Earlier this year, Fox outbid Comcast-owned NBC for the Thursday NFL games, agreeing to pay $550 million to $650 million a year for 11 games a season, according to ESPN and Bleacher Report. Many believe that Fox wildly overpaid for the Thursday night games that have some of the lowest Nielsen ratings for NFL games — costs that will be partly borne through special "retransmission fees" buried in cable- and satellite-TV bills.