WWE producing “Saturday Night’s Main Event” cards on NBC is going to be a frequent occurrence during the length of their new Smackdown TV rights deal with NBCUniversal. However, a lot of Raw and NXT content will be disappearing from their streaming service, Peacock, soon.
The battle over WWE’s TV rights was one of the biggest stories of 2023 for the company. Their previous media rights deals with FOX and NBCUniversal — the owner of USA Network and Peacock — are set to end this year. Months ago, the promotion started listening to offers from interested broadcasters and streaming services. And their TV free agency came at the right time.
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The WWE product is as hot as it’s been in a couple of decades. And it gave the company a lot of leverage in negotiations. After months of discussions, the company agreed to bring WWE Raw to Netflix in January 2025 for the next 10 years and $5 billion. They also will move Smackdown to the USA Network in a deal that will land them another $1.4 million.
Furthermore, with NXT gaining a lot of momentum, the CW Network made WWE an offer they couldn’t refuse and the brand will move from USA next month. While NBCUniversal lost Raw and NXT, they still have Smackdown and exclusive streaming rights for a lot of WWE content.
WWE will produce four episodes of ‘Saturday Night Main Event’ each year starting in 2025
This week it was revealed that “Saturday Night’s Main Event” will be making a return to NBC’s airwaves in December. However, expect many more editions of the legendary 1980s series in 2025. A spokesperson for NBCUniversal revealed to Ringside Intel their five-year deal with WWE will see them produce four editions of “Saturday Night’s Main Event” for the network each year.
However, around the same time “Saturday Night’s Main Event” returns, the era of Raw on USA will end. The spokesperson revealed that starting on December 2, a countdown clock on Peacock will tick off the seconds to January 1. At that point, the WWE Raw library will no longer be available on the streaming service.
Beginning today, a countdown clock has started for the NXT library on Peacock. That will also disappear when the Network moves to CW on October 1. However, the service now has previous episodes of Smackdown. And new episodes will be uploaded on Peacock 30 days after premiering.
