Triple H saw WrestleMania 41 on Saturday, 19 April 2025 at the Eleagant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Georgian Dallas | WWE | Getty images
WWE is coming to ESPN.
DisneyAccording to people starting in Controlled Sports and Entertainment Business 2026, on an average for five -year rights for WWE’s largest live events, an average will be paid an average of $ 325 million for five -year rights, who refused to speak about the deal. Spokesmen from WWE and ESPN refused to comment.
According to two people familiar with the case, NBCUNIVERSAL’s peacock paid $ 180 million per year for the first package in five years.
Each year will stream on new all 10 ESPN of WWE premium live events. $ 29.99-Direct-to-Consumer Platform of Mahine. ESPN’s linear incidents will be simultaneous on linear networks.
WWE and ESPN have strategically gone close together in recent years, Tko group In an interview, President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro. Tko is the controlled owner of WWE. Shapiro, self, was a top executive in ESPN early 2000s.
“In many ways, this is our destiny,” said Shapiro. “If you want to expand the audience, our fan base, enthusiasm around WWE, and grows on a real important national scale, you cannot do it because it belongs to the world of sports without partnering with ESPN.”
ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro said he was interested in bidding on the package of incidents, even if ESPN was not starting its new streaming service. Nevertheless, adding events, for no additional fees, will help reduce churning for professional wrestling for customers of digital product and will help expand ESPN beyond traditional games.
“Our location was built as entertainment and sports programs network,” Pitro said, “ESPN, mentioning the literal meaning of the brief name.” “This is a great way for us to expand our audience. It is small, it is more diverse, and it is more female than what we see at the network level.”
The WWE has thirty -eight percent of the audience women, who is the President of WWE Nick Khan. About 50% of the people participating in the WWE Live event come with children, they said in an interview.
Khan said, “It is a multi -layered view, and we feel that ESPN is a multistical viewing.”
In 2024, WWE signed a deal of 10 years, $ 5 billion Netflix Every Monday night starts from this year to stream “raw”.
“SmackDown,” that broadcasts on the USA network on Friday, will continue to stream on peacocks. According to people familiar with the case, the deal is ending in 2029.
Disclosure: Comcast CNBC and USA are the owner of NBCUNIVERSAL, the native of the network.
