WWE SmackDown is one of two flagship brands of the WWE, along with Monday Night Raw. SmackDown is a professional wrestling television program, which made its debut in April, 1999. There have been 20 seasons so far of WWE SmackDown. Since its debut in 1999, SmackDown has been broadcast from 162 arenas, in 147 cities and towns, in seven countries.
SmackDown debuted on the erstwhile UPN Television Network in 1999. It aired on UPN until 2006, when it shifted to The CW, after the merger of UPN and the WB. The show then moved to Fox-owned MyNetworkTV in 2008, and then to SyFy in 2010. After six years on SyFy, SmackDown moved to the USA Network in 2016, and was rebranded as SmackDown Live during its run on USA Network. SmackDown returned to Fox in October 2019, being rebranded again as Friday Night SmackDown, and dropping the word “Live” from its logo.
WWE SmackDown on Fox – The performance so far, and recent updates
Before moving to Fox, WWE SmackDown was broadcast on the USA Network on Tuesday nights. The show was rebranded in 2016 when it had moved from SyFy to USA, being renamed as SmackDown Live. It was broadcast live every Tuesday night. In 2018, as NBC pursued to renew their deal with WWE for Raw, Fox signed a $205 million deal with WWE to bring SmackDown to Fox. The deal between Fox and WWE was signed for five years, and was announced in June, 2018.
WWE SmackDown Live was again rebranded as Friday Night SmackDown, as it moved from Tuesday nights on USA Network, to Friday nights on Fox. The logo of the brand was also updated to reflect the change, and the word “Live” was dropped from it. SmackDown made its debut on Fox on October 4, 2019, with the debut episode marking the 20th anniversary of SmackDown. WWE SmackDown had a successful debut on Fox, bringing in almost 4 million viewers on its Friday night debut. Even though that number was likely to drop over the next few weeks, Friday Night SmackDown has continued to maintain consistently better ratings than the ones on its predecessor USA Network.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on-location broadcasts were suspended by WWE in March 2020, and SmackDown began airing from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, with no audience. On August 17, 2020, WWE announced that SmackDown, Raw and pay-per-views will be moving out of the Performance Center to the “WWE ThunderDome” at Orlando’s Amway Center. This move began with SmackDown doing so on August 21. The program still continues to be broadcast behind closed doors, but does so with remote “virtual spectators” and an enhanced arena.
You can watch WWE SmackDown on Fox, every Friday Night at 8/7c.