The English Premier League has ended its media rights contract with Fox Sports Mexico due to non-payment for the 2024-25 season. The remaining games of the season will now be broadcasted in Mexico by Tubi, a free ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corp.
The termination of the agreement took place last week, resulting in the league pulling its feed from Fox Sports Mexico before last weekend's fixtures. The broadcaster failed to honor its financial commitments due to cash flow problems and has also defaulted on payments owed to several other sports organizations whose TV rights it owns. Fox Sports Mexico is owned by Grupo Lauman, a telecoms and media company distinct from the US-based media giant. The four-year deal between Premier League and Fox Sports was valued at approximately £50 million ($63.2 million) and was set to run until the end of 2027-28 season.
In recent months, several properties including Concacaf (the governing body for football in North America, Central America, and Caribbean), American football’s NFL, Liga MX clubs, and wrestling’s WWE have all terminated their deals with Fox Sports Mexico. Prior to this development, pay-TV broadcaster held 50% of Premier League rights in Mexico while Warner Bros Discovery held the other half through HBO Max and TNT Sport services.
Transitioning broadcasting rights
Fox Sport's deal with English top flight only began this season after Paramount+'s contract was cancelled. It had rights for about 100 matches each season while HBO covered 90 matches. Tubi has now picked up where Fox left off acquiring their share of broadcasting rights for remaining games this season.
Premier League's global TV rights deals are considered as the most lucrative in the world and serve as a major source of income for its clubs. Overseas broadcast contracts are projected to earn clubs £6.5 billion between 2025 and 2028, marking a 23% increase on the previous cycle.
This is significantly more than the £6.4 billion value of domestic rights between 2025 and 2029.
Fox Sports Mexico's future
The separation of Fox Sports Mexico from Fox Corp occurred five years ago during Disney’s £56 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox. Lauman licensed the brand from Disney and bought international sports rights including Premier League, NFL, and Formula1 (F1).
Earlier this year, Lauman agreed to sell Fox Sports Mexico back to Fox US with regulatory approval granted but progress on this deal has stalled.
Despite these setbacks, Fox Sports Mexico still holds sports rights for F1 and Major League Baseball.
