News recently broke that WWE is going back to airing RAW, Smackdown, and NXT live. This came as a surprise to many as the company had been taping episodes in advance during the coronavirus pandemic.
Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline has provided some details about why Vince McMahon made the decision to go back to live programming during a pandemic.
According to Meltzer, WWE is only allowed a few pre-taped shows (per year) in their television contracts with NBC and FOX. As a result, there is some concern within WWE that the networks will be able to withhold money from them if they don’t produce live content.
Here is what Meltzer had to say:
Contracts with both NBC Universal and Fox call for a certain number of shows per year that can be taped. For Raw, that number is three which, at the start of the year, was earmarked for one show over Christmas week and two shows during European tours. In theory, that would leave them with 49 live Raws. Fox has a similar deal.
While nobody will say so publicly, the fear was that by violating the contract, it would give the networks the legal ability to withhold money or find a way to change the deals. With no house shows, the company, like all sports companies, is surviving largely based on television revenue, but the networks paying that are also taking in far less revenue than they projected at this point in time due to the pandemic.
It’s unclear whether the decision to return to live is an actual thing that the networks told McMahon to do in recent weeks based on declining ratings or if he is guarding against the possibility of them doing so.
This definitely makes things more interesting. We will let you know when we hear more information.
On a related note, check out my predictions for the Money in the Bank PPV.