WUTV
On December 6, 2017, it was reported that Sinclair and Fox were working on a deal that would see its Fox affiliates renew their affiliation agreement in exchange for Sinclair selling some of its Fox affiliates directly to Fox Television Stations. The deal would see between six and ten Fox affiliates owned by Sinclair and Tribune (all in markets with an NFL team) become Fox owned-and-operated stations. It is not known if WUTV will be one of the stations sold, although the stations being sold to Fox are expected to be from Tribune Media (notably KCPQ in Seattle, where Sinclair already owns KOMO-TV), many of which were previously owned by Fox. A sale to Fox would make WUTV Buffalo's first Big Four network O&O since WBUF-TV (channel 17, now PBS member WNED-TV), which was owned by NBC from 1955 until its sign-off in 1958. On May 9, 2018, Sinclair announced that seven Fox affiliates would be sold to FTS, but WUTV was not included and an affiliation renewal was announced for that station instead, keeping WUTV with Sinclair.
Fox NFL
In the summer of 1994, SF Broadcasting (a recently formed joint venture between Fox and Savoy Pictures) purchased four stations from Burnham Broadcasting, which also became Fox affiliates between September 1995 and January 1996. In the NFC markets affected by the deals, Fox gained VHF affiliates in eight primary markets (Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Green Bay, New Orleans, Phoenix, St. Louis and Tampa) and three satellite markets (Austin, Greensboro and Milwaukee), adding to the three that the network had before the deal. The new affiliates in St. Louis and Greensboro switched shortly before the Rams relocated from Los Angeles and the Carolina Panthers began play with the 1995 preseason. Besides giving the network leverage in attracting new affiliates, the rights gave Fox many new viewers and a platform for advertising its other shows.