Rants

WWE Leaving Sky TV In UK

By Scott Keith on 22 June 2019

Scott,

Not sure if this is on your radar but WWE switching UK programming from Sky TV to a rival sports network called BT Sport will happen in early 2020. WWE/WWF has been a fixture on Skys subscription channels since 1989 but their relationship has soured recently
over falling ratings and Sky obviously not making what they used to from carrying pay-per-views.

Sky has around 9 million subscribers but Raw and SmackDown UK ratings are at modern era lows of 40,000 to 50,000 per show. Shows like Progress etc are gaining weekly on WWE ratings too. BT Sport only has around 2 million subscribers,further cutting down potential
WWE ratings.

I suppose my question is: how truly low have we sunk when Sky,who have stood by the WWE for thirty years and have happily used it as a selling point/part of their identity now just think "no thanks,no more"?

Also interesting because obviously before now, all their TV deals have been giant amounts of free money, and this is the first one in a while where they're going from a position of strength to a substantially weaker one, presumably for less money too.