September 2006). Six years later, when the league entered contract negotiations with its television partners, Fox placed a $1.58 billion bid to obtain broadcast rights to the National Football Conference – covering four seasons of games, beginning with the 1994 NFL season. The NFL selected the Fox bid on December 18, 1993, stripping CBS of football telecasts for the first time since 1955. The event placed Fox on par with the "Big Three" television networks and ushered in an era of growth for the NFL. Fox's acquisition of the NFL rights also quickly led toward the network reaching an affiliation deal with New World Communications to change the affiliations of twelve of its stations to Fox (see above). The rights gave Fox many new viewers and a platform for advertising its other programs. With a sports division now established with the arrival of the NFL, Fox acquired broadcast television rights to the National Hockey League (1994–99), Major League Baseball (since 1996) and NASCAR auto racing (since 2001, initially as part of a deal that also involved NBC and TNT). From 2007 to 2010, Fox aired the Bowl Championship Series—a group of college football bowl games held around New Year's Day, and the BCS National Championship Game (with the exception of any event held at the Rose Bowl Stadium, including the Rose Bowl Game and the Rose Bowl-hosted 2010 BCS National Championship Game, as their organizer maintained a separate contract with ABC). Following the conclusion of the deal, Fox acquired rights to the Big Ten Conference and Pac-12 Conference's newly established football championship games (the latter alternating yearly with ESPN). In 2017, Fox acquired tier 1 rights to the Big Ten Conference. In August 2011, Fox and mixed martial arts promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) reached a multi-year agreement, which included the rights to broadcast four live events in prime time or late night annually, marking the first time that the UFC aired its events on broadcast television. Its first UFC on Fox event, Velasquez vs. Dos Santos, aired on November 12, 2011. This deal ended at the end of 2018, with UFC events moving to ESPN and ESPN+. The network's telecast of Super Bowl XLVIII remains the highest rated program in the history of the network, and the second highest rated U.S. television program of all time. Meanwhile, its telecast of Super Bowl LI remains the record holder for the