WWE is in discussion with Television networks about possible putting a bid on WWE TV rights for next year. The bid is supposed to be in by February 15th but who every gets the rights deal will have to wait until October for it to be in effect.
This is where WWE makes their serious money and it is where they branch out to a everything else through TV. Just in the third quarter of this year, WWE made 89 million bucks that is a ton of money for a third of their year’s revenue. The revenue for this year 2013 is a total of 418 million dollars, wow.
Now that number is of course just for TV so it gives you an idea of how important TV rights are for WWE. Now WWE is currently in the United States on three networks (USA, Ion and Syfy) now looking back at the history of all shows is important.
WWE has been on USA network from 1993-200 then they moved to TNN in 2000 that is now Spike TV but left to move back to USA network in 2005.
Syfy has been broadcasting Smackdown since 2010 and ION has been broadcasting Main Event since 2012.
Whenever WWE moves networks there is a series of months where you know they will be leaving so it is a odd situation for both sides. I feel that Syfy has never been a true home for WWE as it is more of science TV network instead of a sports or top entertainment hot spot.
There has been talk of Smackdown moving from Syfy to sport stations like Fox Sports, NBC sports, ETC. Smackdown has been taped since it’s launch but with some special episodes airing live it feel more important. Look at Raw when it’s taped, it is not the same but here would be some problems for WWE if they make the change to live.
One they would have to move it to another night and I’m assuming it would be Tuesday nights. I like that night but for a fan that means you would have three hours of Raw, two hours of Smackdown and one hour of Main Event in three straight days. That is a lot of wrestling plus if you had a three hour pay-per-view on Sunday that is a total of nine hours of WWE programming in a four day stretch.
I think they could make it work and hope they move nights along with making it live. What do you think? Should they move nights and make it live?
