WWE are not guaranteed to be the only wrestling on Warner Bros. Discovery if they were to sign a new deal with the network.
With the current broadcast deal with the USA Network expiring in October, WWE has yet to secure a new media rights deal for the Monday Night show from October 2024. Following the return of CM Punk to the company and Punk previously stating that WBD CEO David Zaslav thinks very highly of him, there has been increased speculation that the network that currently broadcasts AEW could be looking at a new deal with the biggest wrestling company in the world.
Although WWE previously had a history of dominating the world of televised wrestling wherever possible, a lot has changed in 2023, specifically a lack of exclusivity in recently confirmed deals under the Endeavor-owned WWE. While there was a time when WWE wanted to be the only game in town on the respective networks that broadcasted Raw and SmackDown, this is no longer the case.
As published in an update by Dave Meltzer, it is believed that Vince McMahon no longer being in charge is the main reason why exclusivity is not as big of a factor as it once was:
The new WWE ownership is not Vince McMahon, so the attempt to get brand exclusivity is likely not there. UFC’s contract with ESPN was negotiated by Endeavor. PFL, a rival promotion, was also able to get on ESPN and ESPN+, and PFL just renewed that deal. It is believed the CW deal for NXT also didn’t call for exclusivity in the wrestling genre. Whether WBD would want two wrestling franchises is a different matter.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio earlier in the day, Dave Meltzer assessed the pros and cons of WBD signing a new media rights deal for Raw over AEW if they could only budget for one brand. With the price being a major factor, Meltzer first speculated whether or not paying the premium price for WWE would be worth it compared to AEW:
I think that there’ll be stuff in the next couple of weeks, most likely, could be the final deal. It could be, time will play out. We’ll see what happens. But, I mean, it could end up with the status quo. It’s not impossible, it could end up with incredible differences. Just got to wait it out and see. But I guess the main thing was that WWE and WBD is not a dead deal, and it appeared to be a dead deal before.
If WBD takes the deal, it would require, I would say, well over $350 million a year. And you can look at what AEW would cost, which would be far less than that, obviously. But, you know, you’re getting the number one brand, you know what I mean? Which is worth something too, but there’s also other bidders out there. And WBD may not want to go that high anyway.
Examples of new collaborative deals seen in recent months have included Episodes of NWA Powerr being spotted on the CW app, the future home of NXT, and Endeavor being a partner in the new TNA streaming deal. While there is no guarantee that both wrestling shows could be under the same umbrella, Meltzer stated that WWE demanding exclusivity will not play into the final decision:
So right now, it’s a wait and see, I would say that with the new ownership, based on the fact that CW was not an exclusive deal in the sense that CW can put other wrestling on if they want, I don’t know that they will, but they can, it’s not exclusive for NXT, that I don’t know that they’re going to go with WBD and say, Okay, we want to be exclusive.
And also WBD has a lot of channels. It’s not just TBS and TNT, and those are the key ones. I mean, there’s, Discovery and Tru and a million others, you know, I mean, a tonnes of stations. So, you have to factor that. I don’t think that the WWE would demand exclusivity, and I don’t know that WBD would let them demand exclusivity. At the same time, does that mean that they would want two different wrestling products? I don’t know.
It should be noted that although theoretically, a network could host WWE and another wrestling promotion, the financial cost of a single network signing multiple deals makes the collaborative effort unlikely.
WBD Has Bigger Priorities Than WWE
With live sports being one of the highest ratings draws each week, Warner Bros. Discovery is looking to secure deals from multiple franchises before negotiating professional wrestling media rights. Meltzer states that right now, the NBA is the top sports priority for the Warner Bros network:
A lot of this depends on how much they have to pay for the NBA, which is a key part of this whole equation, a big part, because the cost of the NBA is going to be very, very high. They want to stay with the NBA on TNT, they absolutely want it. But the belief is that they will pay a similar amount for fewer games, and that the NBA will should get games on different stations. But it will be less games, so NBA would get more per game, but the station may not be spending that much more.
But how that turns out at the end with the NBA, it takes way precedence over any WWE deal. And it takes way precedence over any AEW deal. So, you know, that’s the key deal. And then they just had a NASCAR deal for some races as well. So I mean, there’s so many balls in play. But, you know, again, how these balls play out, that’s the biggest news story this year.
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