Smackdown is moving to USA Network a few weeks prior than anticipated with the network announcing that the blue brand will move over starting September 13.
September 13 is a Friday so that means the show will keep its Friday time slot despite it’s a dreaded slot for television at that time.
NBCUniversal won the rights for Smackdown with a new $1.4 billion deal. FOX, which has been airing the show since 2019, did not bid to keep it even though it’s often #1 on the charts in the 18-49 demo.
USA Network will air both Raw and Smackdown in Q4 2024 as they also agreed to a $25 million deal to air Raw for the final three months of the year before they move to Netflix. The sum amounts to $41 million less than what NBCU is currently paying for Raw every quarter in this current deal.
USA Network also lost NXT which is now moving to The CW in October.
Discover more from Wrestling-Online.com
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.