Fox probably doing things with WWE

[TheManTheyCalledNorCal]

The rumor out there is that fox offered to buy the company outright, but to me that makes no sense. It sounds like someone got third hand information and either misspoke of made assumptions.

Rumors are abound for some time they want WWE to become a backbone property of their sports channel which makes abundantly more sense to me.

If they are indeed looking to buy the whole enchilada, that should send a chill down the spine of anyone over the age of 30. TV companies owning and trying to run wrestling companies is a recipe for disaster and could send us towards Armageddon of the business as we know it.

In any case, fox executives including their president and CEO were front row at Smackdown yesterday.

[Awesome_Miz]

I hope that WWE decides to stay with NBCUniversial, which they probably will. They have been properly portrayed as a top product by NBCU, so for me I feel as tho they will stick around for another 5 yrs in USA Network. Considering WWE is the flag ship product for USA and they wouldn't like to lose it along with the million of viewers.

[FunKay]

There's been a bit of coverage I've seen where Colin Cowherd,whose a notable personality on Fox Sports TV from what I gather, was taking every photo opp he could get his hands on in spite of publicly chastising the company, their fans and the business of wrestling in general over the years. That's a sign to me that Fox are looking very hard to jump into bed with the E' as the OP mentions, to try and make the company the backbone of their sports network.

Does anyone know if moving to the Fox channels would greatly diminish the viewership of RAW and SmackDown? I know they do less than a million viewers on average for UFC programming on there...

[TheManTheyCalledNorCal]

Update-

Fox has offered WWE 400 million a year for broadcast rights, and will put RAW back to 2 hours

[Yaz]

There's been a bit of coverage I've seen where Colin Cowherd,whose a notable personality on Fox Sports TV from what I gather, was taking every photo opp he could get his hands on in spite of publicly chastising the company, their fans and the business of wrestling in general over the years. That's a sign to me that Fox are looking very hard to jump into bed with the E' as the OP mentions, to try and make the company the backbone of their sports network.

Does anyone know if moving to the Fox channels would greatly diminish the viewership of RAW and SmackDown? I know they do less than a million viewers on average for UFC programming on there...

Depends which of their channels they put them on. If they stick them to Fox Sports, which is what UFC is on then viewership will go down because that isn't a readily available channel. If they put it on their local affiliate channels, then viewership should remain steady or even go up since Fox affiliates are one of the basic channels that everyone in the US gets.

[Lee]

Update-

Fox has offered WWE 400 million a year for broadcast rights, and will put RAW back to 2 hours

Two hour Raw?! Yes! Great move.

[Slyfox696]

Update-

Fox has offered WWE 400 million a year for broadcast rights, and will put RAW back to 2 hoursOh, God, a 2 hour Raw would be absolutely fantastic. A 3 hour special every once in a while is fine, but a 3 hour Raw every week is just too much.

[Dave]

I don't think a 3 hour Raw is that bad. But it could be doing with better writing and more matches of decent quality. You can never get enough of a good thing but Raw hasn't actually been that good recently.

Can someone tell me if Fox Sports 1 is a decent move for Mack Smackdown though? I'm a little worried that this is going to make Smackdown noticeably the B show again and the drip in quality will be obvious.

[Jack-Hammer]

Update-

Fox has offered WWE 400 million a year for broadcast rights, and will put RAW back to 2 hours

If true, then it'd be a huge increase over what they're getting right now. As of right now, their deal with NBCUniversal pays about $235 million a year, which would be roughly a 60% increase.

Overall, a 2 hour Raw would suit me fine. Most times, I'm okay with Raw being 3 hours but that can depend on the show. Sometimes, there are shows in which the energy just isn't there and the show feels like it drags on forever, these shows are usually either heavy on promo segments/skits, filler matches or a combination of both.

[Shocky]

The rumor appears to confirm an earlier rumor, Raw gets cut back to 2 hours, moves to broadcast TV on Fox. Smackdown moves to FS1. The fact Fox is contemplating Raw for broadcast is exciting and terrifying at the same time. I’d also expect the E is going to have to give them some sort of “Fight Night” special multiple times throughout the year. $400 Million is a no brainer, as NBCU won’t go anywhere near that.

[klunderbunker]

I'm cautiously optimistic on this.

On the one hand, $400 million and a spot on broadcast TV could buy a lot of pyro. That basically guarantees that the promotion will be profitable no matter what stupid things they do. It also opens the door to a crazy huge audience and could make WWE into a bigger deal.

On the other hand though, how much influence is Fox going to want on their huge investment? How long do they go before wanting to show WWE how a REAL entertainment company works? That could go very badly, especially if Fox winds up buying the company outright one day.

That being said, I'd certainly be interested in seeing where it goes, especially with the beloved two hour show back. The three hours a week is unnecessary and the money should be more than made up for with the new setup.