Like Randy Orton’s finishing move, Tuesday’s announcement from WWE came from out of nowhere.
Netflix, the world’s most popular streaming service, has signed a ten-year, $5 billion deal with WWE for exclusive broadcasting rights to “Monday Night Raw.” The streamer will broadcast “Raw” in the United States while also distributing all WWE telecasts, including “Friday Night Smackdown,” “WWE NXT,” and premium live events to Canada, Latin America and the United Kingdom.
To borrow from WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, the deal is a stunner, to say the least. For starters, it means that the longest-running episodic show in television history is moving from traditional/linear television to a streaming service. It’s not the first TV property that has made such a change – case in point, Disney moved “Dancing with the Stars” from ABC to Disney+ in 2022 – but it’s by far the most prominent to have done so outside of the NFL’s agreement with Prime Video for “Thursday Night Football.”
Netflix has been making inroads with sports events, but this is the first regularly scheduled sports/sports entertainment property in the U.S. it will have rights for.
Equally as interesting is that Netflix also gained some international rights with this deal. WWE has always been a global enterprise, going as far back as the historic 1992 edition of SummerSlam that took place in London. Yet the promotion has hosted several premium live events (or PLEs, the name for what the company now calls its near-monthly pay-per-view events) outside of the U.S. and Canada in recent years.
WWE has promoted events in Saudi Arabia since 2014 and the controversial deal has led to exclusive PLEs to the country since 2018. In the last two years, it had PLEs in England, Wales and Puerto Rico. Although the upcoming cards will take place in Australia, France and Germany, Netflix stands to gain a lot more attention – and perhaps subscriptions in Latin America and the U.K. – wherever WWE pulls up its tent.
All isn’t lost for Comcast’s NBCUniversal as it regains “Friday Night Smackdown” in 2025 and it still has streaming rights for WWE’s PLEs through its Peacock service. While it has well over a year to fill the void for the USA Network, finding the exact replacement for the WWE’s younger and more diverse audience on Monday nights won’t be an easy task. Perhaps this is where a potential reunion with the NBA could come into play.
