Fox Joins Bidding For Thursday Night Football

Fox has placed a bid for the rights to the Thursday night package, which expired at the conclusion of the regular season, a person with knowledge of the bidding process told USAToday Sports. The person asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions. CBS and NBC, who combined to pay $900 million over the previous two-year deal, also are bidding.

The bids by the three networks already have reportedly exceeded what NBC and CBS paid under the previous deal. They were not authorized to speak publicly because of the nature of the discussions. The deadline to submit bids has passed, but CBS, NBC and Fox are allowed to rebid over the coming days.

Disney is not among the final bidders, something Sports Business Daily reported last week could be a possibility. Disney was exploring a bid that would have broadcast the games on ABC with ESPN branding.

Amazon, Twitter and at least one other company is in the running for the digital rights to the games, one of the people with knowledge of the bids said. Bloomberg reported last week that Facebook was out of the running, although one person with knowledge of the bids told USA TODAY Sports that may not necessarily be the case.

Amazon paid $50 million to carry the games in 2017 and Twitter had the streaming rights in 2016.

The winners of the broadcast and digital bidding process isn't expected to be announced until after the Super Bowl.