Fox is bringing Smackdown back to broadcast television after nearly eight years. According to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, Fox and WWE are close to making a deal that would bring Smackdown to Fox in the Fall of 2019. Fox will reportedly pay WWE one billion dollars over five years. Fox is looking to move away from urbane programming and is looking to bring in broad programming that will appeal to middle america. Currently Fox is paying 3 billion for five seasons of Thursday Night Football and spends 1 billion annually for their Sunday Night Football package. WWE Raw currently averages about 3 million viewers each week on USA while WWE Smackdown currently averages 2.59 million viewers.
With this new deal in place, USA Network and Fox will split programming rights. NBCUniversal has owned the rights to Smackdown since the show began airing on Syfy in 2010. In 2016 Smackdown began airing on Tuesday nights on USA. NBC Universal will most likely keep WWE RAW on the USA Network.
Once this deal is complete Smackdown should begin airing on Fox in October 2019. Currently Smackdown airs on Tuesday nights on USA Network, but it was reported by The Wrap that Fox will move it to Friday nights. Whether that's true or not will be one of the many questions that Fox and WWE will need to answer next year.
As a wrestling fan of nearly 30 years this is very exciting. WWE now has a major deal on a broadcast network that will be able to bring its programming to millions of people. Smackdown could even get higher ratings than RAW. The Fall of 2019 is shaping up to be very interesting.
Class Dismissed,
THE PROFESSOR
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