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Smackdown - the Billion Dollar Baby (new TV deal announced)


IANdrewDiceClay

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What were/are they getting from USA for Smackdown in the current deal? That's quite a long deal as well. Just goes to show how little ratings matter these days in the grand scheme of things compared to back in the day.

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For fucking Smackdown?! If this goes ahead, it's an incredible deal for WWE. Two days ago, it looked like Smackdown was going to double it's rights fees certainly, but the suitors were Fox (for FS1), Facebook and Amazon. All of which would involveĀ  a trade off of better income for poorer exposure. Now it seems they are going to be on Big Fox, primetime on a Friday night, whilst pretty much tripling the rights fees. This would put them only $35m per year behind the (expected) new Raw deal. In the US alone. Staggering indeed. Vinny Mac is going to sell this sucker to the Saudis for $5 Billion, fire up his Harley and ride off into the sunset laughing like the madman we know he is.Ā 

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They'll be getting proportionately more per hour of SD than Raw if my maths is correct.

Apparently there was a higher bid from an unnamed source but they went with Fox because of "robust commitment" to promoting the brand across multiple platforms.Ā 

They'll still chase the "casual fan" dragon even though it doesn't exist anymore.Ā 

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Does this mean both Raw/Smackdown (being on different networks) cannot advertise the other brand or show clips from it? Kind of feels like they would be different brands in that respect (as both would be advertised just on their own channels).Ā 

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That shouldn't be an issue @Briefcase. WWE used to cross promote when SmackDown was on UPN and Raw on USA.Ā 

The major sports also advertise other stations. The NFL for example show a graphic of the day's fixtures with a TV logo of the station it is broadcast on. It's not like over here where Sky Sports don't acknowledge any sport or competiton which they don't have the rights to.

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1 hour ago, TheTonetta said:

The Split will be dead. There's no way two brands will be on two separate NETWORKS. I hope The Network gets the funding, so I can avoid taped filler Smackdown.Ā 

They used to be on twp seperate networks in the original brand split so not sure why it would make such a difference now

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2 hours ago, The Dart said:

PWInsider reckons if Smackdown moves to Friday it will still be live.

Seems unlikely doesn't it?Ā  Unless the massive extra costs in doing that don't bother them with the massive extra wedge they're gonna be making.

"New Fox" will have the majority of their stuff live, they are selling FX, National Geographic & their TV & Film studios to Disney, Sky as well but Comcast also want to buy that.

They just bought the rights to Thursday Night Football and are going to concentrate on live sports & news because they think those are DVR proof and they don't have the money to compete with Amazon & Netflix anymore.

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This is the most interesting thing about this deal. ThereĀ isĀ a level of validation to their methods in signing this sort of deal for what is their B show, in effect.

For all the belly aching online, all you can really say is that they might not make a show that appeals to internet wrestling fans. In terms of running a mainstream-viable business, they're smashing it.

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Staggering really, as ratings creep closer and closer to mid 90's levels. Either Networks are right to remain confident in traditional TV and ratings dont accurately show the amount of audience who watch on catch up/Sky Plus style services or we could see some major networks getting themselves into a fair bit of trouble over the next 10 years as people really start to turn off from traditional TV to bespoke services and they dont adapt to that.Ā 

I suppose its worth remembering that viewing figures in general are dropping so anything that seems to be able to keep a core audience no matter what is going to be highly sought after.

This clearly means they are going to 3 hours too, which makes me shudder. How is their touring schedule going to be affected by going live on friday nights too(theres no way Fox want a taped product)? I guess it means extra travelling for execs and producers, film crews etc as rather than working back to back nights, they'll have the weekend in between broadcasts. No doubt the extra 100's of millions more than covers that problem though. It'll probably mean Smackdown can do live events Thursday-Sunday instead of the weird Sat-Tues schedule and Raw will stick to Friday-Monday.

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