Pretty interesting happenings are afoot. Crazy Days and Nights says that Jeff Bezos will pay virtually any amount of money to make Amazon the exclusive broadcasting partner of the NBA. The website's author went out of his way to mention that the plan is to get networks to give out rights deals to less expensive forms of live entertainment. This will be done by paying the NBA an amount that no network could realistically match. Wrestling fits the description of (relatively) inexpensive live entertainment perfectly.

The CW's recent pivot away from youth-oriented programming signals toward content that draws an older demographic. They've made deals with college sports conferences and NASCAR over the last couple of years toward this end. For all the hubbub about NWA's cocaine spot costing them a TV deal, they have a TV show that is on CW's app, indicating that the relationship is still very much alive. They're frontrunning a shift that major networks will have to make themselves. CW took a proactive approach, which usually puts you ahead of competitors who have to react by abandoning long term strategies. Remember that CW just gave NXT a big contract.

Triple H, who was recently seen with Jeff Bezos, factors into this situation. WWE/TKO brass knows that networks will have diminished options for live entertainment programming. With a lot of money freed up that networks would otherwise spend on major sports, this puts WWE programming in an almost-guaranteed position to collect more overpaid TV deals. They won't be the only live entertainment player in the game, but there are not as many viable competitors in this space as you would think. Bezos knows that live TV is the only advantage that cable and broadcast networks have over streaming platforms. He also knows that wrestling is cancerous for ad rates. Networks desperate for content + overpaying for mostly unprofitable content (wrestling) = Significantly weakened position.

Continued in the next post.