FOX CEO On Not Renewing Smackdown Rights Deal, Says It Didn’t Meet ROI Discipline Parameters

FOX’s CEO has commented on WWE Smackdown leaving the network next year. As reported in September, WWE announced that they had signed a multi-year deal to bring Smackdown to NBC Universal, leaving FOX where it had been since 2019. The move will happen in October of next year when the current deal with FOX expires. The deal is said to be worth $1.4 billion over five years, a 40% increase from the current deal.

During FOX’s earnings call on Thursday, CEO Lachlan Murdoch commented on the network’s decision to not renew its rights, noting that Smackdown didn’t fit their return on investment “discipline parameters.”

“How we analyze the WWE renewal, we look at all of our sports portfolios the same way and all new rights the same way,” Murdoch said (per Fightful). “On the basis of analysis, on both advertising point of view, we weren’t hitting advertising numbers due to the audience of WWE for our return on investment to be above the level we would accept. Also, we didn’t attribute enough retransmission revenue to WWE either. It made sense for us to move on from that.”

Murdoch continued, “They’ve been a great partner for many years, but quite simply, we’re very disciplined, and the ROI didn’t meet our discipline parameters. We wish them luck and we’ve moved on from them.”