WWE and ESPN’s New Deal Just Changed Everything About Wrestling (Including WrestleMania)

WWE has been making some key moves over the past year regarding its presence on Television, including moving Monday Night Raw to Netflix, NXT to The CW, and SmackDown to USA Network. It’s also launched WWE Evolve on Tubi, and in an expansion of its Netflix partnership, recently launched the new show WWE Unreal. Now WWE is making yet another landmark deal with ESPN, and this shake-up will affect its biggest events of the year, including WrestleMania.

Today, WWE and ESPN announced a new deal that will make ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer streaming service the exclusive home of WWE’s Premium Live Events. That deal will begin in 2026 and will include WWE’s biggest events like SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, Survivor Series, Money in the Bank, and of course, WrestleMania.

Jimmy Pitaro, Chairman, ESPN: “WWE has an immense, devoted and passionate fanbase that we’re excited to super-serve on our new ESPN DTC platform. This agreement, which features the most-significant WWE events of the year, bolsters our unprecedented content portfolio and helps drive our streaming future.”

Mark Shapiro, President and Chief Operating Officer, TKO: “We are proud to reinforce the ‘E’ in ESPN at such an exciting juncture in its direct-to-consumer journey. WWE Premium Live Events are renowned for exactly the type of rich storytelling, incredible feats of athleticism and can’t-miss, cultural tentpole experiences that have become synonymous with ESPN. Through our UFC relationship, we have experienced firsthand how transformational an ESPN presence can be, and we know this will be an exceptional partnership at a time of great innovation for both companies.”

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Nick Khan, President, WWE: “WWE’s agreement with ESPN is a pivotal moment for our millions of fans across the United States: the leader in sports entertainment partnering with the biggest brand in sports media. Bringing WWE’s flagship events to ESPN’s platform is tremendously exciting. We know the sky is the limit.”

One important thing to note is that ESPN also revealed the streaming service will actually launch on Thursday, August 21st, which will be right alongside the start of new seasons for College Football and the NFL. That date will put it well after WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas, but it will also just miss the next SummerSlam, which will take place at the beginning of August in Minneapolis.

That means the first premium live event that will stream on the ESPN streaming service will likely be something along the lines of Clash in Paris (which is coming up this year at the end of the month). The first of the big four events would then likely be Survivor Series, though this does mean that the WWE ESPN partnership should be able to work out any of the issues ahead of the road to WrestleMania.

This will also likely include NXT premium live events, as that’s also part of the equation with WWE’s current deal with Peacock. If those dates hold up, WWE and Peacock will have one big final event with next year’s SummerSlam before the new era with ESPN begins.

Are you excited for the new partnership, and do you hope is improved or changed when the ESPN era begins? Let us know in the comments, and you can talk all things wrestling and TV with me on Bluesky @knightofoa!