WWE SmackDown Sets Earlier Move From Fox to USA Network — Find Out When
WWE SmackDown is headed back to basic cable sooner than expected.
Following a five-year stint at Fox, the Friday night show will return to USA Network on Sept. 13, earlier than its previously reported October 2024 date. As part of a newly struck deal with NBCUniversal, WWE will also produce four annual specials for NBC, marking the first time WWE content will air as part of NBC’s primetime slate.
“NBCUniversal has been a tremendous partner of WWE for decades,” WWE President Nick Khan said in a statement Thursday. “We are excited to extend this longstanding relationship by bringing SmackDown to USA Network on Friday nights and look forward to debuting multiple WWE special events annually on NBC.”
Added NBCUniversal Entertainment Chairman Frances Berwick: “It’s a privilege and thrill to continue NBCU’s decades-long partnership with WWE, which has helped cement USA Network’s consistent position as the top-rated cable entertainment network in live viewership. With Friday nights on USA, primetime specials on NBC, and the WWE hub on Peacock, we’ll continue to use the power of our portfolio to super- serve this passionate fanbase.”
USA Network is currently home to WWE Monday Night RAW, which will remain on the cabler through December before moving to Netflix in January 2025, and Tuesday night’s WWE NXT, which is moving to The CW in October. SmackDown has aired on several networks since its inception in 1999, including UPN (1999-2006), The CW (2006-2008), MyNetwork (2008-2010), Syfy (2010-2016), USA Network (2016-2019) and, most recently, Fox (2019—), where it will continue to be shown through September 2024.
Will you follow SmackDown back to USA Network? Sad to see it leave Fox? Drop your thoughts in a comment below.
It can never stay in one place for too long.
Why are they leaving fox 😢? Some people can’t afford cable TV.
NBCUniversal is their streaming home in the US replacing the WWE network and PPVs so it makes sense to keep everything in one place.
It isn’t all in one place since Raw is moving to Netflix.
Obviously what I mentioned in the other response wasn’t known when you posted back in Sept, but at this point it isn’t a matter of keeping everything together. It’s just a matter of different deals being struck.
For people without Cable TV, WWE NXT will be the Broadcast TV show starting in October on TheCW.
As for this SmackDown move, this means USA Network will have RAW, NXT, and SmackDown in September.
Then in October RAW and SmackDown.
Then in January it’s RAW on Netflix, SmackDown on USA Network, and NXT on TheCW.
I am mad not being able to view Smackdown for the past 2 months. Yes I will gladly go to new station.
Plus again with it being on USA and my guess is they end up striking a deal to keep nxt and raw on USA it means they’ll have 7 hours of live content as remember unless smackdown is bumped for either college football mlb or college basketball even when it’s in the mountain time zone like last week or pacific time zone in the mountain time zone it’s an hour behind and in the pacific it’s on tape delay as the show has already finished
If you have antenna TV you can still watch Friday Night SmackDown on FOX Network!
Only until next year, then you will have to have basic cable because it is switching to USANetwork
Greed is GOOD!
What about the people that can’t afford cable? Were you even thinking about them before you made the decision? Guess I won’t be watching anymore. That will save me $30 a month. If I can’t watch the main shows I won’t watch the pay-per-views either
Do watch the pay per view on peacock
Yes I will follow www back to USA network. However my satellite provider, Dish Network, is at odds over the pricing of NBC at the current time. They have done this in the past with other local networks and we have ended up losing them altogether because they couldn’t come to an agreement so I may not be able to see the shows airing on NBC unless they will be on Peacock. But not everyone has Peacock
Do you have a smart TV? Are you in a somewhat populated area? We recently were without FOX for over 2 months and I went and bought a digital antenna ($10 on Amazon). Works like a charm – of course we got Fox back less than a week later, but just a suggestion for anyone who is missing a local network due to disagreements between them and provider.
Hopefully the NBC specials will replace some of the PLEs, of which there are just too many.
But will they be able to include the Raw cast, if that does leave USA?
Great, just great! Now my 76 yr. old grandpa can’t watched it on FOX now. He couldn’t afford satellite and is unable to get cable in the rural area. He is now reduced to watching the NBC specials or via when I bring my Fire TV stick w/ wifi hotspot to watch these shows and premium events. Now we are seeing season veterans crossing over to NXT. The whole purpose of NXT was to showcase the newcomers and amateurs. It appears they are fully separating Smackdown and Raw. That is a good thing not to have those crossovers but only rarely so those shows can stand out on there own. The best part is the specials are on NBC but I am not clear on whether they are just Smackdown specials. I see a clear call for each brand to be their own again but it depends on this restructuring. I hope this is a good thing and not a ratings drop for WWE because I love Smackdown and grew up on Raw and Main Event before that.
It’s like the highest-rated broadcast show on Friday nights! I don’t understand the FOX decisioning on this or 9-1-1.
Sad cause I don’t pay for cable or streaming apps guess u will lose more ratings
Not the first time ever. NBC used to have 2 primetime specials per year last time USA had the rights.
That’s really messed up for those people that don’t have cable or satellite or something for those people that just have regular antenna. Now we won’t be able to watch any wrestling programs except women of wrestling. That’s really messed up
This nice that are moving back to USA. What makes nice is this merger they. are trying to draw more audience to watch and doing bigger and better things I’m happy cannot what
Guess I won’t be watching . All I have is antenna
WWE wrestling is just like Impact Wrestling switching networks on cable TV too much. That needs to stop, WWE fans are gonna stop watching WWE wrestling and turn to AEW Wrestling and Impact Wrestling on cable. WWE wrestlers are being let go from WWE or leaving WWE for AEW and Impact Wrestling.
WWE fans will follow it wherever it goes no matter what. Even at its worst moments when ratings did drop, they’re still watching.
And SmackDown switched networks more than Impact, so…
Yeah with wwe moving it’s because of rights fees as there deal to move raw to Netflix 5 billion and oh if you live abroad you get the extra perk of since the wwe network is shutting down at the end of the year you’ll also get the wwe networks catalouge of documentaries orignal programming and oh yeah ple’s and smackdown USA paid I believe 2.5 billion to bring it back to USA and I believe nxt was something in the range of 900 million
i want wwe to be on the usa network only raw’nxt & smackdown should all be on the usa network only i dont want wwe to be on netflix exclusively on usa network only
It doesn’t feel like it’s been 5 years at Fox. Sheesh.
I wonder if the nbc specials they’ll do would be Saturday nights main event it would be nice to bring that back or the wrestlemania tv specials they used to do they stopped doing those since wrestlemania 30 in 2014.
I think that USA network should have all three shows Monday night Raw and Tuesday night NXT and Friday night smackdown All on USA network if goes to Netflix I will not see it I’m not paying for it another steaming network
Why do they always have to make things so complicated! My elderly father loves wrestling! It makes him happy. So of course make it difficult for him to enjoy his shows. This is so unbelievably frustrating. Just leave things be!