budgets will be tighter than in years past, Fox Corp. has scored more commitments for its sports, news and entertainment properties than last year, according to a person familiar with recent negotiations.

This person says Fox was able to nab a double-digit percentage increase in the volume of advertising tied to both Tubi and Fox News Channel, and “record” volume for sports and news, even as commercial buys tied to scripted entertainment on the Fox broadcast network were flat with last year’s totals. Overall, ad commitments to the broader Fox portfolio grew in the mid-single-digit percentage range, this person says.

“Fox delivered another strong Upfront performance, reflecting the value of our portfolio across Sports, News, Entertainment and Tubi,” said Jeff Collins, president of advertising sales, marketing and brand partnership, at Fox Corp., in a statement. During the “upfront,” U.S. media companies try to sell the bulk of their commercial inventory ahead of their next cycle of programming.

Key to Fox’s success? Unlike its rivals, it has more of what advertisers want and less of what they don’t. Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery have sports to sell as well — but they also have copious amounts of ad inventory tied to cable networks like TNT, E!, MTV and Freeform in which marketers have decreasing interest. Advertisers are in a rush to get money down on big-tent (and even smaller-tent) sports telecasts, which draw broad crowds all watching simultaneously. And advertisers also see value in streaming, where more consumers can be found watching video favorites at times of their own choosing.

Fox pared down its cable assets in 2019 when it sold assets like FX to Disney for a deal estimated to be valued at more than $71 billion. Since that time, Fox has put more resources into live programming, including news, sports and spectacles, with only a narrow amount of schedule devoted to traditional entertainment programming.

Fox Corp. secured nearly $6.9 billion in advertising in its fiscal 2025, according to company disclosure.

Fox in May impressed advertisers with a showcase that spoke directly to interest in sports and also in digital-ad capabilities. The company put its chief technology officer, Melody Hildebrandt , on stage — a rare maneuver in a format that has long been dominated by executives who manage drama and comedy. Lachlan Murdoch, Fox’s CEO, also delivered public remarks, something no member of his family, which controls Fox, has done in recent memory — or even in the farther past.

Fox’s upfront results were buoyed by additional commitments from pharmaceutical marketers, technology advertisers and financial-services firms, according to the person familiar with the matter. Eight of the company’s ten biggest-spending ad categories added to commitments in the market, this person says.

Like its rivals, Fox faced a tough market in 2026. Ad buyers once again pressed for significant “rollbacks” on rates, particularly for streaming inventory that is supposed to represent the future of the medium. The supply of streaming ad time is huge, particularly with Amazon and Netflix in the market, and much of it is not seen as high value to advertisers because consumers watch movies and shows on demand whenever they wish. That means the audiences at any given time are usually quite diffuse.

There has also been pressure for rollbacks on cable inventory, because more consumers are abandoning their cable subscriptions in favor of streaming services. Many media companies have resisted, and that has created a standoff in some upfront discussions, according to five executives familiar with current negotiations.

Fox “did not write one rollback,” says the person familiar with the company’s upfront talks.

Fox was able to secure increases in the rate of reaching 1,000 viewers, a metric known as a “CPM” that is critical in this annual bout of haggling between media companies and Madison Avenue. Fox was able to nab CPM increases in the mid-single-digit to low-double-digit percentage range for sports, this person says, and in the mid-single-digit percentage range for both Fox News and the Fox entertainment schedule.

Many of the main video companies will be forced to try to use sports and other big-ticket properties to move sales of advertising tied to less desirable properties. Fox, says the person familiar with its negotiations, had “a simple story” to tell and only “a small, finite amount” of traditional TV to sell. The company “doesn’t have to hold up negotiations to get cable entertainment fair value.”