Fox Pleased With 2025 Schedule After Asking Nfl For Better Afc-nfc Balance

The NFL's two Sunday afternoon TV packages have long been divided up with Fox primarily getting NFC games and CBS primarily getting AFC games, but in recent years the league has had more flexibility to move games across networks. And Fox hasn't always been happy with that.

Fox executive Mike Mulvihill told Richard Deitsch of TheAthletic.com that in past years his network has felt it was losing more good NFC games than it was getting back in good AFC games, but that Fox is pleased with how the NFL divvied up the schedule this season.

“We talked a lot with the league about the idea that ‘cross-flex,’ which is the policy by which NFC games can go to CBS and AFC games can go to Fox, needed to be a little bit more balanced,” Mulvihill said. “That cross-flex mechanism was created to help balance the (media) packages, and in the years since then, the AFC has become significantly better than it was when that protocol was agreed upon. They (other outlets) were getting better NFC games than we were getting back from the AFC side. It just became a little bit imbalanced.”

This year, Week 14 Bengals-Bills is a big AFC game with star quarterbacks Josh Allen and Joe Burrow, and likely playoff implications, that the NFL gave to Fox. That's a game that wouldn't have gone to Fox under the stricter NFC/AFC split, and it's the kind of game that makes Fox very pleased with the NFL's schedule makers.