Will the Brand Split Stick Around With SmackDown’s Move to FOX?

With SmackDown set to move to FOX in October 2019, the expectation right now is that the brand split will remain.

There was some speculation that WWE would end the brand split so that they could have all of their top talent on both Raw and SmackDown, but that idea was denied by a WWE source to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

FOX reportedly doesn’t really want to cross-promote the same talent that’s on the USA Network, which is owned by NBC Universal, so the expectation is that the split will remain. But it’s still almost a year away, so anything can change from now until then.

Split Crews

There will also likely be separate production teams for Raw and SmackDown, the Observer says.

The SmackDown team will do SmackDown Live on Friday and will also produce Saturday house shows. WWE is also expected to begin airing more house shows on WWE Network.

The Raw team will work Raw on Monday and will work Sundays, whether there is a PPV or a house show.