An ornate collage celebrating the Disney-Fox merger, featuring logos, a castle, Lady Justice, a stadium, and text about the deal.

July 27, 2018, in a deal first announced December 2017, and completed March 20, 2019,[62] 21st Century Fox shareholders agreed to sell most of its key assets (including 20th Century Fox and FX Networks) to The Walt Disney Company for $71.3 billion, following the spin-off of certain businesses. The sale did not include the Fox Broadcasting Company and television stations or the Fox Sports, Fox News, and Fox Business cable channels, which were to be maintained under a company tentatively referred to as "New Fox".[63][64] Because Disney already owns the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the acquisition of the Fox network by Disney would have been illegal under the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s rules prohibiting a merger between any of the four major broadcast networks.[65] As a result of the Disney/Fox deal, and with the merger of CBS and Viacom on December 4, 2019, Fox has become the only major American broadcast network without attachment to any film studio. It was acknowledged that Fox had placed a larger emphasis on its sports programming in its first upfronts since the deal was announced, including the acquisitions of the NFL's Thursday Night Football package and rights to the FIFA World Cup. It was also noted that Fox had been increasingly pivoting towards programs that could generate large audiences, as opposed to ones that become successful primarily through critical acclaim. On June 27, 2018, WWE announced that SmackDown would move to Fox on Friday Mehr sehen