Netflix Grabs 'WWE Raw' from USA

[Mark Jeffries]

In a ten-year, $5B deal with the wrestling franchise, the longtime Monday night live show moves from USA Network to Netflix starting next year at this time--the streamer is also picking up all international rights to WWE programs and events ("NXT" is moving from USA to The CW, "Smackdown" is moving from Fox to USA and all other programming stays on Peacock in the U.S.):

https://www.thewrap.com/netflix-wwe-monday-night-raw-usa-network/

[M-D November]

Would I be right in interpreting this to mean that the Netflix deal effectively shutters the WWE Network standalone service internationally, much as the Peacock migration did in the US?

[Adam Bowie]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 5:54 PM M-D November <mdnov...@gmail.com> wrote:

Would I be right in interpreting this to mean that the Netflix deal effectively shutters the WWE Network standalone service internationally, much as the Peacock migration did in the US?

They haven't said as much, but I think it will do in due course. The WWE will have done rights deal with various outlets globally that might not let them switch to Netflix everywhere in January 2025, hence the headline reference only to RAW, and only to a few territories. But it's clear that as those other deals expire, Netflix will pick everything up. The press release's boilerplate mentioned WWE Network, but it also mentions lots of the major partners that they'll slowly be unwinding from over the next few years! https://corporate.wwe.com/news/company-news/2024/01-23-2024

In the UK, everything changes in January next year. The current rights deal is with TNT Sport (seemingly now Warner Bros. Media's global sports brand). Interestingly, here TNT Sport is also home to UFC, and I think one of the ideas of the formation of TKO which owns both WWE and UFC was to sell the rights together as a powerful package. It seems clear that this is not the case right now, although I guess that UFC rights are likely to be at a different stage in their existing rights cycles, so perhaps down the line they end up on Netflix too once current deals are nearing the end of their contracts?

One other thing I'd note is that this seems to remove the opportunity for big PPV events outside North America. It seems that everything goes to Netflix. So that loss of revenue must be priced in under this deal.

Overall, an interesting entry-point for Netflix and live TV on a regular basis. With viewership in the ~1m range in the US, it shouldn't be too much of a technical hurdle to serve all those live streams, even allowing for Latin American audiences watching live too. For the rest of the world, I'm certain that WWE audiences for things like RAW are mostly next-day time-shifted.

This is probably a great deal for WWE too in keeping them in front of audiences. 

Personally, it's of zero interest, but academically it's fascinating.

Adam

[M-D November]

I'm seeing buzz today that when (Monday Night? that's still unclear) Raw moves to Netflix, it will stream commercial-free "for Netflix subscribers".  The wording of this is very interesting, because it suggests that Netflix/WWE are going to somehow make an ad-supported stream available for viewers who want to watch Raw but don't want a Netflix subscription for any other reason.  It does mean that WWE is giving up a chunk of ad revenue, which they might make up by more prominent in-arena placements (logos on the ring mat, integrated ads, etc.), but presumably it also makes WWE/TKO less beholden to advertiser whims when it comes to content.  There's also no indication yet whether a commercial-free Raw would retain the current 3-hour format, contract back to a strict 2 hours, or go with something flexible in the middle.

[Kevin M.]

Speaking of WWE and grabbing…

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wwe-vince-mcmahon-sex-trafficking-lawsuit-janel-grant/

Kevin M. (RPCV)

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