Earlier this year, WWE announced it was moving SmackDown from FOX Sports to USA Network. FOX Corp. Chairman Lachlan Murdoch says the decision not to renew the property was a simple one for the network due to one factor.
In an earnings call, Murdoch claimed FOX Sports wasn’t getting the advertising revenue it needed for the deal to make financial sense.
“We were not hitting the advertising numbers due to the audience of the WWE to make the return for our return on investment, to be above the levels that we would accept,” he said. “But also, we didn’t attribute enough significant retransmission revenue to the WWE either. So it made sense for us to move off and, and they’ve been a great partner for many years… So we wish them luck, and we’ve moved on from them.”
A five-year deal worth a reported $287 million per year between the WWE and NBCUniversal begins in October 2024. It will put SmackDown on USA, where it ran from 2016 until 2019, and has a total value of more than $1.4 billion.
Murdoch did note, however, that the network is seeing a necessary return on its investment with NASCAR to justify a renewal.
“We’re currently in, I think, the final stages of a very constructive negotiation for our NASCAR renewal, we’d look forward to continuing that, that partnership with NASCAR,” the FOX Corp. chairman said. “It’s been a great partnership for many years, and, and obviously, you know, NASCAR exceeds our expectations into from, from a ROI point of view.”
