WWE appears to have stopped Hulu from deleting a big chunk of its content from the streaming service, at least for the time being. Fans noticed on Tuesday that a big chunk of the WWE product on Hulu had expiration dates labeled for this week, including most episodes of Monday Night Raw, NXT, 205 Live, NXT LVL Up, Main Event, Superstars, WWE en Espanol and Total Divas. However, all of that content remains on the site as of Wednesday afternoon and the expiration notices have been removed. Neither WWE nor Hulu have commented on the matter, nor has their been confirmation of a new deal.
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“It’s a delicate balance of monetizing the content short-term versus making sure it’s monetized long-term, so it’s absolutely something that’s top of mind and one that we’re discussing and we’ll figure out,” WWE Co-CEO Nick Khan said during the latest investors conference call when asked if the Day Two rights for Raw and SmackDown (currently held by Hulu) would be tied into WWE’s next round of television rights negotiations next year.
Will WWE Go to Netflix?
Khan also discussed the possibility of live WWE programming moving to a streaming service instead of network television or cable during that aforementioned call.ย Netflix was brought up as a potential bidder.ย WWE’s current television deals with FOX (airing SmackDown on Friday nights) and NBCUniversal (USA airs Raw on Monday nights and NXT on Tuesday nights) are both set to expire in 2024.
“On Netflix, we’ve been saying on these calls for many months that we believe Netflix is looking to enter the live space. We got confirmation of that this past quarter when Netflix made a bid for the rights for Formula 1. We believe Netflix’s appetite for live (programming) will only increase after the introduction of their ad tier. As we all know, the strongest CPMs are those sold against live programming,” Khan said.ย
