The Hollywood Reporter has put out some new details on how FOX was able to win the TV rights for Smackdown Live. For those who missed it, news broke last week that Smackdown would be moving to FOX for a deal worth over a billion dollars.
So how did FOX get the rights from NBC Universal? It turns out that it was more than just a money thing.
Triple H and Stephanie McMahon reportedly had a meeting with some major players from FOX. This included Rupert Murdoch, who is the founder of FOX.
Murdoch had an interesting pitch to WWE. He says that NBC Universal was embarrassed by the WWE product. He also teased a huge future for Smackdown on FOX. Here is an excerpt from the article:
“The elder Murdoch insisted NBCU was “embarrassed by your product.” Fox, he said, would fully embrace WWE, with SmackDown promos airing across sports programming every night of the week, along with a weekly studio show on FS1″
The weekly studio show will interest wrestling fans for sure (Talking Smack????). Also, looks like FOX is going to be promoting the show heavily. Should be interesting to see what happens.
