This summer, WWE announced that its longstanding UK TV partnership with Sky Sports was coming to an end. After three decades with Sky, WWE was set to move to BT Sport in January 2020, which would air both Raw and Smackdown.
Earlier today, BT Sport revealed that it will also broadcast two WWE brands that haven’t been shown on UK television before, one of which has only ever aired on the WWE Network anywhere in the world. NXT will start airing on BT Sport in the UK and Ireland on January 2 at one in the morning, and NXT UK will join it at some point in the future that has yet to be announced.
You want NXT? You got it.
BT Sport will be showing NXT and NXT UK from January 2020 🙌
🔴 RAW
🔵 SmackDown
💛 NXT
🇬🇧 NXT UKSystem, shocked. Boom. pic.twitter.com/EX9hlRan0t
— WWE on TNT Sports (@wweontnt) December 31, 2019
WWE’s first day on BT Sport also includes programming that was previously only available on the WWE Network. New Year’s Day will see the channel air the episodes of WWE 24 focused on Becky Lynch and Kofi Kingston along with Raw highlights and a WrestleMania Legendary Moments special.
It honestly seems like a huge missed opportunity not to blast Walter’s theme song on TV right as the new decade begins, but it’s still significant additional exposure for NXT and NXT UK as WWE continues to grow its non-WWE wrestling replacement system.