Backstage Report On WWE's Hopes For New Raw TV Deal

Paul "Triple H" Levesque and Nick Khan were reportedly in Los Angeles earlier this week to negotiate a new TV rights deal for "WWE Raw" on Monday nights. The longtime flagship of WWE is the last remaining show to have its future determined, with "WWE SmackDown" moving from FOX to USA, and "WWE NXT" moving from USA to The CW in recent months. 

In this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote of WWE's hope to secure a deal worth $400 million a year. However, analysts have valued the show at $387 million. Melzer noted that throughout most of the negotiation period, FX — owned by Disney — had been the network in the lead, with Netflix, USA, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Amazon Prime also in the running. WBD would be a significant move with potential ramifications to the wrestling landscape as a whole, considering they are heavily invested in AEW programming, airing "AEW Rampage" and "AEW Collision" on TNT and "AEW Dynamite" on TBS.

On that, Meltzer reported that Nick Khan had approached WBD in October with a pitch that had been rejected. But those in WBD have also privately communicated that there had been no truth to rumblings of "Raw" going to either TBS or TNT. The internal perception in WWE was that WBD was always going to be a long shot due to AEW. But in any case, Meltzer said that negotiations are close to finalization for an estimated value of $387 million. Due to the negotiations, Levesque had been absent from last week's "Raw" following on from the prior weekend's Survivor Series event. Bruce Prichard was believed to have taken control that night.