When Will We Know RAW & SmackDown Live’s TV Future – How Long Before We See Any Changes?

The future of WWE’s TV Programming has been a hot topic of discussion this week ever since news first broke that NBC Universal has decided not to renew their deal to retain the rights for SmackDown LIVE, letting the weekly program go to open bidding. NBC Universal did however opt to keep Monday Night RAW on the USA Network, a deal which is said to be three times the current value.

Where will SmackDown LIVE end up? That is the big question indeed, as right now your guess is as good as ours. Initially there had been interest expressed by FOX in obtaining broadcasting rights to WWE’s weekly programing on one of their networks, but that appears to no longer be the case as recent reports have stated that without RAW, FOX has little interest in SmackDown by itself.

The Wresting Observer‘s Dave Meltzer discussed the possibility of SmackDown moving to FOX or one of their secondary networks earlier in the week.

“Fox is not going to put SmackDown on Fox that’s not going to happen I don’t think. They were very much behind the idea putting Raw on big Fox — SmackDown I don’t see it. Okay now we’re talking about do you want to spend that kind of money on a Tuesday night show on FS1? The problem is with FS1 when you’re talking about baseball or basketball playoffs or things like that, there are sporting events on Tuesday nights.”

The negotiations over WWE’s Television Contracts was again discussed on yesterday’s episode of Wrestling Observer Live. It was pointed out that WWE’s new TV contracts would not event go into effect until the Fall of 2019. So regardless of what network RAW & SmackDown Live end up on, it will be well over a year before either show actually make the move to a new network as their current deals do not expire until sometime in the fall of 2019.

Meltzer also commented on what WWE’s timetable is to have these new TV deals completed by. He said, “They do want to sign all these deals by September if not earlier.”

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