People Within Warner Bros. Discovery Reportedly Interested In Pursuing WWE TV Deal
Vince McMahon returned to WWE as executive chairman earlier this year to help the company with a sale and upcoming U.S. television rights negotiations. With the promotion merging with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) under the Endeavor umbrella earlier this month, the focus can now seemingly shift to the TV deals, with American investigative journalist James Andrew Miller noting on the "SI Media Jimmy Traina" podcast that there are people within Warner Bros. Discovery who are interested in WWE. Notably, WBD is the broadcast partner of All Elite Wrestling, but Miller was unsure how a deal involving WWE would affect Tony Khan's organization.
After Miller put forward that "WWE Raw" doesn't have to air on Monday nights, considering it was usually a "tough night" for it to broadcast due to other sporting events taking place, podcast host Jimmy Traina spoke about how WWE CEO Nick Khan was the individual who "made" the promotion move premium live events from Sunday to Saturday. Traina then went on to ask Miller if he thinks Khan would be behind moving "Raw" from its regular Monday evening slot. Miller responded by saying that he hadn't heard Khan advocate that, but he indicated that whoever picks up WWE's television rights could potentially shift the weekly show if they wanted to.
Miller pointed out that if WBD were to potentially lose the NBA television rights, then they would "become a big advocate" for picking up something else, but he acknowledged that if NBC and FOX – who allegedly have first refusal according to Khan – come in with an offer that WWE likes, then WBD wouldn't get the chance to negotiate.