Sports Network Turned Away from WWE Television Deal Just Prior to New Deal

As noted, on May 15, WWE announced a new deal with NBCUniversal, keeping WWE programming on its stations. Following its new deal, things did not go well for WWE. For one, its stocks plummeted, ultimately costing Vince McMahon his billionaire status. Additionally, more and more investigations were launched on WWE by law firms, on behalf of their stockholders.

Now, Wrestling Observer Newsletter has revealed that a sports network, which is not named, had a great deal of interest in signing with WWE, prior to its renewal with NBCUniversal. However, upon hearing what WWE wanted in return, the network lost all of its interest.

The report also noted that since day one, WWE showed its hand in the negotiations with interested networks. It is believed that this is why WWE did not receive many bids from a wide variety of networks.

The newsletter also went on to talk about the perception that WWE had amongst the television industry. Within the industry, it was perceived that WWE was cheap programming, which would be able to bolster any given network with ratings and viewership.

Editor’s Note

The report definitely sheds some light on why WWE did not do too well on its new television deal. It also shows that you cannot put all the blame on WWE, as it appears many networks were expecting a deal with WWE to be cheap anyway.