With many thinking that this week’s NBC Universal Upfronts presentation may bring an announcement of a new television rights contract with WWE, when it didn’t happen that left many more questions. We recently saw ESPN announce its new deal with UFC (which you can check out here), but ESPN was never in play for WWE, leaving both NBCU and FOX still as potential landing spots.

Today, Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter is stating that NBCU is currently only looking to procure Monday Night RAW, thus leaving SmackDown Live open to go to a different network:

Interesting tidbit among all the TV news today: NBCU is letting WWE SMACKDOWN go to open bidding. They're keeping RAW but the deal is so big (3x current value, I'm told) that they're not re-signing both. Big sports opportunity for another network.

— Matthew Belloni (@THRMattBelloni) May 16, 2018

EA’s Take: I think it’s important to note…make that VERY IMPORTANT to note, that WWE and NBCU are at the negotiating table. Therefore, if this is all true, the chances that this is some kind of negotiating ploy or tactic are very high. There’s even some saying that this may have even been leaked by WWE to try and gain more leverage. And by leverage, I mean money. It would make sense since there are specifics mentioned, “3x current value, I’m told”. Almost like WWE is throwing out there what it would take from another company to get them to leave NBCU. “Here Comes The Money” is more than just the opening line to Shane McMahon’s entrance music by the looks of things.

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