“WWE viewership was disappointing in comparison to expectations” – Backstage details on meeting between WWE and FOX

Backstage details on meeting between WWE and FOX. Fox signed a deal worth over $1 billion over five years with the WWE back in 2019.

Fox paid a lot of money to the WWE to bring SmackDown over from the USA Network. The deal was worth  $1 billion over five years and in the time since, the WWE have treated the  Blue Brand like the A-Show. However, there is still some dissapointment among FOX regarding the viewership of the Friday Night Show.

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According to Fightful Select, a source from Fox reportedly “admitted that the WWE viewership was disappointing in comparison to expectations”. FOX had higher expectations in regards to the viewership that SmackDown was getting.

Backstage details on meeting between WWE and FOX

The report states that WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon and WWE President & Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan met with FOX Sports CEO Eric Shanks and FS Head of Production Brad Zager the night before SummerSlam back in August. Their meeting reportedly lasted around four hours, and was said to be productive from WWE’s end.

The rport also adds that the relationship between the two parties is not as strained as it was believed to be prior and while FOX is dissapointed with the viewership they acknowledge that they have the most-watched wrestling TV show in the world.

They were quick to note that due to the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was still hard to gauge where those numbers would level out.

Another point of contention was WWE’s relationship with Peacock. FOX are not thrilled about having to promote another network’s streaming service but WWE and FOX sources have insisted that there has been no issue there.

In their attempt to appease FOX, WWE have agreed to have their return to Los Angeles (headquarters of FOX) air on SmackDown instead of Monday Night RAW as initially planned. This edition of SmackDown is set for December 10th this year.

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