By 2003, Murdoch and his team had built an impressive global sports regime within News Corp., while transforming the industry with innovative strategies, implementation, and technologies. Murdoch had used FOX's acquisition of the National Football League (NFL) rights in 1993 to launch an attack on the entrenched Big Three broadcasters — CBS, ABC, and NBC. On the cable side of the business, FOX had identified a gap in the market where unbranded and ungrouped regional sports networks (RSNs) aired local team games. FOX believed in the increasing regional emphasis of America and set out to join the regional networks together. Despite these successful moves, Murdoch knew all too well that the sports industry never remained static and many key decisions remained in the future.
