WPNT
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. Originally speculated that WPGH-TV may be sold to Fox while Sinclair retained WPNT, it was later reported that WPNT might be included in the deal as well in order to keep the two stations together, which would make WPNT a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station. On May 9, 2018, Sinclair announced that seven Fox affiliates would be sold to FTS, but WPGH-TV was not included and an affiliation renewal was announced for that station instead, keeping WPGH-TV and WPNT with Sinclair.
WFLD
On December 14, 2017, The Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC's owned-and-operated station WLS-TV (channel 7), announced its intent to buy WFLD's parent company, 21st Century Fox, for $66.1 billion, pending regulatory approval; later on June 13, 2018, Comcast, one of the largest cable providers in Chicago and owner of NBC owned-and-operated station WMAQ-TV (channel 5) and Telemundo owned-and-operated station WSNS-TV (channel 44) announced that they had joined Disney in the bidding war to buy Fox's entertainment assets for $65 billion. In addition, the sale will exclude WFLD and sister station WPWR-TV as well as the Fox network, the MyNetworkTV programming service and the Fox Television Stations unit, which will be transferred to a separate company.