WWE and FOX have signed a deal earlier this year over Smackdown Live. Per this signing, the Tuesday Night Show will get its new home from next year onwards. Starting from October 4th, 2019, FOX Sports will start broadcasting Smackdown on Friday nights. This would result in a culmination of the historic million dollar deal between the two parties.
We expect that FOX sports will try to repackage the Smackdown Live show as much as possible. They definitely want to give a tough competition to the flagship show of the WWE i.e. Monday Night Raw. This could actually be better as there will be a healthy competition between the two shows. It will automatically increase the quality of Smackdown.
Reports are out claiming that FOX Sports is trying to bring severe changes to the show. They are looking to change the primary theme of Smackdown Live. Wrestling Observer Newsletter came up with the information that FOX is looking forward to coming up with a sports-related show. They don’t want a show filled up with comedic segments.
Apparently, FOX sports wants to create a sports block on weekly basis spanning from Thursday to Sunday. Smackdown will be a part of this block on Friday nights within the prime time of 8-10 PM. So they are looking for a ‘show less comedy and take more of a sports direction. NFL, MMA will be part of these sports block, as well.
Chairman of the WWE, Vince McMahon loves to bring more funny segments into a show to entertain the fans. Especially, Smackdown comes up with more of these segments to make it a light-hearted show. Monday Night Raw is more of a serious kind of program, in comparison. Making the B-show a sports-oriented program will make it similar to Raw.
We assumed a lot of cross-promoting with the other sports programs when the deal between WWE and FOX sports was official. The host network wants a number of sports personalities to appear to promote the upcoming sports block at the weekends in 2019. They are willing to go all-out to make Smackdown a sports-oriented show under their hostage.
So it might be evident that we will be getting less number of dance breaks and more wrestling on the B-show of the WWE. This could serve better to the fans who love to watch wrestling. Furthermore, a studio-based talk-show might also air following Smackdown on Saturday nights. Overall, FOX sports might give an overall mainstream makeover to this section of WWE programming.
