WWE: New Update on TV Rights Negotiations

Disney and Amazon are both reportedly in the running for WWE SmackDown.

By Connor Casey

WWE is actively in negotiations with various companies for its next round of TV rights deals. The current contracts with NBCUniversal (airing Monday Night Raw and NXT weekly on the USA Network) and Fox (airing Friday Night SmackDown on the flagship FOX network each week) are set to expire next year and the exclusive negotiation window with both companies has already expired. The Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer offered a new update on the situation on the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, mentioning that both Disney and Amazon are in the running to land a deal for SmackDown. He also mentioned that Raw and NXT will likely stay put on USA. 

"The belief is that Raw and NXT will probably stay with USA although WWE is looking for a huge increase in price for both of those shows, especially Raw, obviously from 465 to 700 [million]. As far as SmackDown goes, time will tell. There's a feeling that FOX is not going to go for the 300, which is what WWE is trying to get out of Smackdown or more, and that Disney and Amazon are probably the two companies most in contention for it," Meltzer said (h/t WrestlingNews.co).

Given WWE's sports-esque presentation, there's an assumption among fans that WWE would wind up on ESPN should Disney manage to land a TV rights deal. Meltzer also speculed on the possibility of either ABC or FX. 

"It's not out of the realm of possibility that it could be on ABC, but ABC on Fridays, they have had 20/20 and Shark Tank, which is actually a pretty highly rated show. And even though it's not as highly rated as Smackdown most weeks now, I mean, it was before, but lately, it has not been. It still fetches higher ad rates for ABC than Smackdown would. So because of that, it doesn't necessarily make the most sense for ABC, even though Smackdown has been absolutely killing it," Meltzer said.

Could SmackDown Leave Friday Nights?

While Raw has consistently run on Monday nights since it first launched three decades ago, SmackDown has moved around the weekly schedule numerous times. Meltzer said it's entirely possible that the Blue Brand will switch nights again depending on the deal.

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"When it comes to Friday night network television, for them to necessarily make that change, I hadn't really heard people talking about it on ABC, just the possibility that it could be," Meltzer said. "The other thing, too, is they could change nights. They're not married to Friday. They're on Friday because FOX wanted them on Friday. If you remember, they were on Tuesday for a long time. They'd been on Thursday, they'd been on, basically on the night that the network that owns the rights wants them to be on."

Where do you think SmackDown and Raw will wind up? Will both stay on Mondays and Fridays? Tell us your predictions in the comments!

WWE Superstar Spectacle 2023 Results

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  • Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens & Sami Zaun def. Indus Sher (Jinder Mahal, Veer & Sanga)
  • Natalya def. Zoey Stark
  • WWE Intercontinental Championship: Gunther def. Shanky
  • Bron Breakker def. Odyssey Jones
  • Women's World Championship: Rhea Ripley def. Natalya
  • John Cena & Seth Rollins def. Imperium (Ludwig Kaiser & Giovanni Vinci)

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