In the last hours, the end of NBC Sports Network, the sports channel of the communication giant, has been announced, and the passage of its sports offer (NHL, NASCAR and Premier League) to the USA Network offer, the channel where WWE is offered Raw and NXT, with possible effects on the latter due to a possible change of day.
But one move could make WWE’s yellow show stick and it’s the NHL television contract. Dave Meltzer, a journalist for the Wrestling Observer, has exclusively advanced that the television contract of the ice hockey league also ends this 2021.
WWE should be attentive to this because it would fully affect its programming: Wednesday is ice hockey night and this could comprise the entire primetime schedule, and therefore the NXT schedule. However, it is unclear if the NHL will renew with NBC as ESPN would be very interested in buying the rights.
Everything is not very clear what will happen with the NHL. If for a case the rights remain on NBC, M Meltzer has confirmed that NXT could be transferred to Thursday nights. However, it should be remembered that the contract to broadcast the show ends in October, so not continuing on the USA Network is also a possibility.
According to the latest information, NBC would be very interested in maintaining the rights of the NHL as it is a great source of audiences and income for the conglomerate, so a change of NXT is very possible, although a two-way agreement is not agreed with ESPN.
