{"id":60676,"date":"2018-05-30T15:56:29","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T20:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=60676"},"modified":"2018-05-30T15:57:28","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T20:57:28","slug":"fox-courted-wwe-in-meeting-earlier-this-month-with-big-projection-of-rousey-and-triple-h-at-wrestlemania-pitch-being-more-enthusiastic-than-nbcu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/05\/30\/fox-courted-wwe-in-meeting-earlier-this-month-with-big-projection-of-rousey-and-triple-h-at-wrestlemania-pitch-being-more-enthusiastic-than-nbcu\/","title":{"rendered":"Fox courted WWE in meeting earlier this month with big projection of Rousey and Triple H at WrestleMania, pitch being more enthusiastic than NBCU"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-1382025512\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>Rupert Murdoch himself, the patriarch of Fox, reportedly said NBCU is embarrassed by the WWE product, but Fox won&#8217;t be. That&#8217;s one detail reported today by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/wrestling-rights-shakeup-fox-nabs-wwe-espn-signs-ufc-nbc-gets-raw-1115156\">Hollywood Reporter<\/a> in a story about how negotiations led to the Smackdown-Fox deal worth more than $1 billion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[They&#8217;re] embarrassed by your product,\u201d Murdoch reportedly said via telephone during a May 17 meeting that also included Stephanie McMahon, Paul Levseque (Triple H), Michelle Wilson, and George Barrios from WWE, CAA&#8217;s Nick Khan and EMC&#8217;s Alan Gold. Fox was represented by executives Peter Rice, chairman and CEO of Fox Networks Group, and Fox Sports executives Eric Shanks and Larry Jones.<\/p>\n<p>Murdoch pitched, according to this article, that Fox would embrace WWE in a way that NBCU hasn&#8217;t, including unflinching cross-promotion on Fox&#8217;s other programming including high-profile, highly viewed major league sports including the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>WWE has received promotion during its stint with NBCU, including prominent placement on USA Network&#8217;s &#8220;Characters Wanted&#8221; ad campaign which pitched their entire show line-up to viewers as being about quirky and compelling lead &#8220;characters.&#8221; WWE wrestlers have also been cross-promoted on many NBC programs in recent years, including John Cena guest-hosting NBC&#8217;s &#8220;Today Show&#8221; at times.<\/p>\n<p>NBCU had rights to match any over of $200 million or less, so Fox offered more &#8211; $205 million per year.<\/p>\n<p>The story explains Fox&#8217;s rationale for essentially choosing WWE over UFC. One former Fox staffer was quoted as saying they couldn&#8217;t sell UFC to advertisers, but they will be able to sell WWE to advertisers, because WWE is more &#8220;family-friendly.&#8221; Said the former staffer: &#8220;If you have wrestling you can find cash. I think it&#8217;s a big win for Fox; it&#8217;s a great trade-off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the end, WWE is reportedly set to receive $2.35 billion from Fox and NBCU for combined rights fees for Raw and Smackdown respectively, which equates to about $470 million per year. WWE is currently getting around $130 million per year from its existing NBCU deal that expires in September 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022VIP members, check out Wade Keller&#8217;s PWTorch Newsletter cover story published last week detailing the TV deal (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorchvipinfo.com\">password required<\/a>) here:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/vip.pwtorch.com\/2018\/05\/26\/vip-cover-story-fox-grabs-smackdown-for-1-billion-wwe-revenues-reach-unprecedented-levels-with-new-tv-deals-1564\/\">VIP \u2013 COVER STORY: Fox grabs Smackdown for $1 billion \u2013 WWE revenues reach unprecedented levels with new TV deals<\/a><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-2610241666\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1500397737\"><div id=\"pwtor-580944217\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Rupert Murdoch himself, the patriarch of Fox, reportedly said NBCU is embarrassed by the WWE product, but Fox won&#8217;t be. That&#8217;s one detail reported today by the Hollywood Reporter in a story about how negotiations <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/05\/30\/fox-courted-wwe-in-meeting-earlier-this-month-with-big-projection-of-rousey-and-triple-h-at-wrestlemania-pitch-being-more-enthusiastic-than-nbcu\/\" title=\"Fox courted WWE in meeting earlier this month with big projection of Rousey and Triple H at WrestleMania, pitch being more enthusiastic than NBCU\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prowrestlingnews","category-news_wwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Fox_3x2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60676"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60678,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60676\/revisions\/60678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}