It’s possible the Netflix deal represents around a 1.3x step-up (or about a 30% raise) but there’s a lot of room for error here. It depends on to what extent international rights are completely moving to Netflix, which isn’t clear yet.
This is assuming India (WWE’s #2 media rights market) and Middle East North Africa (MENA) rights aren’t part of the deal.
If India is part of the deal, this formula results in 1.2x. However, Nick Khan said India isn’t part of this deal on Bloomberg today so I’m going to assume India isn’t included in the $500 million average annual value (AAV).
To be clear: It’s absolutely the wrong analysis to look at the $500 million AAV deal and divide it by Raw’s reported current AAV of $265 million. There is a bucket of international rights that the Netflix deal is superseding.
This also depends on the degree to which JPMorgan estimates of specific international deals I’m relying on are accurate.
1.3x would align fairly closely with Ari Emanuel’s comment on CNBC on Tuesday morning that the deal’s monetary value was in line with market expectations. I believe the market was expecting about a 1.4x increase as that’s the step increase of the deal made with NBCU for Smackdown. Nonetheless, the market seems excited by the deal given the allure around Netflix and the long-term commitment this deal represents.
Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He operates and owns Wrestlenomics.