WWE SmackDown BURIED By Fox! WWE STEALING AEW TV Deal?! | WrestleTalk - video Dailymotion

WrestleTalk

Do you think Smackdown failed on Fox? Let us know in the comments! Roman Reigns WWE Fan HATE! CM Punk WWE Talks! | WrestleTalk  https://youtu.be/FlFg1RxUNjs More wrestling news on https://wrestletalk.com/  WWE SmackDown BURIED By Fox! WWE STEALING AEW TV Deal?! | WrestleTalk #WWE #Smackdown #AEW  Subscribe to WrestleTalk Podcasts   https://bit.ly/3pEAEIu Subscribe to partsFUNknown for lists, fantasy booking & more  https://bit.ly/32JJsCv Subscribe to NoRollsBarred  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5UQPZe-8v4_UP1uxi4Mv6A Subscribe to WrestleTalk  https://bit.ly/3gKdNK3 SUBSCRIBE TO THEM ALL! Make sure to enable ALL push notifications!  Watch the latest wrestling news: https://shorturl.at/pAIV3 Buy WrestleTalk Merch here! https://wrestleshop.com/   Follow WrestleTalk: Twitter: https://twitter.com/_WrestleTalk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WrestleTalk.Official Patreon: https://goo.gl/2yuJpo WrestleTalk Podcast on iTunes: https://goo.gl/7advjX WrestleTalk Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3uKx6HD  Written by: Luke Owen Presented by: Luke Owen Thumbnail by: Brandon Syres Image Sourcing by: Brandon Syres  About WrestleTalk: Welcome to the official WrestleTalk YouTube channel! WrestleTalk covers the sport of professional wrestling - including WWE TV shows (both WWE Raw & WWE SmackDown LIVE), PPVs (such as Royal Rumble, WrestleMania & SummerSlam), AEW All Elite Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, ROH, New Japan, and more. Subscribe and enable ALL notifications for the latest wrestling WWE reviews and wrestling news.  Sources used for research:

Transcript

00:00 2023 has been a massive year for WWE. A banner year, one of the most successful years the

00:07 company has ever had. So why, in that same year, have they lost their biggest deal in

00:13 Smackdown on Fox - which will be moving back to the smaller USA Network in 2024? Because,

00:20 simply put, WWE failed on Fox. At least, that's what Fox believe.

00:32 Once the Endeavor merger deal finished, where WWE and UFC came together under a new group

00:37 called TKO, it was reported that Nick Khan and Ari Emanuel would be working on getting

00:42 new TV deals for Raw, Smackdown and NXT - with WWE looking to increase the rights fees they

00:48 got from their last deals in 2019. And that was already a lot of money. WWE announced

00:53 in June of 2018 that Smackdown would be moving off USA Network to the much bigger station

00:59 of Fox on Fridays. Fox was one of the four biggest broadcast channels. This was the most

01:06 eyes that WWE would ever have on its product on TV, ever. As Joseph Currier wrote about

01:14 the deal in the 2018 Figure Four Weekly, "it was the zenith of everything WWE has been attempting

01:20 to achieve as a corporation." It was a massive deal for WWE, orchestrated by then newcomer

01:27 to the company Nick Khan, and it netted WWE $205 million dollars per year over five years

01:34 - translating to over $1 billion dollars. It also netted Khan a seat at the WWE table

01:41 when he joined in 2020. That number is crazy when you think that when Smackdown first moved

01:46 to NBCUniversal in 2010, the home of the USA Network, the show was only worth $30 million.

01:53 In September of 2023, that deal was announced as coming to an end. This zenith deal that

01:59 WWE had worked so hard to get was over. WWE announced that Smackdown was heading back

02:05 to USA Network in October of 2024. So I know what you're thinking. Wasn't the Fox deal

02:11 going well for WWE? Aren't the ratings for WWE much higher than they have been previously?

02:17 Isn't this the banner year for the company? And you're right. But Fox clearly don't

02:23 agree. As Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on an earnings call that "we wish them luck

02:29 and we've moved on from them." Fox didn't even bid to keep WWE. So what happened? To

02:36 find out, let's go back to 2019. When Smackdown signed with Fox, it ceased to

02:41 be an entertainment show as it was put on Fox Sports. Smackdown was now a sports show,

02:47 and Smackdown was sold to Fox on the idea of having real sports people on it. The debut

02:52 episode of Smackdown on Fox airing in October of 2019 saw Brock Lesnar win the WWE Championship

02:58 in his first singles match on TV since 2004, which also came with the debut of Cain Velasquez.

03:04 Braun Strowman started an angle with Titan Fury and an appearance from The Rock. The

03:09 latter was done to bump the rating and put over the celebrity power of WWE as a brand,

03:14 while the other two led to dud matches at that year's Crown Jewel. It would be the

03:18 only match Cain Velasquez had in WWE, and it went about two minutes. Sorry Kofi.

03:24 The show was advertised to be loaded with legends like Steve Austin, Mick Foley, The

03:29 Undertaker, Ric Flair, Sting and Hulk Hogan, but only The Rock actually appeared on the

03:34 show in any real capacity. Dave Meltzer said at the time the expectation from those inside

03:39 of Fox was for that episode of Smackdown to get around 4.5 million viewers. That would

03:45 be an increase of 2.5 million viewers from the last episode of Smackdown on USA. You

03:52 can now see why this was such a huge deal for the company. But that debut episode of

03:56 Smackdown didn't quite hit that mark. What it did was get a company record viewership

04:02 of 3.86 million viewers - a monster number for WWE - and only beaten, in time relevant

04:08 data, by the Raw 25th Anniversary episode from 2018, which was also a nostalgia-heavy

04:14 cameo show. More impressively for Smackdown, it got a 1.4 in the 18-49 demo - which is

04:20 the number that Fox was really interested in. So yeah, while it wasn't the 4.5 million

04:25 they wanted and thought they would get, the 1.4 demo rating was higher than the expected

04:31 1.0.

04:32 So that means we're off to a good start. Fox did lots of crossovers with WWE on their

04:37 other sports shows, and commissioned WWE Backstage - a show hosted by Renee Young and Booker

04:42 T - which even saw the return of CM Punk. Also look at how mad this photo is. 83% of

04:49 that photo went on to work for AEW. Punk's return was a Fox call. They wanted him on

04:55 the show, even if WWE didn't. But Backstage didn't pull in the ratings they wanted either.

05:01 They would bump up when Punk was on the show, but it would average around the 100,000 viewer

05:06 mark - which was way low what the preview episodes did, which was five times as much.

05:11 But the reason the show failed is because WWE wouldn't let it be the show that Fox

05:16 wanted it to be.

05:17 WWE Backstage was supposed to be a Warton All News show, but it regularly glossed over

05:22 actual news in WWE - for example, the controversial Saudi Arabia deal. Fans saw the show for what

05:29 it was, and in June of 2020, Fox announced that it was cancelling WWE Backstage. Not

05:34 because of Covid, but because Fox was spending too much on the show considering the ratings

05:39 it was drawing.

05:40 But it wasn't just WWE Backstage that saw its ratings fall by Fox standards. The debut

05:45 episode of Smackdown got 3.86 million viewers, but just two months later, the show was averaging

05:50 2.3 million viewers.

05:52 The pandemic didn't help matters, as wrestling didn't connect the way it did with fans

05:56 in attendance. The first episode of 2020 drew 2.4 million viewers, the first episode of

06:01 2021 got 1.9 million.

06:04 In September 2021, Fightful Select reported that the relationship between WWE and Fox

06:09 was beginning to strain, writing that a source within Fox told them that WWE viewership was

06:15 "disappointing in comparison to expectations".

06:18 Another sticking point of conflict came earlier in that year when WWE announced that the WWE

06:23 Network would be moving to Peacock, a streaming service owned by NBCUniversal - the former

06:29 home of Smackdown and the current home of Raw. This meant that Smackdown on Fox would

06:33 be promoting pay-per-views that would be streaming on a rival service. Fox at the time was said

06:38 to be "not over the moon" about that.

06:41 This came to a head in June of 2021 when WWE were promoting their Hell in a Cell pay-per-view,

06:47 and Fox wanted a Hell in a Cell match to take place on Smackdown because Peacock were getting

06:52 two Hell in a Cell matches on pay-per-view. So Roman Reigns vs. Rey Mysterio was moved

06:56 off the Peacock pay-per-view and put on TV for free on Fox instead. NBCUniversal, annoyed

07:03 that Fox was getting a Hell in a Cell match for free on TV, demanded they also get a Hell

07:08 in a Cell match on TV - which saw Bobby Lashley beat Xavier Woods on Raw, just one night after

07:13 Lashley beat Drew McIntyre in a Hell in a Cell match on pay-per-view. WWE did four Hell

07:18 in a Cell matches in a four day period. A WWE source told Fightful that if Fox just

07:24 wanted pay-per-view content so badly, they should have paid for it like Peacock did.

07:30 It then comes as no surprise that Fightful Select reported that the TV series The United

07:35 States of America vs. Vince McMahon, which was to cover the steroid trial of the 1990s,

07:39 was set to portray Fox's owner Rupert Murdoch in a less than flattering way - which a Fox

07:44 source called a childish move and only soured the relationship further.

07:49 But in all of this is the pandemic. And even though Fox were unhappy with the viewership

07:54 numbers Smackdown was getting, they admitted the pandemic played a part - and would wait

07:59 and see how it bounced back with fans in attendance, especially after loading Smackdown with the

08:03 likes of John Cena, Becky Lynch and a returning Brock Lesnar following Summerslam.

08:09 The first rating for that Smackdown after Summerslam? 2.8 million viewers. The following

08:15 week? 2.1. Then 2.2. Then 2.1. Then just 2. In November and December of 2021, the show

08:24 wasn't even breaking the 2 million mark anymore.

08:27 Ratings bounced back under Triple H's regime, with Smackdown hitting highs of 2.5 and 2.6

08:33 when Roman Reigns is on the show, and a standard 2.1 to 2.3 when he's not. While high for

08:38 the world of wrestling, and it's often the highest rated show on the network outside

08:42 of major sports, the ratings are still not what Fox expected, and not the ratings that

08:48 Fox paid for.

08:49 Not only were WWE not hitting the overall viewership number, the 18-49 demo also wasn't

08:55 hitting the mark either - usually around a .6. On that earnings call when Fox CEO Lachlan

09:01 Murdoch announced that they didn't even bid to keep Smackdown on their network, he

09:06 said, "We were not hitting the advertising numbers due to the audience of WWE to make

09:11 the return for our return on investment to be above the levels that we would accept."

09:17 Translation, it's your fault Smackdown is no longer on Fox. Dave Meltzer noted in the

09:23 Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Fox lost money on their 205 million investment because,

09:27 even with strong 18-49 numbers, a lot of advertisers had a negative view of wrestling fans. And

09:34 thus ad rates were lower on Fox for Smackdown than they were for other sports. After five

09:40 years of Smackdown on Fox, it all boiled down to advertisers thinking wrestling fans are

09:46 poor. And the most insane thing about all of this is that Meltzer predicted this would

09:50 be the case in 2018 when WWE announced the deal in the first place, writing, "Historically,

09:56 the view was that wrestling fans were at the low end of socioeconomic scale and thus, even

10:01 with historically good numbers that date back to the advent of television, wrestling could

10:05 never monetize those numbers like major sports."

10:09 But WWE are the real winners here. As Oli talked about in his Roman Reigns video, WWE

10:14 are doing better live show numbers, better merchandising numbers, higher than the Attitude

10:19 Era, and they've just signed bigger TV right deals. They may have wanted more, reportedly

10:24 having an asking price of $307 million per year, but WWE's deal with NBCUniversal to

10:30 move Smackdown back to USA Network was worth $287 million per year over five years - a

10:39 40% increase on the Fox deal.

10:42 WWE also announced big news for NXT, which will be moving from the USA Network to the

10:47 CW in October of 2024 - with Deadline reporting that five year deal would be worth more than

10:53 double the $15 million that NBCUniversal were paying for it. Ari Emanuel stated on a TKO

10:59 earnings call that it was, in fact, an increase of 70%.

11:04 What's interesting there is that CW was set to be the room at home for Billy Corgan's

11:10 NWA - though Fightful Select report that talks between WWE and CW have been going on for

11:16 months. And, much like Smackdown moving to Fox, this deal will put NXT on a network that

11:22 has more eyes on it than it currently has. Fightful add that WWE are happy with this

11:27 deal as are talent backstage.

11:29 Someone not so happy about it will be Billy Corgan and the NWA. Fightful Select report

11:34 that those they spoke to in NWA were surprised and blindsided by the announcement, as they

11:39 were working on a deal with CW that would have seen Power air on that network as well

11:44 as a reality show based around the promotion. NWA might still pursue a deal with them, but

11:49 WWE sources told Fightful Select they do not expect that to happen at this point.

11:54 House of Wrestling reported that an angle on an NWA PPV where Father James Mitchell

11:59 had a cocaine party with wrestlers upset CW and that might have soured any deal the two

12:05 had. They add that Corgan was told the network would not be watching the PPV, and the only

12:09 reason they found out the angle happened was because they were flooded with complaints

12:13 on social media about the angle.

12:15 So that's Smackdown and NXT with new homes and new increases in revenue. So where does

12:24 that leave Raw? Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that the rumour mill is they

12:28 will either stay on USA Network or move to FX, or even strike a deal with WBD - the current

12:36 home of All Elite Wrestling. While a crazy situation, Meltzer calls it a long shot, but

12:42 adds that the Anas believe that wherever they go, they're going to get a 42% increase

12:47 when they do find a new deal.

12:49 So what did we learn from all of this? Firstly, the ratings argument by Fox is likely just

12:55 an excuse. The ratings were lower than expected, but ratings across TV are down because TV

13:00 is different now than it was five years ago, let alone a decade or so ago. WWE, ECW and

13:06 TNA drew more viewers than AEW currently does, but those shows barely cracked the top 20

13:12 Watch shows, while AEW is often ranked number one. What you get with wrestling though, and

13:17 why NBCUniversal and CW are throwing money to get it, is brand new weekly TV that has

13:23 a consistent audience.

13:25 Really, the issues between Fox and WWE are outside of this ratings argument. Fox was

13:31 sold on WWE having big time sports names like Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez, Tyson Fury,

13:37 Ronda Rousey. Some of those names aren't there all the time, and the other names only

13:42 had a couple of matches. They also promised celebrity names and legends like The Rock

13:46 and Steve Austin, but they're not there all the time either. Fox wanted WWE to re-sign

13:51 CM Punk, WWE didn't. The Peacock thing didn't help much either, four Hell in a Cell matches

13:57 in four f****** days.

13:58 But as with a lot of things in recent times, WWE are the winners. They may have lost out

14:03 on this big time Fox deal, but they're still the hottest ticket in town, and they've

14:08 just increased their Smackdown TV revenue by 40%, NXT by over 50% and Raw is looking

14:14 to be nearly 50% too. We've also learned that if you're a wrestling fan, advertisers

14:19 think you're poor and stupid. So stop being poor and stupid.

14:23 Oli Davis did a deep dive on the fan backlash to Roman Reigns as WWE Champion, and discovered

14:28 that not is all as it seems. Click the video on screen right now to find out more. Thank

WWE SmackDown BURIED By Fox! WWE STEALING AEW TV Deal?! | WrestleTalk

Category

Transcript

Recommended