Six years later, as the league's television contracts for both the National Football Conference and American Football Conference divisions, and for the Sunday and Monday primetime football packages were up for renewal, Fox placed a bid for $1.58 billion to obtain the broadcast rights to the National Football Conference. On December 17, 1993, the NFL selected Fox's bid and signed a four-year contract with the network to award it the rights to televise regular season and playoff (as well as select preseason) games from the NFC, beginning with the 1994 season; the initial contract also included the exclusive U.S. television rights to broadcast Super Bowl XXXI in 1997. The deal stripped CBS of football telecasts for the first time since 1955.
