WWE Network Sale Has Caused "Issues" Between WWE And ESPN
WWE News - ESPN no longer showing WWE content after sale to NBC Universal.
The big talk of the wrestling business today is that NBCUniversal has agreed a five-year, $1 billion dollar deal to exclusively feature the WWE Network on its Peacock Premium streaming service.
In the fallout of this, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Live have reported how this latest deal has majorly impacted the relationship between WWE and ESPN – to the extent that ESPN has now made the decision to cease airing any and all WWE content.
Elaborating on this, Meltzer and Alvarez detailed how there had previously been talks between ESPN and WWE in regard to the WWE Network. Likewise, there have long been those rumours of Disney – the parent company of ESPN – having had interest in purchasing WWE outright.
ESPN is said to have received word three weeks ago that they would not be getting any deal to house the WWE Network, and that spurred the sports network powerhouse to opt to stop showing anything WWE-related.
Elsewhere, this latest edition of Wrestling Observer Live saw it speculated that NBCUniversal could well go hard in trying to land SmackDown down the line. Presently, the NBCU-owned USA Network houses both RAW and NXT, while SmackDown is tied down to several more years at FOX.
It was even suggested that, should NBCUniversal manage to grab the rights to SmackDown once the FOX deal is up, NBCU could even move to try and purchase WWE outright.