WWE has settled its broadcast future, for now. Over the past six months, WWE negotiated deals with three different platforms for its three weekly television shows. WWE Monday Night Raw will migrate from USA Network to Netflix. WWE NXT leaves USA Network for The CW. WWE SmackDown is heading from FOX to USA Network. All of these deals will run for at least five years. Outside of the weekly broadcasts, WWE also holds monthly premium live events. What were once known as pay-per-views have existed on the WWE Network for the past decade, with the most recent three-year stretch being under NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service.
WWE’s streaming deal with Peacock is not due up until 2026, but that hasn’t stopped other streamers about inquiring.
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Netflix and Apple TV+ Interested in WWE PLEs
Two of entertainment’s biggest streamers want to host WWE premium live events.
Speaking at a recent conference, TKO President Mark Shapiro revealed recent television rights negotiations “always started” with inquiries about PLEs.
“When we met with Netflix, Apple, and other streaming platforms, the conversation always started with, ‘When are the PLEs up?’” Shapiro recalled. “When we met on Raw, always started with that. ‘We’re not here to talk about the PLEs.’ We are in the sense that it’s part of the narrative. When you watch Raw and SmackDown, things weave in and out of the PLEs. It’s an important part of the narrative concept.”
Netflix eventually landed the rights to WWE Monday Night Raw while Apple TV+ left negotiations without any WWE products. With Netflix still being fairly new to the livestream game and WWE Monday Night Raw being exclusive to cable television for its entire existence, these two sides coming together under these circumstances has been touted as a landmark deal within the entire entertainment industry.
“Let’s see how that partnership goes and that marketing delivers and the viewership shows up and we’re monetizing it from sponsorship, consumer product, site fee standpoint, and then we’ll talk about where it goes, if it doesn’t go back to Peacock,” Shaprio continued on the thread about potentially bringing the full WWE Network package to Netflix in the future. “We’re patient and that has bode well for us.”
WWE Monday Night Raw is set to begin streaming on Netflix in January 2025. WWE premium live events will continue to be exclusive to Peacock until January 2026.
