WWE News: WWE CFO Talks RAW & SmackDown Possibly On Separate Networks

Now that the annual NBC Upfronts presentation has come and gone, many fans were of the impression we could get an announcement about WWE’s new television deal, which is set to expire with NBC Universal in the Fall of 2019. There’s been a lot of talk that the company could be heading to FOX, with discussion about RAW being on FOX while SmackDown Live could be on FX or FS1, plus the possibility of NXT getting on television as well.

WWE Chief Financial Officer George Barrios was on-hand at the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference and spoke on the chances of the company’s top television shows being on separate channels:

“Market determines that opportunity. From our end, [we don’t think] it’s an issue to split it. We have done it before. We think we’re pretty good at promoting and moving our viewers from one platform to another. Seven or eight years ago, it was only from one network to another network, which changed dramatically. We can’t over-emphasize it, is the nature of social and digital and helping do that.

So, we’ve been able to do it before, we would feel even more comfortable doing it today just because we have a direct connection with all our fans which we did not have seven or eight years ago. So, our ability to do that, if it made sense economically, there were partners interested, if we felt comfortable with the partners in question, operationally we would not see an issue with doing that.”

Quotes c/o WrestlingInc

EA’s Take: We’re still waiting for something to happen on the TV deal front, but if it turns out RAW and SmackDown Live end up on different channels, I don’t see what the big deal is. This has historically been the case whether RAW was on USA or Spike, while SmackDown was on UPN or SyFy. It’s only the last couple of years that they’ve both been on the USA Network. Personally and selfishly, I’ve said before I don’t want any WWE programming on FOX, only because I use streaming services for my television viewing. I don’t think WWE is considering that at all while making this move and quite frankly, they shouldn’t. If you love wrestling and watch WWE, you’ll find a way to watch it regardless, in my opinion.

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