Smackdown is moving to USA Network a few weeks prior than anticipated with the network announcing that the blue brand will move over starting September 13.
September 13 is a Friday so that means the show will keep its Friday time slot despite it’s a dreaded slot for television at that time.
NBCUniversal won the rights for Smackdown with a new $1.4 billion deal. FOX, which has been airing the show since 2019, did not bid to keep it even though it’s often #1 on the charts in the 18-49 demo.
USA Network will air both Raw and Smackdown in Q4 2024 as they also agreed to a $25 million deal to air Raw for the final three months of the year before they move to Netflix. The sum amounts to $41 million less than what NBCU is currently paying for Raw every quarter in this current deal.
USA Network also lost NXT which is now moving to The CW in October.