Yesterday, The Telegraph published a piece on their website that BT Sport is set to announce that they have entered into a partnership with WWE to begin to air its programming in the United Kingdom later this year.
For the past 30 years, Sky has been WWE’s main UK partner. Showing both Raw, SmackDown Live, Main Event, and many other programmings. Sky’s contract is rumored to be ending at the end of November this year. This is massive news in the TV industry over here in the United Kingdom.
WWE heading to BT Sport?!
Rumours have been rife that Sky are unhappy with the WWE Network impeding PPV buys, now @Tom_Morgs reports that BT Sport could be swooping for the rights!https://t.co/wLsQp6RHFP
— The Pro Wrestling Show (@ProWrestleShow) May 16, 2019
Following on the heels of ITV (the country’s biggest broadcaster) announcement that they’ll be showing All Elite Wrestling’s Double Or Nothing via their PPV arm, ITV Box Office, we have today’s news. Combine that with the fact that AEW will have a regular weekly TV show this fall/Autumn on US TV. Could that also be shown on the ITV channel? In the shape of a few short days, the entire UK wrestling TV landscape has had a seismic shift.
BT Sport, not known for its wrestling coverage, is posting huge numbers for it’s Champions League football/soccer coverage. Throw WWE onto the channel and it could boost it’s numbers even more!
At the time of writing BT Sport have refused to comment on the speculation
Blake’s Take: WOW! This news has come out of left field! I’m sure I speak for a lot of folks when I say that even though Sky’s contract was coming to an end later this year, we all thought that they would re-sign with WWE and carry on their multi-year partnership. But maybe those rumors were true? That Sky was upset with WWE launching the Network, killing their PPV buys in the process. There’s a lot of questions that still need to be answered. Hopefully, over the coming days, those questions will be answered and the UK wrestling audience will have a better idea as to what is going on. It is an incredible state as BT Sport will begin to air WWE
