WWE will "look to shop" its "Monday Night Raw" and "Smackdown" TV franchises to other distributors "as its exclusive negotiating window with NBCUniversal has closed without a renewal," according to R. Thomas Umstead of MULTICHANNEL NEWS. WWE officials said that the company's deal with USA Network for "Raw" and Syfy for "SmackDown" "expires in September." WWE has been "negotiating exclusively" with NBCU since January, "but that window expired" last Saturday. WWE CFO George Barrios called NBCU "a great partner" and said that WWE "will continue to talk to the company about a deal extension." But he added that he is "looking forward to talking to other potential partners" for both properties, "as well as for its ION-distributed weekly series Main Event and its reality series Total Divas on E!" USA has carried "Raw" since '05, while "SmackDown" has aired on Syfy since '10. Sources said that NBCU "holds some matching deal rights, but specific details were unclear at press time." Barrios said that he "hopes to have a deal by the end of April or the beginning of May" (MULTICHANNEL.com, 2/18). In L.A., Joe Flint reported NBCU and WWE are "far apart on a price." WWE is "looking for a dramatic increase in rights fees and has retained" Bevilacqua Helfant Ventures co-Founder & CEO Chris Bevilacqua "to negotiate its deal." WWE in its marketing materials "compares its audience to NASCAR," which recently signed a 10-year, $8.2B deal with Fox and NBC. "Raw" "typically averages" around 5.0 million viewers, while "Smackdown" averages 3.2 million (LATIMES.com, 2/18). In N.Y., Claire Atkinson reports WWE's "demand for live-sports-like fees was too much for NBCU to immediately jump at" (N.Y. POST, 2/19).
THE ULTIMATE YES MAN: USA TODAY's Daniel Uthman in a sports-section cover story notes the "Yes! Yes! Yes!" chant popularized by WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan has "spilled over from sports entertainment to mainstream sports." Michigan State OL Travis Jackson led the crowd at an MSU men's basketball game in the chant during a Jan. 7 game against Ohio State, and St. Bonaventure fans "broke out the chant with a minute to go in a victory" against UMass on Jan. 29. The week after the Super Bowl, the Seahawks "tweeted a graphic of thanks to Bryan, who grew up in Aberdeen, Wash., for his support of their team." The tweet "included the words, 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' and an image of the Super Bowl trophy." Having the chant become part of mainstream culture is "meaningful for WWE, which in recent years has successfully navigated a shift from the TV-14 era of the 1990s and 2000s to its current PG format that harkens to its initial rise to prominence in the mid-1980s" (USA TODAY, 2/19).
