Monday night football could be scrapped from next season and a 6pm Friday night match broadcast on Fox Sports if the NRL accepts a radical News Corp proposal to secure the pay-TV rights.

However, the News Corp plan is reliant on Channel 9 surrendering the Saturday night match it recently secured from 2018 in the record $925 million free-to-air deal and moving one of its two Friday night matches to Thursday night.

Fairfax Media has been told that News Corp executives are keen to finalise a deal with the NRL quickly after Optus last week snatched the rights to the English Premier League from Fox Sports and details of the proposal have been outlined in the company's newspapers.

It is estimated that the deal would increase the total value of the NRL broadcast rights to $1.85 billion over five years.