Sports Business Journal analyst John Ourand is predicting that NBCUniversal will purchase WWE next year.
Ourand issued his sports media predictions column for 2023 this week, and predicted that WWE will be bought by USA Network parent company, and longtime WWE partner, NBCUniversal. Ourand believes SmackDown will end up on one of the NBCU networks with the deal.
“WWE goes all in with NBCUniversal. The WWE’s TV deals expire at the end of 2024, but it will start to negotiate new deals in April, right around when ‘WrestleMania’ is in L.A. By the end of the year, the group will have a deal in place with NBCU that keeps ‘Raw’ and ‘NXT’ on USA and moves ‘SmackDown’ from Fox to one of NBC’s channels. The real significance of this deal comes in two years the two negotiate their Peacock deal. The deals for ‘Raw’ and ‘SmackDown’ will lay the groundwork for NBCU to buy WWE outright,” he wrote.
