Several FOX Sports executives including FOX Sports President Eric Shanks, FOX Sports producer Jacob Ullman and FOX Sports broadcast personality Colin Cowherd were all backstage at last night’s WWE SmackDown Live taping at the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, California, according to a report from Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated.
With WWE in the current mindset of mapping out their future plans in regards to their next major partnership with a broadcaster, following brief negotiations with other companies including Amazon, Facebook and more, this will no doubt raise a lot of eyebrows, as FOX Sports is being seen as the front-runner, should WWE move away from the USA Network.
It should be noted that FOX, who are in the process of selling much of their television and film assets to Disney for a fee reported to be over $52 billion, leaving the company healthy with finances, are looking at the possibility of spending that money out on sports properties.
The company also are still attempting to negotiate a new deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), as they make up a good portion of their programming alone on FOX Sports 1.