WWE & USA til 2014 = New WWE Channel?

On Monday Night Raw, Michael Cole and Jerry "the King" Lawler proudly announced that WWE had signed a new agreement which would extend their WWE Raw show on USA Network through 2014. The news is that WWE has plans to start its own cable network within the next year and a half or so. USA Network is currently owned by NBC Universal, and its known that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon has a longtime relationship with NBC Universal sports chief Dick Ebersol.

There is a channel called NBC Universal which WWE may end up moving its programming to. Currently the channel offers Hi-def programs but mostly reurns like Monk and Hogan's Heroes. There's also the occasional sports movie and a hi-def version of Raw.

According to reports, there's been some preliminary talks regarding this deal, and there's the potential for Comcast to take over NBC. If this move happens then WWE will be able to reach almost 25% of the country with its shows.

There's no word on whether this new WWE channel would be some sort of premium subscriber channel, or offered on basic cable packages. Currently, WWE airs 4 television shows weekly, each of which runs on a different cable station. Some viewers may be lucky enough to have all 4 stations (WGN America, USA, SyFy and MyNetwork TV) while others are required to subscribe to different packages, such as on the DISH Satellite Network.

(Story source: LA Times blog)