Fox CEO and executive chair Lachlan Murdoch, making his first appearance since resolving an extended intrafamily dispute, said the resolution strongly affirms the current company strategy, which is based significantly on its presence in live sports.
Speaking this week at a Goldman Sachs conference, Murdoch said the complex settlement that keeps him in place leading the family empire and pays three siblings for their interests will be a boon for investors and sports fans.
“It’s great news for investors. It gives us a clarity about our strategy going forward,” Murdoch said. “It ensures that our strategy will be consistent, it’s clear, and it’s very sustainable. … We can be very focused on returning capital to investors, driving our profitability, and really importantly, investing in our core brands and especially in our great journalism. So we are very pleased to be able to move forward and remain focused on the path that we’re on.”
One of those intact areas of focus is a growing streaming strategy based in large part on the recently introduced Fox One service. That offering will be bundled with ESPN’s separate direct-to-consumer service beginning in October, and Murdoch specifically touted that plan in his conference remarks, calling it vital for fans.
“We think it will be an essential bundle, the essential sports bundle for fans in America,” he said.
Just three weeks into the debut of Fox One, Murdoch said it was too soon to draw conclusions about its market performance, but he said early consumer response was encouraging. Fox One leans heavily on the network’s sports portfolio, including coverage of the NFL, college football, and MLB, among others.
“[Initial] take-up has exceeded our expectations,” he said. “What you can see on Fox One is that news is really helping drive audience and reach Monday-to-Friday, but then with sports, starting with college football and now with the NFL, gives a tremendous audience and viewership and acquisition capabilities over the weekend. So the balance between news and sports, and there’s a lot of overlap in those audiences, has been very successful.”
With Murdoch remaining at the helm of Fox, the company also has a series of key sports rights deals expiring in the coming years, including with FIFA, MLB, the NFL, and Big Ten.
Sportsbook Option
Meanwhile, Murdoch reiterated Fox’s plan to exercise an option to acquire 18.6% of FanDuel, the largest U.S. sportsbook, expiring in 2030. That option currently carries below-market pricing as the exercise price set in 2020 was based on a $20 billion valuation for all of FanDuel, plus 5% annual escalators. FanDuel, however, has grown by more than half since then, as it was valued at $31 billion in July when parent company Flutter took full control.
Exercising the option will require Fox to be licensed with regulators in the jurisdictions where FanDuel operates.
“We think they’re tremendous investments,” Murdoch said of FanDuel and Flutter. “We are very committed to them. And we are committed to becoming a licensed company so that we can exercise that option. … The resolution of the control of the company through the family trust actually will make that licensing process much more simple. So we think that’s an important step as well.”
