The 2023 Upfronts take place this week and are expected to play a major role in the world of pro wrestling this coming Wednesday as Warner Bros. Discovery is heavily rumored to make some announcements regarding AEW. WWE’s current TV partners, NBCUniversal and Fox, both had their presentations on Monday but neither featured much of a presence from the pro wrestling promotion. WWE stars were reportedly featured in NBCU’s video package for Peacock but there was no mention of its weekly televised product (Monday Night Raw and NXT air every Monday and Tuesday night on the USA Network) and no wrestlers were present.ย
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Prior to their presentation this afternoon, Fox put out a press release but did not mention WWE despite Friday Night SmackDown being scheduled to air every Friday night on the FOX network.ย
Per PWInsider, WWE’s current deal for NXT to air on USA expires this September. The media rights for both Raw and SmackDown (both of which expire in 2024) are ongoing, which WWE CEO Nick Khan addressed in the latest investors’ conference call.ย
“I believe they’re both seeing the growth of the product, the impact of the product, in the right way. So we’re optimistic about all of that. In terms of the timing of getting a deal done…you can control a lot of it. You can never control when it closes or when you get to an agreement. So we can’t estimate that yet, but we remain bullish on Raw and SmackDown,” Khan said.
“We’ll see what happens with the Peacock situation,” he later added. “As I think everyone knows, that’s not up for a couple of years.”
On top of the media rights negotiations, WWE is also in the process of a merger with the UFC to form a new company under the Endeavor banner. The speculation of how that merger will be handled has been a popular topic as of late, as even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was asked about it last week during an interview with CNBC.
“I see smooth sailing with those guys. They’ve known each other for a very long time,” Johnson said. “We all have, as a matter of fact, and I see smooth sailing with this. This has been a long time coming. If you think about where Vince (McMahon) started. I often talk about my seven bucks moment, how I had seven bucks in my pocket when I was cut from the Canadian Football League. Vince had his seven bucks moment as well when he leveraged every dollar he had for the very first WrestleMania. Years later, he creates this merger with Ari that is in the billions of dollars. I see, when I say smooth sailing, these guys are adamant on creating an incredible conglomerate that is going to entertain the masses. Between WWE, UFC, Bullriding, and probably other things that are coming down the pipe, I’m excited about this merger.”
