Nick Khan On How WWE RAW Would Benefit With A Fourth Hour
Recently WWE resident and Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan sat down for an interview with BT Sports' Ariel Helwani and discussed a wide variety of topics including creative and businesses aspects of the company. During the interview Khan, was asked whether he believes RAW or SmackDown is a better show.
"I think both shows are great right now," Khan quickly answered. "I think what Roman has developed, as this monster heel, has been amazing for television... At the same time, if you look at what is happening on RAW, we think a lot of the talent that people saw as developing talent are now crossing over. So, both shows are equally impressive to me."
Khan addressed if he believes RAW could benefit from going to two hours, as opposed to the current three. He notes that RAW would actually benefit from going to four hours, and elaborated as to why they stay at the current three and two hour shows.
"Listen, from my view RAW would benefit from going four hours so we'd get paid more money," said Khan. "SmackDown going eight hours. But I understand our creative folks, as amazing as they are, there's only so much great content they can produce on a weekly basis. So, we're good with the three and two [hour] system."
The topic of Saturday night PPVs was brought up. Khan was asked if WWE was considering doing more events on Saturdays. He stated that the WWE is always looking for days on the calendar where there is not a major sports event. He then pointed to the upcoming New Year's Day PPV as an example.
"We're looking for any sports date, on the sports calendar, where a sporting event doesn't exist," notes Khan. "And I'll give you an example of that. So, this coming New Year's Eve, is a Friday night. Atlanta expects 300,000 to 400,000 people to go to Atlanta for New Years. And by the way, the two college football playoff games are also on that Friday, December 31st New Year's Eve. My belief is that people who are going to Atlanta, they don't wake up the Saturday morning after a long night out for New Years, and say 'Okay, let's go home.' They want to do something on Saturday night.
"There was a moment in time where all the big college football games were on New Year's Day. That's changed. They're not all on New Year's Day, as we know. The Saturday night, where the Rose Bowl is happening that night, but it's not in one of the two college football games. So, we saw it as an open night. And our Atlanta folks, our partners at State Farm Arena, are excited for the event. We're excited for the event. And we're always going to look at that calendar to see what might work, [SummerSlam] being an example of that as well."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit BT Sport with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.