WGN America is the latest network that has been rumored to be interested in acquiring the rights to air TNA Impact Wrestling after Spike TV drops it from its schedule at the end of the year, though it is unlikely that this will happen.
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There have been many rumors linking WGN America to Impact, since the network is dropping Chicago sports programming in January and is close to the halfway point of a 2-3 year process of converting their near 7.5 million households to a basic cable network.
According to The Wrestling Observer, while there could be some interest in TNA on the part of WGN, it is unlikely the network will pick up TNA since it canceled the WWE a few years ago, though things could change due to the fact that the new direction of the channel could lead to it picking up wrestling again.
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It was originally announced that Spike TV would be dropping Impact Wrestling in October when the contract between the two sides was up, but the network later revealed that it would keep TNA's flagship show on the network through the rest of 2014 as both sides work on finding it a new home.
Spike TV is looking to get out of the professional wrestling business, which is why it has decided to drop Impact from its schedule in 2015.
There have been reports that Discovery Channel's VELOCITY Network was interested in acquiring the rights to Impact, though the deal was seen as a "worst-case scenario" for TNA. The company recently moved its flagship show to Wednesday nights, which will likely be the permanent slot once it finds a new network.
It was reported last month that VELOCITY Network is only available in high definition and is in just 48 million homes, so TNA was relieved to have an offer but were hoping that it would lead to more offers and they wouldn't have to sign on with them. WGN appeared to be a possible alternative, but now it's unlikely.
The rights fee that VELOCITY would pay TNA was also reportedly less than a quarter of what they currently receive from Spike TV to air Impact Wrestling every week.
As TNA inches closer to losing Spike TV as its network, a new home has yet to be found for its flagship show.
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