2024 WWE Media Rights Dealings: Smackdown moving to USA in October 2024, Raw to Netflix in January 2025
- Thread starter Emperoreddy
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Emperoreddy
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Or not. Apparently NBC is still the front runner to keep RAW, but the rights deal hasn't been agreed upon yet and both Disney and Amazon still sniffing about. New deal potentially could move RAW off Monday night.
Also the new smackdown deal was expensive.
Also the new smackdown deal was expensive.
Grackle Party
Full of guts!!
GKJ
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Emperoreddy
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It says in the WSJ article that RAW and NXT combined are being valued at the same 1.4 billion number that SD just pulled on its own, so yeah I would say NBC at least considers it the more valuable product
Emperoreddy
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Grackle Party
Full of guts!!
GKJ
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WWE basically keeps USA alive for NBC, or it did before they shut down NBCSN.
The money is the money, and it’s not Vince’s true problem now, but it would disappoint him to be off network TV. We all knew this wouldn’t stick on Fox.
Emperoreddy
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GKJ
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I would still bet they stay on USA, who is going to want to try to go up against Monday Night Football? The product is markedly better and the ratings are as bad as we’ve seen it.
Emperoreddy
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40% more money for less viewers but they have to fill content somehow. Less people watch shows on cable than networks - just look at NASCAR, for the most part the network races are consistently higher than the cable ones but really anyone with common sense already knew that. It has aired on FOX for a few years and things are more expensive now than they were that many years ago. Good for WWE to get paid, the show was always going to air somewhere so for the most part it doesn't really matter where is long as it's accessible to the majority of people and life goes on.
GKJ
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With Peacock having streaming rights, it’s hard to see how valuable it is to anyone other than NBCU. Fox was not happy about having to promote it, that was the first indicator that they weren’t happy.
It's deals like this that make me feel like sometimes businessmen are only playing 2D chess and look simply at the dollar sign.
To me, even if Smackdown makes slightly less, stick with FOX on the main network. It'll draw the most eyes to your product which translates to money elsewhere. And right now, WWE's at a point where they're really starting to elevate a lot of guys and potentially have the strongest roster they've had in well over a decade. You should want to attract as many casual fans as you can.
But who knows, that's probably why these guys run a multi-billion dollar company and I work a 9-5.
To me, even if Smackdown makes slightly less, stick with FOX on the main network. It'll draw the most eyes to your product which translates to money elsewhere. And right now, WWE's at a point where they're really starting to elevate a lot of guys and potentially have the strongest roster they've had in well over a decade. You should want to attract as many casual fans as you can.
But who knows, that's probably why these guys run a multi-billion dollar company and I work a 9-5.
Unholy Diver
Registered User
That would be the most logical explanation for not going back, but I dunno if that'd be the case.
They regularly won 18-49 on Fridays and are supposed to be an advertising cash cow.
Side note: How hard does Triple H beg all involved parties to cut RAW to 2 hours lol.
Emperoreddy
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They don't want to promote PPVs on Peacock, and they can still easily come out ahead putting something there that costs less even if it draws less
I honestly don't think they care about promoting shit for another network if it's still making them money in the long run.
They either put it on their channel and it makes money while helping NBC make money too on the PPVs, or they let it go, it makes money for somebody else (Just so happens to be NBC) and still makes NBC money on the PPVs.
The latter is essentially cutting your own d*** off to try to hurt your neighbor. They're still doing just fine and you're now d***less.
GKJ
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You can also get AEW, who have half the viewership and not pay 5x as much.
AEW's viewership is more like a third of Smackdown and it's way less marketable because their talent is obsessed with blading and dropping F and S bombs multiple times a show. (I realize the fans do this in WWE, but that's kinda out of their control)
WWE is a way more advertiser friendly product than AEW.
GKJ
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None of that has anything to do with anything. If it did, Turner would tell them to cut it out.
Emperoreddy
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It's about the bottom line, not the hard ratings.
Someone like Fox will have zero issue plugging something that draws less then Smackdown in that slot as long as they are getting massive savings on cost to air it.
Its why you get so many syndicated sitcoms all over the place. It's cheap as hell to air while still pulling a good enough rating.
Someone like Fox will have zero issue plugging something that draws less then Smackdown in that slot as long as they are getting massive savings on cost to air it.
Its why you get so many syndicated sitcoms all over the place. It's cheap as hell to air while still pulling a good enough rating.
Unholy Diver
Registered User
The language does make a difference, you can say things on cable that you can't on network, hell they have been running the Craig Robinson show where he kills snakes in florida after Raw in recent weeks and they have clearly said F*** several times.
American Dad moved to TBS and started swearing a good bit more
