Amid a politically divisive and potentially expensive rights renegotiation with the NFL, Fox Corp. has opened up its checkbook in a rather different way.
The Fox Sports parent company said Monday it is acquiring streaming platform Roku in a deal carrying a $22 billion enterprise value. The agreement, the first major deal for Fox since executive chair and CEO Lachlan Murdoch cemented control of the business last year, marks a further investment in streaming for a company that was relatively late to that part of the media business.
Fox, however, intends to blend its own content and the Tubi streaming service it owns with The Roku Channel, a popular entry point for streaming consumers with more than 100 million global streaming households.
In the U.S., Fox, Tubi, and Roku collectively hold a 5.5% market share of the domestic streaming market, according to the most recent Nielsen data. That figure just exceeds the 5.3% that top rival Disney holds. Roku has also sought to position itself as an aid for fans to find live games on disparate platforms and navigate growing media fragmentation.
“The discovery of [our] sports rights can really be assisted with distribution across Roku and discovery through the Roku home screen,” Murdoch said early Monday in an analyst call.
