WWE News: WWE Files Lawsuit Against International TV Partner, Interesting ‘WWE RAW’ Note In TV Deal
WWE is a worldwide company, one “W” of course stands for “world.” Due to this, WWE is televised in several countries around the world. In fact, it is in more homes than any other pro-wrestling company in the world. On top of this, it is in more homes than many television shows. Truly, WWE has worldwide appeal. However, sometimes there are issues with networks that WWE has to resolve.
According to The Wrestling Observer, WWE is filing a lawsuit against CTH, one of WWE’s television partners in Thailand and Malaysia. In 2014, WWE signed television deals with several places. They even renewed their American TV deals then as well as their UK deals. This was no different for CTH, as the WWE was able to secure a relatively good five year television deal with them. CTH was set to televise their WWE RAW, SmackDown, NXT, Main Event, Superstars, Bottom Line, Vintage Collection, Afterburn, and This week in WWE shows. This on top of all WWE’s pay-per-view events,
Truly, the deal was good for WWE. The problem is that CTH stopped paying rights fees to WWE, which is a huge problem. The deal has a clause where the rights fee goes up every year. The deal works as follows…
2014-$2.8 million
2015-$3.64 million
2016$4.55 million
2017-$5.69 million
2018-$6.83 million
The total amount for the entire deal is $23.5 million. The television company has not paid up recently, although they did pay for 2014. This means the company still has another 4 years to pay on their television deal with WWE, and WWE wants their money. This is why they are forcing them into court, which is clearly the best option in this case.
While in research on the case, an interesting note was found on WWE RAW. The show is set to be three hours long up until 2018. This is said to be the case for all new deals WWE has signed. After this, there is no mention of RAW at three hours, although many expect that to continue. If for any reason this were to change however, WWE would have to change up their deals with the networks.
This could be one of the main reasons WWE is keeping with the three hour show, despite some ratings slippage. Despite the slight dip in ratings, USA Network is said to be very happy with the show. USA has declined in ratings for their network, which was a main reason for bringing WWE SmackDown over starting in 2016. RAW is a consistent 3.0 or higher which is quite helpful for USA each week, month, and year. This makes WWE more valuable than ever for them. The three hour show also gives USA some help in filing content up their Monday primetime slot in full. So we shouldn’t expect this to change any time soon.
[IMG Credit: What Culture]
