WWE CEO Nick Khan is optimistic about ongoing WWE media rights negotiations for new deals for WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown when their current deals expire at the end of 2024 with USA Network and FOX.
Speaking on the WWE earnings call today, Khan talked about why this round of negotiations is taking longer than the time.
“Last time, having been across that negotiation, the starting prices of where we were for Raw and SmackDown were far far less than the starting prices now, which means deeper and longer conversations. All of those conversations have been productive. We remain quite optimistic on it in terms of time. I’ve often said in negotiations, you can control a lot of the process, you can never control the timing of the negotiation. We feel we’re there in full force with a robust product that seems to have quite high ratings and relevancy at this moment. We think the results will be what we expect and hope they will be,” he said.
Khan noted that there are OTT buys in their media rights.
“The OTT buyers seem quite interested in not only Raw, not only SmackDown, but NXT, as do the more traditional buyers. We think it’s a very strong landscape for products that register.”
H/T to Fightful