WZTV
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 have seen 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 was not known if WZTV will be one of the stations sold, although the stations being sold to Fox were expected to be from Tribune Media (notably KCPQ in Seattle, where Sinclair already owns KOMO-TV), many of which were previously owned by Fox. On May 9, 2018, Sinclair announced that seven Fox affiliates would be sold to FTS, but WZTV was not included and an affiliation renewal was announced for that station instead, keeping WZTV with Sinclair.
KSHB-TV
One of the stations involved in the wide-ranging agreement was Kansas City's longtime NBC affiliate, WDAF-TV, which had been affiliated with that network since it signed on in October 1949. Earlier on May 5, two weeks prior to its signing, New World had announced that it would acquire WDAF-TV and three other television stations owned at the time by Great American Communications – which was subsequently renamed Citicasters – for $350 million in cash and $10 million in share warrants (CBS affiliate KSAZ-TV in Phoenix was also acquired through the deal, although New World would sell Great American-owned ABC affiliates WBRC in Birmingham and WGHP in High Point, North Carolina to Fox's owned-and-operated station group, Fox Television Stations, as its purchases of stations from Great American and Argyle Television Holdings put it over FCC ownership limits prohibiting a single company from owning more than twelve television stations nationwide and its purchases of WBRC and Argyle-owned WVTM-TV in Birmingham would have violated rules in place at the time forbidding common ownership of two commercial stations in the same market). New World included WDAF among the stations that would switch to Fox as part of its affiliation agreement with the network.