Massive new deal for WWE -- Fox purchases rights to broadcast Smackdown Live

[Everlong]

http://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/2356 ... kdown-live

It's expected that these broadcasts on Fox will begin in October 2019.

Absoluteyl massive deal for the WWE. This will be the first time they've been on free broadcast TV since they left the CW years and years ago. And it's been DECADES since WWE was broadcast on a channel with the viewership level of Fox. Sort of hard to believe they managed to secure this.

[Messiah]

I would be shocked if this doesn’t lead to SmackDown being treated as the flagship show.

[Hanley!]

I would be shocked if this doesn’t lead to SmackDown being treated as the flagship show.

It depends on what happens to Raw. Whether or not Raw changes networks, it's likely to bring in at least the same amount of television rights fees (estimated about $2m). This solidifies Smackdown as a priority, but I'm doubtful that it makes it the priority going forward.

I'm hopeful that the deal will lead to the end of the brand split. I imagine that with that kind of money, Fox will want to see as many stars on Smackdown as possible. Which, in my opinion, would be great for the product. A larger roster means a wider variety of match-ups, stronger divisions, championships that mean more to fans, and substantially less filler.

That's really the only positive I'm taking from this though. WWE hasn't been producing a compelling product lately, and it's still making more money than ever because of the current television landscape. If they're making this kind of money from their television from 2019 on then they can do whatever bullshit they like for the foreseeable future and still be more profitable than ever, even if fans leave in droves.

[The Legend]

I would be shocked if this doesn’t lead to SmackDown being treated as the flagship show.

It depends on what happens to Raw. Whether or not Raw changes networks, it's likely to bring in at least the same amount of television rights fees (estimated about $2m). This solidifies Smackdown as a priority, but I'm doubtful that it makes it the priority going forward.

I'm hopeful that the deal will lead to the end of the brand split. I imagine that with that kind of money, Fox will want to see as many stars on Smackdown as possible. Which, in my opinion, would be great for the product. A larger roster means a wider variety of match-ups, stronger divisions, championships that mean more to fans, and substantially less filler.

That's really the only positive I'm taking from this though. WWE hasn't been producing a compelling product lately, and it's still making more money than ever because of the current television landscape. If they're making this kind of money from their television from 2019 on then they can do whatever bullshit they like for the foreseeable future and still be more profitable than ever, even if fans leave in droves.

Steve, you need to add a couple zeros to the rights fees. There's differing reports out there, but basically the SD deal is a 5 year deal worth 120-205 million dollars per year. RAW is likely to bring in about 250 million per year with NBC/USA.

As for other things, I actually prefer the brand split over a unified roster. That being said there were flaws with how WWE did the most recent brand split. First, to improve some of the smaller specialized divisions they should have been brand exclusive. In the original brand split they made a big deal about how the women's division could only be seen on RAW and the tag division only on SD, that should have continued in the new brand split. The benefit of the brand split and single branded PPV's is the chance to see more matchups and more diverse set of performers. Now that all PPV's are unified again it's going to be the same 30 wrestlers on every PPV in repetitive matchups. WWE should have done a better storytelling and selling job of it's total talent roster.

[Hanley!]

Yeah, I meant to say 200 million, not sure how I got that one so wrong.

After hearing a little more today, Smackdown could well become the priority going forwards because if it under-performs on Fox it could be dropped back to FS1, whereas Raw is going to stay where it is no matter how it performs, because it's the strongest show on that channel by some distance. I still doubt that they try and turn Smackdown into the A brand though, I think it's more likely that they just end the brand split and focus equally on both shows.

I don't see the argument for the brand split, to be honest. Particularly after how much worse the television has been since they implemented it. I agree that there are things that can be done to make it work better. Putting the women's division on one brand and the tag division on the other would have helped considerably. Brand exclusive pay per views are in theory better than the mixed brand shows we'll be getting now. But no matter how they run a brand split, one big roster is always going to have the most potential. It makes divisions deeper, matches more varied, and it should mean that they never have to rely on a wrestler who isn't ready in a major spot.