The blitzkrieg that has become the second Monday Night War has become even more vicious as WWE has announced that their October 3 move to the USA Network, already known as Night of Champions and featuring several special appearances, will be expanded to three hours.
SpikeTV will counterprogram with another UFC live special and had expected that they could keep new viewers as well as get the viewers after RAW ended for “Ultimate Fighter” in its usual slot, followed by TNA. But WWE’s move throws a wrench in those plans.
This move is another in what has developed into a tense fight between WWE and their former flagship network SpikeTV. SpikeTV publicly terminated their deal with WWE after Vince McMahon, the company’s chairman, had aggressively pushed for a significant increase in right’s fees for the network during a time when RAW’s ratings actually decreased significantly.
Originally, SpikeTV seemed cold on the idea of competing on Monday nights and moved Ultimate Fighter and placed the new TNA Impact on Saturday night rather than Mondays. TNA, which is paying for the timeslot, is attempting to get a foothold on cable. UFC, on the other hand, is Spike’s pet project and its success is limited only by its ability to garner ratings without the lead-in of RAW.
The move of WWE programming from SpikeTV to USA is a deal with massive implications. WWE expects the move to increase ratings significantly and give them exposure Saturday nights on NBC occasionally, but their braggadocio in negotiating with SpikeTV severely limited their options. According to current estimates, the cost of this new deal will be 80% of current profit and the profit they made in the last quarter wouldn’t come close to making up the difference had they been on the USA Network at the time.
Unless WWE can increase ratings significantly or decrease their cost of operations, they will no longer be a profitable company in a year from now.
Three companies, WWE, UFC, and TNA are all hopeful—and indeed dependant—on success October 3rd and after.
