Starting next March, WWE PLEs will begin streaming on the brand new ESPN streaming service in america, with a $325 million per 12 months deal announced earlier this week. This morning, reporter John Ourand took to X to share a round-up of reports regarding ESPN’s recent service, including the proven fact that WWE was contractually obligated to supply NBC a likelihood to match the ESPN deal. NBC leadership decided against the choice, likely because they’d be paying more cash for a package that features less WWE content than they currently pay for.
WWE’s current agreement with Peacock features all premium live events, including those for WWE NXT and the corporate’s entire pay-per-view archive. With the brand new ESPN deal, WWE is free to barter NXT PLEs and the back catalog as a part of one other package.
This shouldn’t affect “WWE Raw,” “SmackDown,” or “NXT,” as all of those are locked into existing deals with different media partners for at the very least the subsequent several years. Moreover, for a lot of countries outside of america, Netflix will remain the house of most WWE broadcasts.
For fans within the US, starting with next 12 months’s WWE WrestleMania 42, they’ll must subscribe to ESPN’s streaming service for $30 monthly, or subscribe to a cable or live TV package that features ESPN and has integration with the brand new service. Some PLEs will reportedly play on ESPN’s traditional network, nevertheless it’s not yet clear which events that will likely be, or if it’ll even include all the show or simply a sample.