Report on why WWE programming didn’t move to ESPN

A new article from Sports Business Daily sheds some light on WWE’s recent negotiations with top TV network’s for the rights of Monday Night RAW and Smackdown Live. As you likely already know, RAW ended up staying with NBC Universal and Smackdown Live will be moving to FOX next year.

One of the questions that were answered in the article was why ESPN didn’t get either RAW or Smackdown.

It turns out that ESPN was very interested in trying to acquire the rights to WWE programming.

WWE’s top executives met with ESPN four times from December until the spring but it didn’t end up working out. So what happened?

The reason that it didn’t work out according to the article is that ESPN cannot afford to give any sport 52 weeks a year on their Network.

As wrestling fans, we know that RAW and Smackdown are live every week of the year. Just like we saw several months ago, this includes major Holidays like Christmas and New Years. WWE’s desire to be live 52 weeks of the year was a major scheduling issue because of the rights deals that ESPN already has.

ESPN also considered WWE for their ESPN+ streaming service but WWE ultimately viewed it as competition for the WWE Network.

There you have it, that is ultimately why WWE couldn’t get a deal done with ESPN.

(Pro Wrestling & MMA World)