WWE Reacts To Fox’s Dumping Of Smackdown

WWE SmackDown will move to the USA Network for its next deal, and that transition will take place in 2024.

During FOX’s Q1 2024 earnings conference call, Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of FOX and son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, discussed the reasons for SmackDown leaving the network.

Although SmackDown did not meet FOX’s promotional expectations, its advertising space still retained high value.

Recent reports have revealed an increase in advertising costs during SmackDown broadcasts, in contrast to a significant decrease in the value of advertising space for other shows.

“We were not hitting the advertising numbers due to the audience of the WWE to make…

to return for our return on investment to be above the levels that we would accept. But also, we didn’t attribute enough significant retransmission revenue to the WWE either.”

The comment attracted a lot of attention, especially after it was revealed how much advertisers paid for time spent on the blue brand’s runway show.

Ad Age notes that WWE SmackDown’s advertising revenue is approximately $51,077. This number increased by 8% compared to the previous year.

Brandon Thurston posted on X to break down the numbers a bit for fans.

Ringside News gave an internal reaction to what the FOX CEO said. A regular member of the group commented to us: “No one was surprised by this comment. And inventory has increased this week so no damage has been done. ”

FOX is no longer in the WWE business as SmackDown ends its run on the network. FOX also canceled its WWE podcast, which was one of the first signs that it was moving away from the company.