Besides creating some anxious moments for American fans, the USWNT’s failure to win its group at the FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time since 2011 isn’t exactly great news for Fox Sports.

A scoreless draw against Portugal on Thursday and the Netherlands’ 7-0 rout of Vietnam gave the U.S. a second-place finish in Group E — meaning fans in the States must watch the remainder of their quest for a third-straight World Cup victory in the middle of the night.

Fox was betting on the USWNT winning its group (-400 betting favorites pre-tournament) when it collaborated with FIFA on knockout-stage match windows. Had the U.S. won the group, it would’ve played on Saturday night at 10 p.m. ET — and if victorious, the following Thursday at 9 p.m. ET.

Those are the only two East Coast primetime slots left in the tournament being played in Australia and New Zealand, and Fox confirmed to Front Office Sports that game times are already set in stone by FIFA. If the U.S. rallies to the final, its path will look like this (all times ET):

• Round of 16: Sunday at 5 a.m.
• Quarterfinals: Friday, Aug. 11 at 3:30 a.m.
• Semifinals: Tuesday, Aug. 15 at 4 a.m.
• Final: Sunday, Aug. 20 at 6 a.m.

The U.S.-Netherlands match set a record for Women’s World Cup group-stage viewership after the USWNT’s opening match delivered a near-record number of its own. 

Knockout-round matches in primetime surely would have delivered even bigger audiences, leaving Fox — and fans — wondering what could’ve been. Sweden — the most likely opponent for the U.S. in the next round — has won matches against the Americans in the previous two Olympic tournaments, but the U.S. beat Sweden at the 2019 World Cup.

The slime is coming to the Super Bowl, in what is likely to be the start of a wave of alternate broadcasts for the biggest annual event in U.S. television.

On Tuesday, CBS Sports parent Paramount unveiled plans for a kids-themed broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII on Nickelodeon, building on three prior presentations of NFL games and a fourth scheduled for Christmas 2023.

The broadcasts — operating parallel to the main CBS Sports presentation and featuring the network’s well-known graphics and personalities — will be the first alternate Super Bowl broadcast, but surely not the last.

The league’s new set of media rights deals — completed in early 2021, worth about $110 billion overall, and going into full effect this year — contain provisions allowing networks to develop additional Super Bowl broadcasts. 

Those contract elements materially expand on existing efforts offering standard English- and Spanish-language game broadcasts — and will also allow Fox, Comcast, and Disney to similarly spread upcoming Super Bowls across more sister channels.

“We are encouraging all our broadcast partners to innovate around game presentation, [to] think of new, different, engaging ways to present the game,” Alex Riethmiller, NFL VP of communications, told Front Office Sports.

Nickelodeon’s prior NFL’s games have steadily dropped in average viewers:

• January 2021 Wild Card game: 2.06 million
• January 2022 Wild Card game: 1.33 million
• December 2022 regular-season game: 906,000

But instead of fearing diminishing returns, Paramount looks to expand what is already American TV’s largest audience, with Super Bowl LVII in February bringing in 113 million viewers on Fox.

“In Year 1 of our new long-term deal with the NFL, we continue to maximize the potential of our expanded distribution rights and further unlock the value of the league,” said Bob Bakish, Paramount president and CEO.

One Super Bowl, Two Networks

Super Bowl I in 1967, prior to the AFL-NFL merger three years later, was shown on both CBS and NBC as a result of separate broadcast rights contracts each of those leagues held.

While also a multichannel airing, the situation for Super Bowl LVIII fundamentally differs as it involves sister networks working from a single rights contract.

Tuesday is shaping up to be one of the most critical days in the history of the Pac-12. Conference presidents, chancellors, and athletic directors met to discuss a potential media-rights deal without coming to any official agreement, according to multiple reports.

The deal discussed was streaming heavy with Apple, according to ESPN, and with enough subscriptions could theoretically bring in more revenue than the Big 12’s $380 million annual deal with Fox and ESPN that kicks in next year. It could also be worth significantly less. The Pac-12 declined to comment to Front Office Sports.

While the group plans to meet again soon, the Arizona board of regents, which governs the University of Arizona and Arizona State, is scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. ET — with the Arizona schools the presumed next targets for the Big 12, along with Utah.

With no media rights deal beyond the 2023-24 academic year, the Pac-12’s current members are:

• Arizona
• Arizona State
• California
• Colorado — rejoining the Big 12 in 2024
• Oregon
• Oregon State
• Stanford
• UCLA — moving to the Big Ten in 2024
• USC — moving to the Big Ten in 2024
• Utah
• Washington
• Washington State

If agreed upon, a new media deal could entice the remaining nine schools to stay put and attract a 10th member or more. Until now, the Pac-12 has been “in never-never land,” a source recently commented to Front Office Sports — and a lack of progress on the media front could push more schools away.

If the Arizona schools are ready to jump ship, then Tuesday’s Pac-12 meeting could have been the last chance to convince them otherwise. 

Losing Arizona, ASU, and potentially Utah would decimate the conference and make schools like Oregon and Washington even bigger targets for the likes of the Big Ten and ACC.