WWE Reportedly Could Move Raw To Warner Bros. Discovery, Home of AEW

WWE's next round of television negotiations is complete but for its flagship program, Monday Night Raw.

SmackDown is moving from Fox to USA Network. NXT will move from USA Network to CW. It had been reported Raw would likely move from USA Network to either Disney's FX or Amazon Prime Video.

Yet a new report says there could be a third destination: Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).

The wrestling outlet PWInsider reported Wednesday that TKO president Mark Shapiro, WWE president Nick Khan, and WWE head of creative Paul Levesque met with WBD executive Bruce Campbell on Monday about potentially moving RAW to WBD's TNT or TBS.

Longtime wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer, the Peter King of wrestling, corroborated parts of that report on Thursday.

Meltzer says while he previously believed the door between WWE and WBD had closed, that is no longer the case.

“They’re (WWE) shopping it (RAW TV rights) around and WBD obviously being one of them, and WBD seemed to be dead. And it’s not dead."

What changed?

Per Meltzer, CM Punk.

"(CM Punk opened up what may have been a shut door (with WBD). How open that door is or what is gonna transpire, I don’t know.

"Punk, he’s a significant player and that’s one of the reasons he’s gonna be at the house show in Los Angeles this week because I’m sure that the people who they are courting, everyone’s headquarters is in L.A.”

There's intrigue over a potential WWE-WBD partnership because WBD is home to AEW, WWE's rival promotion.

WBD is all in -- no pun intended -- on AEW, airing three different shows per week on TBS and TNT. AEW has performed well for those channels, particularly Dynamite on Wednesdays.

The deal between AEW and WBD expires in January 2025.

It's difficult to imagine, given how competitive WWE is, that WBD would stay in business with both wrestling promotions beyond a possible overlap of a few months at the start of one deal and the end of the other.

More specifically, it's my belief part of the appeal of WBD for WWE would be in knocking AEW off mainstream distribution.

And that brings us back to CM Punk.

Meltzer says Punk is the catalyst for WBD's interest in WWE. If true, you can't help but harken back to August.

In August, AEW terminated Punk's contract after he engaged in yet another real-life physical altercation at an event in London.

AEW owner Tony Khan was right to fire Punk. He was a liability. He undermined the locker room.

Nonetheless, Punk is one of the biggest draws in professional wrestling. Despite punching people in the face off camera, fans clamor for him.

His surprise return broke the WWE record for all-time social media views across all platforms, with over 71 million views in one weekend:

Therefore if Punk's termination from AEW and subsequent hiring by WWE lead to Raw moving to TNT/TBS, the CM Punk saga morphs from a wrestling story into one of the biggest stories in sports business this year.

Ultimately, if WBD has to choose between Raw and three AEW shows, it will likely weigh price vs. viewership.

Here are the ratings for Raw and the three AEW shows last week:

WWE Raw, Monday on USA Network: 1,466,000 viewers

AEW Collision, Saturday on TNT: 455,000 viewers

AEW Rampage, Friday on TNT: 341,000 viewers.

AEW Dynamite, Wednesday on TBS: 823,000 viewers.

Raw obviously draws more viewers than AEW. However, Raw could cost around $300 million a year, whereas renewing three AEW shows could likely cost WBD half of that price.

That's the calculation.

My conclusion is that Amazon Prime could use Raw more than WBD or Disney.

Thursday Night Football has served Prime well. But the football season lasts only. four months. Raw is 12 months a year.

Prime Video would hold a definitive advantage over its streaming competitors in terms of sports should it add Raw and the NBA (as rumored) next to Thursday Night Football.

And Amazon should be aggressive in winning those rights.

In that case, Warner Bros. Discovery would be wise to stay in the AEW business.