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.
WJW (TV)
On April 24, 2018, Sinclair announced that WJW would be one of 23 stations sold to obtain approval for the merger, though it was one of seven stations for which a buyer was not disclosed. On May 9, 2018, it was officially announced that Fox Television Stations would buy back WJW, as part of a $910-million deal that also involved six other Tribune-owned stations (Fox affiliates KTXL/Sacramento, KSWB-TV/San Diego, KDVR/Denver, KSTU/Salt Lake City and KCPQ/Seattle, and CW affiliate WSFL-TV/Miami). With eight different owners since 1985, the deal would result in WJW having had the most successive owners of any television station in the Cleveland market.