Rumour: NBC Universal retain right for WWE Raw; Smackdown still up for grabs

Bengaluru, May 21: WWE Raw airs every Monday Night on the USA Network. This particular channel belongs to the NBC Universal which owns the rights to broadcast the show. For almost two decades, now the flagship show of the WWE has made the network its home. Recently, the broadcast rights were up for grabs and speculations hinted of a potential sellout to another company like Fox Sports.

The deal between WWE and NBC Universal was extended in the year 2014 and it is intact for five years which means that it will run out in 2019. So, it was believed that the WWE created a bidding war among sports broadcasters to air WWE Raw. However, recent reports say there will be no change to the broadcast rights.

According to the reports of Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Insider, NBC Universal renewed their deal with the WWE. By virtue of this, they will continue to air Monday Night Raw every week at 8 PM. But, Smackdown’s fate is yet to be decided. The rights of the Tuesday Night show is still up for grabs. This might come up as a big opportunity for other sports channel to broadcast the show.

So, there’s still a chance that the two televised shows from the WWE might have different homes from 2019. This is not the first time that such scenario has happened, at the beginning of this decade, Smackdown used to be hosted by the Syfy Network on Friday Nights then It moved to Thursday Nights, later in 2014.

Later in 2016, USA Network got the ownership of the rights to broadcast the blue brand show as well. Thereafter, it was converted into a live show on Tuesday Nights. This happened after the brand extension drafts that divided the Raw and Smackdown locker room, that year.

From the WWE perspective, splitting the two brands will not be a big issue. They have done it before and can do it again. Check out the response from WWE CFO, George Barrios at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media, and Communications Conference,

"Market determines that opportunity. From our end, [we don't think] it's an issue to split it - we have done it before. We think we're pretty good at promoting and moving our viewers from one platform to another."