WWF vs. USA in court
The USA Network may have unwittingly helped their opposition in the court battle for WWF TV rights, Viacom, today.
The main point of the trial is USA's belief that they do not have to match the entire offer of Viacom/CBS, but only the part pertaining to wrestling. Viacom/CBS's offer includes non-wrestling programming. Today, USA Network chief counsel Richard Lynn testified that USA had done a detailed analysis to determine how much it would cost USA to match the entire Viacom/CBS offer, not just the wrestling programming.
The results of the study were that USA would stand to lose $18 million over a span of three years if they were to match the offer. Lynn claimed he paid no attention to the study, which was done in March. The obvious implication here is that if USA wouldn't have to match the whole Viacom/CBS offer, why would they look into the cost of doing so?