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.
1994 United States broadcast TV realignment
The key to the deal was that Fox upgraded its stations in several markets. Prior to the deal, of the fourteen NFC teams at the time, only four – the Los Angeles Rams, New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins – were located in markets with VHF Fox affiliates. Of those four markets' Fox stations, WNYW (channel 5) in New York City, KTTV (channel 11) in Los Angeles and WTTG (channel 5) in Washington, D.C. are three of the network's original six owned-and-operated outlets; the San Francisco Bay Area affiliate, Oakland, California-licensed KTVU (channel 2), was owned by Cox Enterprises at the time, and would not be acquired by Fox until October 2014.