Opinion: NXT must move to Cable TV this fall
Long been dubbed as WWE's "developmental brand", NXT has become one of the hottest brands in all of professional wrestling. NXT's journey from being a sub-par, "cringey" reality TV show to being one of the most well-received brands in the wrestling world is quite astounding.
The black and yellow brand is home to some of the most exciting, up and coming Superstars, and has been producing quality programming for years now. With a roster that boasts of names like Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano, Keith Lee, Matt Riddle, and Io Shirai, NXT can give any wrestling promotion in the world a run for their money, and that includes AEW.
NXT Takeovers have always the most well-received show of WWE's big four weeks to such a point where it is hard to find a Takeover that isn't good. Just when it seems like the promotion can't top what did in the previous Takeover, they come up something so special that one is bound to take notice and wonder at how on earth can an event be so good on a consistent basis.
While WWE's main roster has been going through some really tough times with record low TV ratings and live event attendance, NXT is going from strength to strength purely on the basis on the quality of the product that they put forth and the black and yellow brand isn't showing any signs of slowing down.
NXT is the saving grace of WWE for a huge portion of the hardcore wrestling fanbase, and it might be the only reason why they still have an active WWE Network subscription.
With such a dedicated fanbase and a universally praised brand of wrestling, it is still a mystery to us why NXT isn't on Cable/broadcast TV? NXT's weekly TV show is the best weekly wrestling show in the world by a mile and has been so for a long time. If the argument is that NXT is a taped show, we have seen SmackDown being telecasted on prime-time Television for years whilst still being a taped show. NXT, will for sure, pull off better numbers than SmackDown if it were to move to Cable TV.
With the WWE-FOX deal kicking in during the fall, we are hopeful that the company will try negotiating a deal to put NXT on one of Fox's TV properties. NXT will be a perfect fit for a channel like FS1 and being taped makes it more flexible to time-slot it. It's about time that NXT got a wider audience and given the quality of the brand, it will do exceedingly well on Cable TV.