The CW president explains why WWE NXT was a fit for network

For The CW Network, acquiring broadcast rights for WWE NXT was a more realistic option than Raw or SmackDown.

WWE announced in November 2023 that it had agreed to a five-year deal to bring NXT to The CW. The deal begins this October with NXT moving over from USA Network. Today, it was confirmed that NXT will remain on Tuesday nights on The CW, airing live from 8-10 p.m. Eastern time.

Variety published an interview on Thursday with CW executives Dennis Miller and Brad Schwartz speaking about the network’s fall schedule. Miller, who is president of The CW, said Raw and SmackDown were a bit beyond The CW’s budget, but NXT was a fit both monetarily and with the network’s increased focus on sports properties.

We knew that Raw and SmackDown were a little bit beyond our budget here. Then if you look, we have a lot of sports where we have kind of that next tier moving into the first tier here, whether it’s the Xfinity races leading into the Cup, or it’s NXT leading into Raw and SmackDown. So it just started to fit. Then over the course of a couple of months, we went back and forth and got the deal done.

NXT has aired on USA Network since 2019 and will be on the channel until moving to The CW in October.

Raw and SmackDown are also moving to new television homes in their next TV deals. Raw will begin airing on Netflix in January 2025. SmackDown moves back to USA Network this September.