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What's the story?
For those who recently invested in WWE, they could not have chosen a better time. CNBC reported that the shares of the World Wrestling Entertainment increased by 15% in pre-market trade on Wednesday. The increase took place after WWE signed two new major TV licensing deals for its flagship shows, Monday Night Raw, and SmackDown Live.
In case you didn't know...
Both Raw and SmackDown are weekly WWE shows which feature the wrestlers on the WWE roster. They each have exclusive separate stars, after the WWE brand split, which took place in 2016.
The shows work towards building up storylines with their weekly episodes. The stories all lead up to a one-night showdown at the monthly pay-per-view, where the story ends, or the next chapter begins.
Raw is the longest running weekly episodic television show in the history of United States Prime Time and has aired for over 25 years to date.
The heart of the matter
WWE recently signed TV licensing deals for their two major flagship shows, Raw and SmackDown. They signed with Comcast's USA Network for their show Raw, and with Fox's Fox Sports, for their show SmackDown Live. The two networks will start airing the shows on the 1st of October, 2019, when the current deals expire.
Raw will continue to air on Mondays, while SmackDown Live will move from Tuesday to Fridays. The deals are set to increase the revenue WWE collect annually from their United States distribution to 3.6 times that of their previous deal with NBC Universal.
The jump in the prices also reflects the continuing importance of television deals for WWE, despite streaming services like Netflix and Amazon gaining traction.
WWE is looking for further television deals in the United Kingdom, where they announced the creation of a WWE UK Brand featuring UK wrestlers. They also have been looking to grow their market in the Middle East and in India.
What's next?
WWE officials expect that the revenues from these two deals will grow from $311million in 2019 to $462m in 2021.
There are other deals in the works as well, with WWE possibly looking for a television deal for its United Kingdom shows. At the rate that the company is going, their growth will be exponential in the coming years.
What are your thoughts about WWE's recent growth? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
