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The ultimate episode of SmackDown on FOX aired final week, ending a landmark settlement between FOX and WWE that started in October 2019. The deal referred to as for FOX to pay WWE $205M to air SmackDown every Friday on broadcast tv, greater than triple what NBCUniversal/USA Community beforehand paid for SmackDown. The deal was transformative for WWE, basically making them, for lack of a greater time period, idiot-proof transferring ahead.
Issues began nice for WWE on FOX: the present’s October 4, 2019, debut averaged practically 4 million viewers on a loaded present that featured the return of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and a present that promised a brand new, totally different period in WWE.
It additionally featured Brock Lesnar’s absolute destruction of Kofi Kingston and the tip of the KofiMania world title reign.
With SmackDown on FOX, the community’s aim could be for the wrestling property to look, really feel, and act extra like a sports activities present than a “sports activities leisure” present. It may and could be promoted on NFL Sunday as a bridge between sports activities and leisure.
Many lauded the 4 million viewership quantity, however some sensible, astute wrestling and sports activities followers had been very fearful about it. It was us—Joe and me. The 4 million was shockingly low given the timeslot on FOX, and we fearful in regards to the week-to-week rankings churn in the event that they had been beginning at such a low determine.
We came upon the next week when SmackDown fell by roughly a million viewers on week two, and in week three, they shed one other 500,000. Very early in SmackDown’s run on FOX, it constantly hit the two.2-2.5 million viewers mark.
Much more disappointing was that SmackDown on USA Community routinely hit simply over 2 million viewers weekly. This was a “new period” of SmackDown available on community TV, reaching much more properties than the USA. SmackDown was given prime promoting slots on NFL Sunday and different FOX Sports activities broadcasts.
When requested about their expectations, FOX placed on face and stated they had been pleased with the numbers. As we’d discover out in later years, they weren’t. By September 2021, a supply at FOX would inform Fightful Choose that the SmackDown viewing viewers was “disappointing compared to expectations.”
Not too long ago, FOX sources have spoken additional about their disappointment in WWE’s output, notably through the ultimate years of Vince McMahon’s tenure: “They didn’t really feel like that in 2020 and 2021. They felt, particularly below Vince McMahon—a number of the final days of that or a number of the final years of that—that he was not giving them a number of what they’d been instructed.”
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