2010 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 to; the ECW brand additionally involved between 2006 and 2009. Since its inception, annual drafts have followed, except for in 2003. As in previous drafts that followed the Brand Extension, the purpose of the 2010 WWE Draft was to increase television ratings of WWE programming and refresh the rosters with new storylines for each brand. The 2010 WWE Draft was confirmed both by WWE and Richmond Coliseum via their websites between March and April 2010, which featured the draft eligibility of WWE employees from the Raw and SmackDown brands. The event was scheduled to take place over two days, in which the televised draft would air live on the USA Network in the United States from the Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia on the April 26 episode of "Raw". The second portion of the draft, the "supplemental draft," was originally scheduled for April 28; however, it was announced during the live broadcast that it would be held the next day on April 27 with selections being announced via WWE's website.
WWE brand extension
After five years, a new brand extension was introduced on July 19, 2016. Raw drafted the WWE Women's Champion, the United States Champion, and the WWE Tag Team Champions, while SmackDown drafted the WWE Champion and the Intercontinental Champion; NXT champions were ineligible to be drafted. This distribution of championships remained unchanged at the Battleground pay-per-view, which took place the Sunday immediately following the draft. With the WWE Championship being defended exclusively on SmackDown, Raw commissioner Stephanie McMahon and general manager Mick Foley introduced the WWE Universal Championship to be Raw's world title. As SmackDown was lacking a tag team championship and a women's championship, Smackdown commissioner Shane McMahon and general manager Daniel Bryan introduced the SmackDown Tag Team Championship and SmackDown Women's Championship. Subsequently, the WWE Women's Championship and the WWE Tag Team Championship were renamed as the Raw Women's Championship and the Raw Tag Team Championship, respectively. With this, each brand had a world championship, a secondary championship, a tag team championship, and a women's championship: the Universal, United States, Raw Tag Team, and Raw Women's on Raw, and the World, Intercontinental, SmackDown Tag Team, and SmackDown Women's on SmackDown. However, since Raw became the exclusive home of WWE's revived cruiserweight division, they also created a new WWE Cruiserweight Championship. Beginning November 29, 2016, in addition to "Raw", the Cruiserweight Championship is defended on the cruiserweight-exclusive show, "205 Live". The WWE United Kingdom Championship was unveiled in December 2016 with its inaugural holder determined in January 2017. The title is the major championship for the United Kingdom-based NXT spinoff, NXT UK.