2011 WWE draft
The Brand Extension storyline was initiated in March 2002, in which WWE's Raw and SmackDown television programs were made into brands (similar to conferences within a league) to which employees were assigned; the ECW brand was additionally involved between 2006 and 2009. Annual drafts have followed since this occurrence, except for in 2003. As with past drafts, the purpose of the 2011 WWE draft was to increase television ratings of WWE programming and refresh the rosters for each brand. The 2011 event was confirmed by the RBC Center in April 2011, with WWE officially announcing it on the April 18 episode of "Raw". A USA Network executive had also confirmed the event to occur via a press release on the same day of the WWE announcement.
Survivor Series
With the return of the brand split in 2016, the 2016, 2017, and 2018 events have focused on direct competition between the two brands, Raw and SmackDown, similar to the Bragging Rights events that WWE held for two years during the first brand split. The theme of the 2017 and 2018 Survivor Series events in particular was brand supremacy; in addition to traditional Survivor Series elimination matches featuring Raw's men, women, and tag teams against SmackDown's, every champion of Raw faced their counterpart of SmackDown. Raw won both years, with 4-3 over SmackDown in 2017, and 6-0 in 2018 (although SmackDown won the pre-show match over Raw in 2018, it was not counted as it was not on the main card).