Real Reason Fox Cancelled WWE SmackDown

WWE has signed a raft of new TV deals in 2024 but it now it seems the real reason it had to find a new home for SmackDown has been revealed.

In September 2024, WWE SmackDown went back to the USA Network after five years on Fox. WWE’s blue brand had previously aired on USA between 2016 and 2019 and is now firmly established there once again.

WWE has signed a multi-billion dollar deal with Netflix for Monday Night Raw but outside of the United States, many countries will see the streaming giant become the home for all WWE content, including SmackDown.

Fox Cancelled WWE SmackDown

There was a lot of debate over why Fox was letting the Friday night show disappear from its network after its five year deal was up and now it seems everyone has that answer.

Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer indicated that Fox chose to cancel WWE SmackDown on its network, not because of ratings but because of cold, hard cash:

When WWE were on Fox, the key was they did much better than Fox could have ever done in that timeslot and even then Fox ended up cancelling them. Even being number one most nights, they were losing money on the deal at $205 million a year so that’s why the cancelled them. It wasn’t over ratings, it was over expense.

People think ‘Oh those ratings weren’t that good’ the ratings were great but they didn’t wanna spend – they thought it was gonna cost them $280 million to maintain the show but they were losing money at 205, why pay 280. They decided football would be better in the fall and I don’t know what they’re gonna do the rest of the year.

WWE has been forced to make a change to its programming after serious allegations were made against one of the company’s top executives.

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