WWE reaches billion-dollar deal with Fox
In last week蘑菇视频 column, we looked at a potential list of suitors for WWE蘑菇视频 Smackdown Live show since NBC Universal told the company to shop it elsewhere.
It didn鈥檛 take long for a deal to be reached.
Early Monday afternoon, ESPN Senior Writer Darren Rovell broke the news that WWE and Fox reached a deal, and while the deal has not been officially announced between the two powerful entities, word trickled out later in the day that the deal is worth more than $1 billion spread out over five years.
The deal will begin in October of 2019 and run through September of 2024, although the exact channel Smackdown Live will air on is not yet known.
When Rovell broke the news, WWE蘑菇视频 stock rose to almost $60 a share, which was a new record for the company.
One of the details of the deal is that Smackdown Live will return to Friday nights and off on Tuesdays, but that leaves several questions:
Will Smackdown be recorded live on Friday蘑菇视频 or will it be taped on Tuesday蘑菇视频?
The hunch here is that if Fox is spending over $200 million a year for Smackdown, which breaks down to more than $3.84 million per episode, it will want live programming.
If Smackdown airs on Fox instead of one of its smaller channels, will WWE make it the 鈥淎鈥� show since it would be on broadcast TV?
WWE will at least have to equal the rosters out because Fox executives will not want the show it is investing a lot of money in being looked at as the 鈥淏鈥� show.
Then again, NBC Universal won鈥檛 want Raw to lose its 鈥淎鈥� show status.
So how will it be worked out?
It could be possible that WWE might eliminate the brand split so that all of the stars appear on both shows.
On Thursday, Sports Illustrated蘑菇视频 Justin Barrasso posted a piece saying the same.
WWE was offered more money to move Smackdown to Facebook or Amazon, but Vince McMahon went with Fox because it promised WWE plenty of promotion.
With the NFL having Thursday night games on Fox starting this coming season, it will give WWE plenty of advertising once it starts airing in October, 2019, and it will give WWE the possibility to win over a lot of new fans.
Fox passed on UFC?
Fox has also been negotiating with UFC and offered it the same $200 million a year, but Fox pulled the offer.
Fox went with WWE because it will get 52 weeks of live programming a week whereas the UFC deal would have only been for 20 shows plus supplementary programming, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
TV deals minimizing PPVs?
With the new Fox deal in place and the Raw deal being ironed out, it appears that WWE is going to focus more on the weekly TV shows that it will on PPVs.
What does this mean?
The TV shows will build themselves up whereas in the past, the TV shows built up the monthly PPVs.
According to Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez said that all big matches will take place on TV while matches that air on the PPVs on the WWE Network, will be more like gimmick matches, stipulation matches and multi-person bouts.
The bigger shows, like WrestleMania and SummerSlam, for example, would still be built up like they always have been.
WWE shopping PPV蘑菇视频 to networks?
Could WWE be in the process of making the its WWE Network irrelevant in terms of live shows?
There is talk that WWE, after seeing the amount of money it is getting from NBC Universal and Fox, is shopping its PPVs to TV networks.
Could you imagine WrestleMania being on free TV?
Don鈥檛 laugh, as it could happen if the money is right.
Mania with TV commercial breaks after every match?
Does that make anyone else cringe?
More WWE PPV news
As reported in this column a few weeks ago, WWE is making the move for longer PPVs.
The shows will go to a 7 p.m. start with the kick-off show beginning an hour earlier.
The bigger shows will run a full four hours but most of the shows are set to run for three-and-a-half hours.
Banks signs new contract
Sasha Banks inked a new deal recently with WWE.
Terms of the contract were not revealed, but Banks is one of the top merchandise sellers so not only is she super talented in the ring, but she is also popular, especially with young girls.
On this date:
In 1996, the birth of the nWo takes place on an edition of WCW Monday Nitro.
Scott Hall, coming off of his successful stint as Razor Roman in the WWE, shows up during the first-ever two-hour edition of Nitro.
He entered from the crowd and informed Eric Bischoff that he was there to 鈥渄eclare war鈥� on WCW.
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