What If... Raw Moved To Another Night?
We are living in a wild time in the wrestling world, one full of a lot of what ifs? Vince McMahon is technically back on the throne of the WWE, using his power as the primary shareholder to force a return as chairman of the board. In becoming chairman, he claims his primary purpose is to help negotiations with upcoming TV rights and a potential sale. And no time was wasted in choosing a partner to help with a sale or potential suitors being named.
Now before I go any further I wanted to mention, love or hate Vince McMahon for what he's done for wrestling good or bad or as a person and his action. His return has people talking and has proved his strangle hold on the world of wrestling.
Back on topic. While looking at the list of potential buyers, the names are big time media conglomerates or tech companies. Comcast NBC, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon, Netflix, Liberty Media (Owns The Atlanta Braves, Formula One, Pandora, Sirius XM), and Endeavor (Owns UFC), even Saudi Arabi was thrown in the mix as a potential buyer.
All analyst point to Comcast NBC as the front runner, due to their preexisting decades long relationship with WWE going back 40 years. Disney is still saddled with debt from the Fox Studios purchase, Warner Bros. Discovery is trying to make sense of their merger, and AEW is on their cable networks. Amazon I think is still reeling from their purchase of MGM Studios, and Netflix much as I love WWE I'm not sure I'm really interested in another prince increase to cover their cost of purchasing them (after Stranger Things ends I'm seriously on the brink with cancelling Netflix).
All these talk and watching Raw had me thinking, with this week marking 30 years of Monday Night Raw. Could wrestling fans adjust to Raw on another night? Smackdown since it's inception in 1999 has been on Thursday Nights, Friday Nights, and Tuesday Nights so fans are use to that show hoping around. Raw has been flipped around especially in the 90's and mid 2000's being preempted often for the Westminster Dog Show.
It's been on the USA network for 25 years, spending 5 years on TNN when Viacom snatched up those rights in 2000. People correlate USA and WWE more often than most think, if you mention USA network to the average person it's WWE and Law & Order SVU. So if a new company took over and had to change the night, I think a huge part of most fans routine would be broken. A lot of us especially when football season is over, may not know what to do with ourselves.
I know for myself it would take some getting used to, and many out of habit would yearn for it to return to Monday's because that's what we know. I'm sure live cable or streaming numbers may take a hit because people are used to a certain night of the week for Raw.
It's all a what if scenario? and in the grand scheme of things may or may not matter in the world of streaming and on demand viewing.
Since it has been a staple for so long it definitely would feel weird saying Tuesday Night Raw.
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