New York — Three months before he struck a deal with Walt Disney, Rupert Murdoch got a sobering reminder of how quickly the media world was changing. The billionaire’s 21st Century Fox was trying to purchase global TV rights for cricket matches in India’s top league, one of dozens of bidding processes for sports programming he’s participated in over his decades in the business. But this time he was competing against a new rival — Facebook, which offered $600m to stream the matches. Fox eventually agreed in early September to pay $2.55bn for TV and streaming rights for five years. But Facebook’s ambitions weren’t lost on Murdoch, who had already begun contemplating the idea of selling major parts of Fox’s media empire to a bigger rival to create a stronger competitor in an increasingly costly entertainment industry. Facebook’s bid for the cricket was a "warning shot" that the digital giant was "coming at sport", Murdoch said in an interview on Fox Business Network on Thursday. Meanwh...
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