Smackdown Live will be officially moving over to FOX on Friday, October 19th, 2019. WWE’s deal with FOX is for 5-years and is worth around $1.025 billion. That works out to be $205 million annually.
According to Dave Meltzer in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscribe here), FOX could be looking to make a big change to Smackdown when it moves over to the network.
Meltzer says that FOX wants Smackdown to be less comedy oriented when the show switches over. They are apparently looking to push it into more of a sports direction.
The show is going to be presented as a part of their sports block, from Thursday to Sunday. This will especially be the case during Football season, where the NFL runs Thursday and Sunday. College football is also featured on the Network on Saturday’s.
Smackdown is going to be heavily promoted by FOX’s various sports personalities. As a result, they want to give them something more athletically oriented to promote.
It will also be fun to see various WWE Stars appearing on some of FOX’s other shows.
How would you feel about Smackdown moving into more of a sports direction? Let us know in the comment section below.
In other news, here are some of our bold predictions for WWE Evolution.