News

WWE News: New Report Reveals How FOX Got SmackDown Live

Published

6 years ago

May 30, 2018

Since it was revealed that WWE and FOX had reportedly agreed on a 5-year, $205 million/per contract to bring SmackDown Live to the network in 2019 (you can find that story here), we’ve all been awaiting a formal announcement or confirmation from either FOX or WWE on the deal.

However, a new report by The Hollywood Reporter has shed some light on how the move to FOX from NBC Universal came about for WWE’s blue brand. According to Marisa Guthrie, NBCU had expected to keep both RAW and SmackDown Live for 10 years at $360 million/per, but when NBCU’s negotiating window lapsed on May 16th at 4:59PM EST. The next day on May 17th, a meeting took place that included Stephanie McMahon and Triple H in order for FOX to give their pitch. It’s being said that on top of the larger bid to WWE for SmackDown, FOX executive Rupert Murdoch stated to WWE that NBCU was “embarassed by your product”, offering up that FOX would “fully embrace” WWE. Additionally, FOX sold WWE on promotion across all their sports programming on all nights of the week, plus a weekly studio show on the FS1 channel. By the end of it, there was a handshake and an agreement made.

A week later, the UFC to ESPN deal was announced (which you can see here), as FOX let the programming go now that their agreement with WWE was in place.

The Hollywood Reporter also added that with NBCU still expected to retain the rights to RAW, the deal is looking to be worth an estimated $265 million per year. This is lower than the majority of speculation that’s been floating around, as estimates on the RAW/NBCU contract have been anywhere from $300-$400 million.

For the full report and more information, go to The Hollywood Reporter

EA’s Take: There’s a lot to take in there, but if anything I think this gives fans a real look inside the business world and it’s at least interesting to read the tactics used by FOX. They probably had WWE at “$205 million”, but they really put on the full-court press to acquire SmackDown Live by going above-and-beyond. It’s a great investment by FOX as some may complain about the WWE product, however they’re still more of a constant than UFC, who has really been unimpressive the past few years. I also find how much NBCU is paying for RAW to be intriguing as well, since it’s only $60 million/year more than SmackDown. Since RAW is the “A-show”, I along with most others expected SD to be worth about two-thirds of RAW. So to me this says, WWE just wasn’t able to get as much as they believed for the red brand or else they would have taken it.

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Related Topics:FOX News Smackdown Live WWE

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AEW Coverage

Mitchell’s AEW Continental Classic Update! (11/27/23)

What a start to the tournament!

Published

5 months ago

November 27, 2023

Steven Mitchell

Did your picks win points?

The AEW Continental Classic is underway, with almost everyone competing. Check in here if you haven’t seen the winners and losers of week 1!

Here are your Gold League standings!

Jon Moxley: 1-0, 3 points
Swerve Strickland: 1-0, 3 points
Jay White: 1-0, 3 points
Rush: 0-1, 0 points
Mark Briscoe: 0-1, 0 points.
Jay Lethal: 0-1, 0 points

Here are your Blue League standings!

Brody King: 1-0, 3 points
Claudio Castagnoli: 1-0, 3 points
Daniel Garcia: 0-1, 0 points
Eddie Kingston: 0-1, 0 points
Bryan Danielson: Yet to Compete
Andrade El Idolo: Yet to Compete

My Thoughts:

Nothing too crazy, nothing too wild, this tournament only just got started. The only disappointing point is that they could not get Bryan “cleared to compete” Saturday night. Not sure how much of that is shoot given the bad eye, but this was kinda the problem of wanting him in the tournament over tons of other choices. Bryan wants to face Okada for WrestleKingdom 18, how is Bryan supposed to do that at his best if he’s also gonna be in a round robin, doing five top level matches in about as many weeks? And it takes away from Andrade being able to do something. Also a little surprised we didn’t even hear from Andrade on Saturday.

Now as we heard on Saturday, round two’s matches are set. Gold League will see Mark Briscoe VS Rush, White VS Swerve, and of course, Moxley VS Lethal. Nice variety there, a couple 0-1 guys facing off, as well as two 1-0 guys, and then 1-0 VS 0-1. No offense to Lethal, but he feels like an 0-2 going up against Moxley. Hard to call the other ones but that’s the fun of it. Meanwhile, Blue League sees Brody VS Claudio in a showdown to be 2-0, then Bryan and Andrade finally jump in, Bryan against Eddie and Andrade against Garcia. Sadly, feels like Eddie and Garcia are going 0-2, no way Tony Khan is booking Bryan and Andrade to lose their first shots.

In fact, that could be half the reason they did wait on those two, that’s almost too good for just a first round opener. But I still would’ve done it, same as NJPW does stuff like that for round robins, which this is all modeled after anyway.

Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!

AEW Coverage

AEW announces Continental Classic entrants

The C2 is set!

Published

5 months ago

November 22, 2023

Steven Mitchell

Tony Khan Reveals the Blue and Gold “Leagues!”

Originally livestreamed, Tony Khan and Tony Schiavone officially announced the twelve total entrants and divided them into the two round robin blocks known as the “Blue League” and “Gold League.” If you don’t feel like sifting through the almost 30 minute video, the groups are:

Blue League

Bryan Danielson
Andrade El Idolo
Brody King
Claudio Castagnoli
Daniel Garcia
Eddie Kingston

Gold League

Jon Moxley
Swerve Strickland
Rush
Mark Briscoe
Jay Lethal
Jay White

Tony Khan also explains the rules for the Continental Classic:

Every match has a 20 minute time limit
The winner of each match earns 3 points, losers earn 0, 1 point for a draw
EVERYONE ELSE is banned from ringside for true 1v1 action

Eddie Kingston also joined the selection special as his “life’s work” is on the line in this tournament, both the ROH World Championship and NJPW Strong Openweight Championship on the line as part of the modern day North American Triple Crown Eddie, Tony Khan, AEW, ROH and NJPW are looking to create together. Gold League competes tonight on Dynamite while Blue League will have their start this Saturday on Collision. Look for more articles like this one to keep up with the Continental Classic standings over the next six weeks of tournament action!

Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!