Rumor: USA Network Considering Making SmackDown Three Hours

For better or worse, the brand extension is coming for WWE in just over a month. A lot of things need to be figured out before the brand split becomes official, but one of those things is brand equality.

It was reported last week that there were no plans to eliminate an hour of Monday Night Raw or to add another hour of content for SmackDown. However, something has changed over the last week between USA and WWE.

According to a report from DailyWrestlingNews.com, there are a lot more people at the USA Network that are open to paying for a third hour of SmackDown.

The powers that be at USA aren’t fully convinced that SmackDown needs another hour, but they’re listening to the possibilities and are interested in the idea.

 

It’s very likely that this decision would not be made soon, but it would be something re-visited after the brand split has been established and it’s renegotiated when WWE’s current deal with USA expires.

The problem WWE is going to run into is Raw is already three hours and SmackDown is two. If the brands are going to appear equal, SmackDown’s roster is going to need to be insane to compete with three hours of Raw.

However, Raw will have three hours of content to fill, so it’s going to be extremely interesting to see how WWE balances the two rosters with their time slots being different.

Do you think SmackDown needs another hour, or Raw should lose an hour?