NXT on USA

                          WWE vs USA for NXT

Today is an exciting day in the world of wrestling. It was announced this morning that NXT will be broadcasted on the USA Network instead of the WWE Network. Wrestling fans everywhere are anxiously awaiting tonight’s episode of RAW where they will be announcing the new NXT show that will debut on September 18th. There are some mixed emotions about these changes. Here I will explain the pro’s and con’s and this network switch.

This change could potentially acquire many new wrestling fans. By having NXT broadcasted on network television, this allows non-wrestling fans to stumble upon the channel and it may grab there interest. This could also bring back some ‘old school’ wrestling fans as well. Another benefit would be that viewers would not have to be subscribed to the WWE network in order to watch this show. The stock market shows that since the announcement this morning, the WWE stock has risen from $2.57 to $72.18!

Fox Sports is not too thrilled about the change. They were hoping that the WWE would replace the screen time that UFC had which ended at the end of 2018 on Fox Sports 1 and 2. In an interview with Forbes Magazine, Dave Meltzer could not of said it better himself. 

“FS1 obviously lost God knows how many hours of UFC programming which hurts them because UFC programming is some of the strongest stuff they had — NASCAR was kinda like the strongest I think on FS1 — but, UFC was very strong on FS1 and they lost all of that," explained Meltzer. "Part of the deal was the idea that ‘the money that we’re going to spend on UFC we’re gonna spend on WWE. They had a shot, but the thing is that if nobody said anything then people would be like whatever, but they told their affiliates that we’re going to be getting NXT and they’re not.” -Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer Live. 

In my personal opinion, I believe that NXT should live on the WWE network. However, I do see the value in sharing the experience of wrestling with network television viewers. Myself, I can not wait for tonight’s episode of RAW where we will find out more information about this transition. Stay tuned for a recap tomorrow of tonight’s announcements.

Signing off, 

Nicholas Wright, Sports Broadcaster and Analyst.