WWE Rumors: SmackDown Live To FOX Deal Reportedly Worth $1 Billion

With the big news coming out today that WWE has reached an agreement to bring SmackDown Live to Friday nights on FOX in October 2019 (which you can check out here), there’s been a lot of talk about the amount the network may have paid for the show.

According to The Hollywood Reporter (who recently broke the news that NBCU was letting SmackDown go out to bidding), is reporting that FOX will pay $205 million annually to air the program. This would last for the duration of a five-year contract, thus making the total amount paid over the course of the deal at over $1 billion. It’s being said that this is three times as much as NBCU is paying under their current agreement with WWE.

Additionally, there’s talk that another party made a higher bid to get SmackDown Live, but WWE saw more value in FOX’s partnerships with the NFL and MLB, which means WWE advertising would run during their games. It was also said that FOX made a commitment to do as such.

EA’s Take: If this figure is in fact correct, that’s more than what I thought WWE would get for SmackDown. It’s estimated that they’re looking for around $300 million per year for RAW and I figured SD would command around half of that. So either the numbers for RAW are even higher or FOX was willing to go above and beyond. As for another party offering more money, it would really depend on who that party was to make a determination on whether or not WWE made the right move. If it was Facebook or Amazon like we heard, then I say absolutely the right call. It would have to have been someone along those lines, a company that doesn’t have ties to places like the NFL or MLB or else WWE would have chosen them.

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