WWE SmackDown To Remain On Fridays Following Move To USA Network

WWE SmackDown will remain on Friday nights and the show will be moving to its new home in the United States earlier than expected.

Friday Night SmackDown has aired on FOX since October 2019 and the show will be moving back to the USA Network later this year as part of a $1.4 billion deal over five years that will see WWE also produce four prime-time specials per year to air on NBC. 

Although SmackDown during its previous stint on the USA Network between 2016 and 2019 aired on Tuesday nights, the TV network has confirmed that SmackDown will be sticking on Friday nights this time around. SmackDown will also move to USA Network before October 2024 and will instead start airing in its new home on September 13. 

This means USA Network will have all of WWE's weekly programming for a couple of weeks until the beginning of October 2024 when NXT moves to The CW. Raw will remain on USA Network through the end of 2024 until the show moves to Netflix in January 2025. USA Network's deal for Raw was originally set to expire in October 2024 but a $25 million extension was recently agreed to keep Raw on TV until the end of the year.