4. Viacom
Where things would go: Viacom has the money to enter into a bidding war with WWE. WWE played a huge role in rebranding TNN from "The Nashville Network" to "The National Network" and eventually to "Spike TV" (2003).
Raw - Monday, Spike (3 hours)
Smackdown - Friday, Spike (2 hours)
Total Divas! - MTV / VH1 / Logo (1 hour)
Main Event/Superstars/NXT - Spike? MTV2?
WWE Studios - Possible closer relationship with MTV Films, Nickelodeon Movies, Paramount. Even possible that WWE movies could pop up on channels like Comedy Central.
Why they might win: Viacom has the money to bid on WWE, a male-centric network (Spike) to put it on and history proving how serious they are about prying WWE away from NBCUniversal. Spike currently airs Impact Wrestling (TNA) on Thursday Nights. After a decade, the show has settled into a steady rating pattern with the same million viewers each week. The company only survives only by the patience of the Carter family and the rights fees provided by Spike. If Viacom brought WWE to the network, the first move would be to dump TNA. Without a television deal in place, TNA would likely fold quickly leaving WWE as an even more dominant product. While Total Nontstop Action Wrestling is hardly a serious rival, Vince McMahon may enjoy removing the competition from the television lineup. With the option to bring programming from the world's largest professional wrestling company to their network, Spike officials are likely to jump at the chance to trade up from TNA to WWE. In 2011,
Viacom spent $50 million purchasing the MMA company Bellator after losing UFC programming to 7 year/$700 million Fox deal. They've continued to struggle to build the Bellator brand. Viacom certainly hopes they could translate WWE programming on Spike into more viewers for Bellator. It's built on history: back in 2005, when UFC's
The Ultimate Fighter aired on Spike following
Monday Night Raw, a
stunning 57% of young-adult males stuck around after Raw to watch TUF. Although most pro-wrestling programming provides little-to-no halo effect for other shows on the network, Viacom might be spending extra based on their confidence in a potential WWE to MMA conversion.
Why they might lose: McMahon was furious when Spike, sensing they were losing, pulled out of the 2005 negotiations. That left WWE scraping together a weak deal with USA. Allegedly, Vince was always annoyed that many hotels (where he spent many a night on the road), didn't have Spike in the lineup which left him feeling his marque programming was on a rinky-dink, second-rate channel. While Viacom Media Networks has several channels with reality programming (MTV, VH1, Logo), it's unclear how cleanly a show like
Total Divas! would fit in. It's not clear today how much an important Viacom channel like MTV wants to have to do with wrestling anymore. Back in 2007, MTV channels (MTV, MTV2, MTV Tr3s) experimented with Big Vision Entertainment's
Wrestling Society X. The series was short-lived (1/30 - 3/14) and at least one episode had to be edited due to content objections by MTV. When
Raw from USA to TNN in October 2000,
Sunday Night Heat jumped from USA to MTV. However, by April 2003,
Heat was pushed off MTV to Spike TV. WWE is trying to sell the whole package including
Raw &
Smackdown together. However, they may relent and agree to divide the properties. In that scenario, Raw would likely stay on USA while Viacom would be a strong top contender for obtaining Smackdown. If they're serious about pushing Viacom-owned Bellator MMA, they want to upgrade to a serious WWE pro-wrestling product as the lead-in.