WWE media rights will be an essential topic for the company now that a sale to Endeavor has all but gone through. And according to The New York Post’s Andrew Marchand, WWE recently finished its exclusive negotiating window with existing broadcasters Fox and Comcast and could not reach a new deal.
At the same time, Marchand notes that most major deals go to the open market despite those exclusive windows, and Fox and Comcast are favorites as incumbents to re-up with the WWE. Fox currently pays $205 million per year for Friday Night Smackdown, while Comcast pays $265 per year to air Monday Night Raw on USA.
Both of those contracts run until October 2024. And while Marchand did mention that it was unsurprising that WWE will reach the open market without a deal, he noted that there’s another interesting potential suitor that’s emerged. That would be The Walt Disney Company, but specifically for FX (which they acquired in 2019 as part of the Fox-Disney sale) rather than ESPN.
NEWS: WWE has moved out of its exclusive negotiating window with Fox & Comcast and FX has emerged as a contender for these rights, The Post has learned.https://t.co/tsRBkdnrQC
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) June 12, 2023
Marchand writes that ESPN can’t guarantee a night of the week to WWE thanks to their other programming commitments, which is why FX seems more likely to be the choice if Disney were to secure the rights. In any event, it would be hard to envision ESPN televising WWE, considering there is more of an entertainment than live sports factor at play here. But ESPN has had a long and complicated relationship with WWE, including some unusual promotion of WWE personalities and events, and has been mentioned as a possibility for WWE broadcasts before.
So it’s notable to see ESPN parent company Disney mentioned here, but with a FX spin. And while there aren’t currently a lot of sports on FX, it has occasionally been a destination for some things, including some XFL games this year. And it would certainly be easier to do a regular night of WWE programming on FX than ESPN. And there could be ESPN components to any deal as well, including main-network promotion and possibly some streaming rights for ESPN+. Disney also has a deal with the Endeavor-owned UFC with both linear and streaming components, and something similar could happen here.
In addition to FX, Marchand mentions other possibilities like Amazon Prime Video, Warner Bros. Discovery and Apple. According to Marchand, CBS and Netflix are not expected to be in the mix for WWE’s media rights.
It remains to be seen if Disney can unseat the incumbents for WWE’s media rights. But Marchand certainly poses an interesting option with FX being in play as a future home.
