With television rights for live sports and entertainment in a boom period, it had long been reported that WWE planned to cash in when its contract with NBCUniversal, which presently airs both Raw on Monday nights and SmackDown Live on Tuesday nights, expires in 2019. It’s official. Fox will be the new home of WWE SmackDown Live, the network announced Tuesday. The new five-year agreement will commence Oct. 4, 2019, and will give Fox two hours of live event programming 52 weeks each year. WWE will start negotiating new television contracts in the United States and United Kingdom next year according to George Barrios, WWE’s Chief Strategy & Financial Officer. The broadcast contract with NBCUniversal for WWE shows in the United States on USA Network expires on September 30, 2019, while that one with Sky in the UK will expire three months later.