Fox said it acquired Outkick Media, the sports media company started by outspoken commentator Clay Travis.
Travis already works with Fox, with Outkick being part of the Fox Sports website and Travis’ show appears on Fox Sports radio.
Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch, who announced the deal during Fox’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday afternoon, said that Outkick, with its focus on sports, opinion and pop culture, overlapped with many of Fox’s businesses.
Those businesses include FoxBet. Outkick produces gambling related content and has a deal with Fanduel and provides a significant number of sports wagering referrals.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
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Fox said plans to operate Outkick as an independent brand and leverage its content across its existing platforms. Clay Travis will remain integrally involved at Outkick and serve as its President.
“Outkick has grown out of my passion for producing bold, well-informed, and entertaining content about sports, current events and, more recently, sports wagering," Travis said in a statement. "With the power of Fox behind us, we look forward to maintaining Outkick’s unwavering commitment to that mission, as well as further accelerating the growth of our audience, and continued leadership in the sports wagering affiliate category.”
Murdoch also said Fox was pleased with its new NFL deal.
He said that Fox always intended to renew the NFL’s Thursday night package. This week it made a deal to let Amazon Prime carry Thursday night games exclusively starting in in 2022, a year earlier than originally planned.
By releasing Thursday Night Football a year early, Fox will realize a $350 million to $400 million positive impact in EBITDA in that fiscal year, Murdoch said.
Murdoch called the Sunday NFC package that Fox retained the foundation of the Fox network and strategically aligned with its station group, which has outlets in 14 of 16 NFL markets.
He said Fox was comfortable with the scale of the new deal from a financial point of view and its digital rights preserves “the ability to continue to evolve our business model.”
He said those digital rights would come into play this coming season with a NFL branded channel on Tubi, Fox’s streaming platform.
Outkick Media is jointly owned by Clay Travis and Savage Ventures. Savage Ventures will continue having an operational role in the business going forward. Methuselah Advisors served as the exclusive financial advisor to Outkick for the transaction.
