Ahead of the 2025 college football season, the WWE and the Big 12 have agreed to expand their partnership that has been in place each of the last two seasons to further enhance fan engagement for both brands.
Since 2023, WWE has awarded a custom belt for the conference champion following the Big 12 Championship Game.
Moving forward, the WWE has made it a point to work its live event schedule for Friday Night Smackdown around the Big 12 schedule to begin the college football season.
According to Chris Vannini of The Athletic, the WWE will hold several episodes of Friday Night Smackdown the day before select Big 12 games throughout the college football season.
In particular, there will be an episode of Friday Night Smackdown from Dublin, Ireland ahead of the Week 0 game between Kansas State and Iowa State in Dublin, and a live show from Orlando ahead of the Week 4 game between UCF and North Carolina.
Sources: The Big 12 and WWE are expanding their partnership this fall. WWE will hold several episodes of Friday Night SmackDown in Big 12 markets, the night before football games.
Includes a Week 0 show in Ireland before KSU/ISU and an Orlando show before UCF/UNC. pic.twitter.com/ukrGZ23S07
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) May 29, 2025
Holding these events in the same location obviously creates for some interesting co-branding opportunities between the conference and the WWE. But it also perhaps creates opportunities for networks to potentially benefit from this partnership.
In particular, the Week 0 game between Kansas State and Iowa State in Dublin will also be the site of ESPN’s first College GameDay broadcast of the season.
Last season, Stephen Farrelly, better known as Sheamus in the WWE, was the guest picker for the Week 0 College Gameday in Dublin for the Florida State-Georgia Tech matchup. And considering Friday Night Smackdown will be in the area again this year, perhaps we will see Sheamus, or another WWE personality, serve as the guest picker this time around.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.