NEW YORK: The Murdoch family controlled 21st Century Fox has signed a 5-year media rights contract for WWE’s flagship show, Smackdown Live, which kicks off from October 2019.
The weekly, two-hour live event will be aired by Fox throughout the year.
It takes over the USA Network, which earlier owned the rights for both Monday Night Raw and Smackdown Live. The company renewed its deal for Raw with the WWE for the same time period, parting ways with the latter.
Interestingly, SmackDown is the second-longest running weekly episodic cable television show in US primetime history, only behind Raw. With 20 years and over 1,000 episodes, SmackDown is currently among the most-watched, regularly scheduled programs on primetime cable with 2.9 million viewers on average in the USA alone.
It has also helped launch the careers of legends in the sport such as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, Triple H, John Cena, Undertaker and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin.
“At Fox we are thrilled to welcome WWE to the Fox Sports family and bring SmackDown Live to broadcast television,” said Eric Shanks, president, COO and executive producer Fox Sports. “We are huge fans and know that together Fox Sports will be the leader in live events for the foreseeable future.”
“WWE and Fox are a perfect match,” said Vince McMahon, WWE chairman & CEO. “Moving SmackDown Live to broadcast TV and having the ability to leverage Fox’s extensive portfolio of world-class sporting events will expand the reach of our flagship programming.”
