Potential Risks Of Future Changes To WWE SmackDown Exposed

WWE

With WWE’s TV deal with Fox coming to an end shortly, it looks like the Friday night mainstay may be moving home.

It was recently reported that Fox had cancelled the “Out of Character” WWE podcast with this being seen as a “another sign that Smackdown will be moving from FOX at the end of the current contract.”

With Dave Meltzer having previously stated that “analysts have believed that for some time, that even with the ratings the show delivers that it isn’t cost-effective”, he has provided more insight in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Exploring the difficulties of scheduling SmackDown, Meltzer wrote:

Something to consider with talk of Smackdown leaving FOX. If it goes to FX, it would be incredibly stupid for FX to air it on Friday. They’d be spending $300+ million per year for a show that would be doing maybe AEW Dynamite numbers on a Friday, and maybe not even that. If they stay hot they’ll be above it by a little, and if not, AEW will be above it with the advantage of Wednesday over Friday. That makes no sense.

For that money they’ll want it on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. If it’s Tuesday, NXT has to move to Wednesday or Thursday. If it’s Wednesday, it goes against AEW and that would be very interesting. Right now that would hurt AEW a lot and hurt Smackdown some.

If FX wants to win a ratings war you go Wednesday but if it wants to maximize viewers it goes Tuesday or Thursday.

TBS could also switch days for Dynamite if Smackdown goes Wednesday. For WWE, the most convenient day would be Tuesday and moving NXT to Wednesday (if their goal is to hurt AEW and also hurt themselves) or Thursday (if the goal is maximum viewership). But that would also have to fit in with what USA wants. But USA doesn’t have all these hit shows so NXT would have to say on Tuesday. But would they want to minimize their own audience now that the show is growing to hurt TBS.

At this stage, with everyone just wanting any audience they can get, probably not. But for production and execs weekly workload, TV on Monday and Tuesday each week is so much better than Monday and Thursday or Monday and Friday.

If they are on Amazon Prime, they would also probably want it any night but Thursday, Friday or Saturday with what they’d be paying. That actually leaves Wednesday as somewhat likely.

Meltzer had recently stated that Disney and Amazon were both interested in securing WWE content under the current rights negotiations.

WWE president Nick Khan has also spoken about the upcoming WWE media rights negotiations.

ESPN’s President of Content Burke Magnus has previously discussed the idea of ESPN potentially securing WWE’s rights.

WWE currently airs Raw and NXT on the USA Network, with premium live events on Peacock and SmackDown being held on FOX.

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• FX
• media rights
• TBS
• usa
• Smackdown
• wwe

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