Fox and the NFL have agreed to a five-year deal for Thursday night football games.

Those games previously were televised by CBS and NBC, two of the league鈥檚 other network partners. Fox announced Wednesday that it will televise 11 games between Weeks 4 and 15, with simulcasts on NFL Network and Fox Deportes.

Fox, which has the Sunday afternoon NFC package, will produce all of the games under the deal, which is worth a little more than $3 billion, according to a person with direct knowledge of the terms of the deal who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league didn鈥檛 announce its value.

鈥淭his is a single partner deal, we are not splitting the package,鈥� NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a conference call. 鈥淲e had tremendous amount of interest from all the broadcast partners, all of whom wanted it exclusively. We felt this was the best opportunity for the NFL to grow the Thursday night package.鈥�

Goodell added that the league is exploring partnerships with digital outlets, also in conjunction with Fox.

The NFL has broadcast deals 鈥渇ive years out鈥� with its other partners 鈥� ESPN has the Monday night package 鈥� so five years on this agreement made sense.

鈥淔undamentally, Fox was built on football,鈥� said Peter Rice, president of 21st Century Fox, noting that 25 years ago, the NFC package 鈥渉elped launch a fledgling network into what it is today.鈥�

鈥淭hese opportunities come along very, very infrequently,鈥� he added. 鈥淵ou either have the rights to the most-watched content in media or you don鈥檛. If you don鈥檛 take the opportunity, this won鈥檛 come up again for five years. We believe in buying the very best rights, and the best rights are the NFL.鈥�

CBS and NBC each paid $450 million for the previous two-year package.

鈥淲e explored a responsible bid for Thursday Night Football but in the end are very pleased to return to entertainment programming on television鈥檚 biggest night,鈥� CBS said in a statement. 鈥淎t the same time, we look forward to continuing our terrific long-term partnership with the NFL on Sunday afternoons, with more than 100 games per season including next year鈥檚 Super Bowl 53.鈥�

Fox could have a conflict if weather causes a World Series game to be postponed from Wednesday to Thursday. In recent years, Series Game 2 and 6 have been scheduled for Wednesday.

鈥淚n that hypothetical kind of a scenario, the World Series game would stay on Fox and our Thursday night game would become an FS1/NFL simulcast,鈥� Fox spokesman Eddie Motl said.

Goodell noted that the Thursday night games are a place for innovation.

鈥淥ne of the things we鈥檝e taken into consideration with Thursday night in general is to evolve this package, to use it as an opportunity to learn, to understand where these various platforms are going, and what we can do to make it a more attractive experience for our fans,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e will look at that in that context, and the term will be consistent with what it will take to make sure that we continue to evolve that platform as well as the experience for our fans.鈥�

That means streaming outlets, of course.

鈥淲e have accepted bids for digital partners,鈥� Goodell said. 鈥淲e have very healthy competition. In fact, I would say it鈥檚 unprecedented competition from a number of digital partners.

鈥淎s I say, we put our focus on the broadcast package first. 鈥� We are not required to go coterminous with the broadcasts. We can do any length of deal that we get to an agreement on with that digital partner. As I mentioned earlier, we will be doing this in co-operation with our Fox partners.鈥�

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Barry Wilner, The Associated Press