With the announcement that “WWE Friday Night SmackDown” will move to the USA Network in October 2024, the TKO Holdings era of WWE is off to an explosive start. Through September 2024, “Monday Night Raw” and “NXT” will continue to air on the NBCUniversal cable channel. However, there are rumors that both shows will depart for another as-yet-undetermined country at that point.
The five-year “SmackDown” contract calls for the weekly episodic wrestling show as well as four primetime specials each year, which will debut on NBC. Although no financial details have been disclosed as of yet, analysts estimate that the deal will cost NBCU roughly $1.4 billion, which is more than the deal WWE received from FOX.
WWE President Nick Khan remarked, “NBCUniversal has been a fantastic partner of WWE for decades. We’re thrilled to continue our long-standing partnership by bringing SmackDown to USA Network on Friday nights and are looking forward to NBC’s yearly launch of many WWE special events.
What does that mean for the WWE’s main event and its development area? To begin with, it appears that NXT will eventually be available on a streaming service, most likely Peacock or Prime Video. Given that NBCU and WWE have a working connection and that Peacock is a program targeted at wrestling fans, Peacock makes the most sense.
The weekly viewership for NXT that comes for the live program and stays for its extensive archive of wrestling programming would no certainly please Peacock, which also serves as the domestic home for all WWE large events. Prime Video is constantly looking for fresh sports programming, but they might have their sights set on something more significant.
“It’s a privilege and a thrill to continue NBCU’s decades-long partnership with WWE,” said Frances Berwick, head of NBCU Entertainment. “It has helped cement USA Network’s consistent position as the top-rated cable entertainment network in live viewership.” We’ll continue to leverage the strength of our portfolio to provide this ardent fanbase with the WWE center on Peacock, Friday nights on USA, primetime specials on NBC, and Friday nights on USA.
The two rumored suitors for “Monday Night RAW” are Disney and Prime Video. The other half of TKO Holdings, the UFC, and its long-standing partnership with ESPN make a deal with Disney seem nearly certain. Depending on whether they want to move “RAW” off of Monday Nights, Disney would love to add the devoted viewership of WWE to either ESPN or FX.
“Monday Night Football” is owned by ESPN, so there would be a glaring conflict of dates throughout the fall. Of course, if Disney and TKO are keen to have the show run on the top sports network in the world, they may opt to relocate it to Tuesday nights. From a scheduling standpoint, that would seem to make sense because the college basketball and NHL hockey schedules offer considerably more flexibility than the NFL schedule does. In order to compete with TBS’s “AEW Dynamite,” they could possibly try to air “RAW” on Wednesday nights. However, despite the nostalgic memories of the Monday Night Wars between the WWF and WCW a few decades ago, they probably wouldn’t try to further narrow the audience for such a specialized show.
Such scheduling concerns are unimportant to Prime Video, which is free to air “RAW” at its customary Monday night time slot. WWE might choose to transfer its flagship program to a different night if it decides it no longer wants to compete with professional football for around 20 weeks each year. Then, Prime Video could incorporate “RAW” with “Thursday Night Football” and its MLB programming to produce a captivating sports destination.
