For what it’s worth, there has been more talk backstage today about WWE’s deal with USA Network. The word going around is that an announcement is coming this Thursday. here is no word on what happens with Smackdown. There’s always a chance Smackdown could move to Tuesday but no one knows yet if that’s the case. WWE has tried to sell their programming as a package deal with Smackdown being offered as a live Tuesday show.
Below is my original post from yesterday (Credit: Wrestling Observer radio):
The NBCU Upfront presentation is coming up this Thursday. There are people in the TV industry that believe a deal between WWE USA has been done and WWE is letting USA make the announcement on Thursday. That is not 100% confirmed but that is the story going around in the TV industry. There is no word on what the money terms are but whatever it is it’s likely to be at least what the highest bidder (outside of USA) bid for WWE since USA is allowed to match any outside bids.
USA is one of the most profitable cable networks so the timing of these negotiations was great for WWE since USA does not want to lose their slot as a top cable network. Without Raw on their network then they would probably be the number 6th or 7th cable network and they definitely don’t want that to happen.
