Fox Sports and ESPN stepped bigtime into the ring sports arena last week, paying significant dollars to pin down television rights to WWE and UFC content respectively.

Fox Sports reportedly paid more than $1 billion to acquire rights to the WWE’s weekly live series SmackDown, which averages more than 2.5 million viewers every Tuesday night on USA Network.

The franchise reportedly will become the cornerstone of Fox broadcasting’s Friday night lineup, offering a two-hour block of live, action-based content featuring the WWE’s lineup of male and female Superstar performers.

USA is expected to retain its WWE Monday Night Raw franchise, the most watched series on the network. The three-hour live show averages nearly 3 million subscribers up against typically strong cable and broadcast fare year-round, as well as ESPN’s Monday Night Football telecasts during the fall.

ESPN entered the UFC octagon in a major way, securing exclusive television rights to the mixed martial arts outfit’s live shows for a whopping $1.5 billion over five years, more than double the revenue that the UFC generated from its current seven-year deal with Fox that expires at the end of 2018.

ESPN, under new president Jimmy Pitaro, is hoping UFC fans will pony up $4.99 a month for the network's new ESPN+ direct-to-consumer service to get 20 live UFC fight cards a year -- part of an overall 42 live events that ESPN will offer via its linear channels and digital app.

The deal also allows for the UFC to continue to offer 12 pay-per-view events a year, with ESPN becoming a distributor of those PPV events alongside traditional PPV outlets like In Demand, DirecTV and Dish. It will be interesting to see how the UFC renegotiates its current PPV event revenue splits, which expire at the end of the year.

The WWE SmackDown and UFC TV agreements further illustrate the value that premium live sports and live sports entertainment still command in a very crowded television marketplace. With traditional media companies like ESPN, Turner and Fox -- as well as new media companies like Amazon, Google and Twitter -- all aggressively bidding for live sports rights, industry observers expect a media royal rumble when TV rights to the major professional sports leagues come up in a few years.

“You have a fixed number of sports properties, and you have more companies on various platforms eager to put them on the air,” said sports consultant Lee Berke. “You’re going to continue to see them bid aggressively and you may see several properties moving.”  

After making a stunning bid, Fox has pinned down the rights to air the WWE’s SmackDown series starting in the fall of 2019.

The deal is nearly complete, according to a published report, and would have Fox paying nearly $1 billion over five years for SmackDown.

SmackDown currently airs on USA Network. NBCU, which declined to match Fox's offer, was paying substantially less under its agreement. WWE’s long running Raw owill continue to air on USA Network.

21st Century Fox has agreed to sell most of its television and movie studio assets and its entertainment cable networks to The Walt Disney Co.

What remains, called “New Fox,” including the Fox Broadcast network, is expected to be heavy on live news and sports. The network has already acquired the rights to air Thursday Night Football from the NFL. And working with the WWE would give the network three more hours of live programming on Friday nights.

NBCU had featured its WWE programming during its upfront presentation last week, with star wrestlers including newcomer Ronda Rousey appearing in a ring on the stage at Radio City Music Hall.

In afternoon trading, shares of WWE Entertainment were up more than 1%

Fox and NBCU had no comment.

BET’s telecast of its 2017 Hip-Hop Awards turned up a lot of social media noise last night, according to Nielsen.

The special generated 5.8 million social media interactions from 2.5 million unique Twitter and Facebook accounts, according to Nielsen’s Daily Top Five report.

NBC’s This Is Us finished a distant second with 288,000 interactions, followed by USA’s WWE SmackDown!, CW’s The Flash and FX’s American Horror Story:Cult, said Nielsen.

On the live sports front, BeIN Sports’ coverage of the Trinidad and Tobago-United States FIFA World Cup 2018 Qualifying soccer match drew 1.7 million social media interactions to top all events. The US team lost that game, officially eliminating them from 2018 World Cup competition.

BET’s annual Black Girls Rock! special was the most talked about television show on social media Tuesday, according to Nielsen.

The special, which honors the accomplishments of black female entertainers, philanthropists and business leaders, drew 424,000 Twitter and Facebook interactions from 263,000 unique users, according to Nielsen’s daily social content ratings.

USA Network’s WWE SmackDown was second, followed by NBC’s America’s Got Talent, CNN’s CNN Tonight With Don Lemon and MTV’s The Challenge.

MLB Network’s live coverage of the Chicago Cubs-Cincinnati Reds game drew the most social media traffic for a live sports event on Tuesday, according to Nielsen.

The premiere episode of the final season of Freeform’s drama series Pretty Little Liars was the most social TV show on Tuesday, according to Nielsen.

The series, which will end its run in June after seven seasons, on Tuesday garnered 549,000 social media interactions from 350,000 unique Facebook and Twitter users to lead all entertainment-based shows, Nielsen said. NBC’s The Voice was second with 321,000 interactions, followed by USA Network’s WWE SmackDown, which pinned down 225,000 social media interactions.

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Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor and Fox’s Prison Break rounded out the top five series and specials for the day.

Fox Sports 1 and Fox Deportes’ coverage of the UEFA Champions League soccer match between Real Madrid and FC Bayern Munich topped all live sports events for the day with 1.3 million Facebook and Twitter interactions. TNT’s Chicago Bulls-Boston Celtics NBA Playoffs telecast finished second with more than 1 million social interactions, according to Nielsen.

Last night’s tearjerker episode of NBC’s freshman series This Is Us was a big hit on social media, generating more than 1.3 million interactions on Twitter and Facebook from more than 800,000 unique accounts, according to Nielsen’s daily social content ratings.

USA’s WWE SmackDown! series finished second with nearly 200,000 social media interactions, followed by MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, Fox News Channel’s Hannity and The CW’s The Flash, according to Nielsen.

NBCSN’s live coverage of the Chicago Blackhawks/Minnesota Wild National Hockey League game was the most social live sports telecast for the evening, generating more than 109,000 Facebook/Twitter interactions, said Nielsen.

Last night’s premiere of BET’s The New Edition Story drew the most interactions on social media for any television show on Tuesday, accoding to Nielsen.

The show, the first of three episodes chronicling the exploits of legendary R&B music group New Edition, drew more than 2.1 million interactions across Facebook and Twitter from 936,000 unique social media accounts to easily top all TV shows airing yesterday, according to Nielsen's daily social content ratings report.

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The New Edition Story’s final two episodes will air tonight and Thursday, according to BET.

NBC’s This Is Us drew 378,000 social media interactions, followed by USA Network’s WWE SmackDown! (177,000), MTV’s Teen Wolf (84,000) and The CW’s The Flash (67,000).

ESPN2’s live coverage of the Kansas/West Virginia college basketball game was the most social live sports event of the day, averaging 262,000 social media interactions, according to Nielsen.

The Summer Olympics in Rio dominated TV-related social media posts on Facebook and Twitter Tuesday night (Aug. 16) with more than 3 million uniques, according to Nielsen Social.

"Uniques" are defined as "social media accounts that have authored original content related to a linear TV episode or engaged with that content."

The Olympics aired was across six networks -- CNBC, MSNBC, NBC, NBC Universo, NBCSN, USA Network -- over several hours, with 3,410,000 Facebook uniques and 488,000 Twitter accounts.

In fact, sports (and faux sports) programming took three of the top four social spots, with the Red Sox and Orioles game on MLB Network placing third, with 102,000 uniques, and WWE Smackdown on USA placing fourth, with 87,000 uniques

Second for the night was Freeform's Pretty Little Liars, with 260,000 uniques.

LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers’ big win over the Golden State Warriors in Game Six of the NBA Finals was all the talk on Twitter yesterday, driving more than 3 million tweets according to Nielsen.

ABC’s telecast of the game, in which Cleveland forced a seventh and deciding game for the championship on Sunday, averaged 3.09 million tweets from 889,000 unique Twitter authors to easily top all live sports and entertainment series for June 16, according to Nielsen Twitter TV ratings.

On the ratings front, ABC’s NBA Finals Game 6 averaged a 6.3 among adults 18-49 viewers, up from a 6.0 generated for Game 5, according to Nielsen.

FS1’s coverage of the 2016 Copa America Centenario tournament was a distant second with 261,000 Tweets, said Nielsen.

On the entertainment side, USA Network’s WWE SmackDown! Series was the most tweeted show on television yesterday with 39,000 tweets, followed by Comedy Central’s At Midnight With Chris Hardwick with 21,000 tweets, the season four finale of BBC America’s Orphan Black (19,000 tweets), Fox News Channel’s Hannity (8,000) and CW’s Beauty and The Beast (7 million).

Syfy's WWE! SmackDown series was the most social entertainment-based show on television Tuesday, accoridng to Nielsen.

The pro wrestling series drew 52,000 tweets reaching a unqiue Twitter audience of 1.2 million users, according to Nielsen's daily Twitter TV Ratings. SmackDown out-tweeted Bravo's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which drew 8,000 tweets reaching 271,000 unique Twitter users for second place.

HGTV's Fixer Upper, Showtime's Inside The NFL and ABC's special The Year: 2015 rounded out the top five most tweeted shows during the day.

ESPN's Toledo-Temple Marmot Boca Raton Bowl reached more Twitter users than any other live sports event on Tuesday, said Nielsen.