Netflix will begin airing WWE Raw in January 2025, TKO and Netflix announced today.
Netflix will also begin airing all WWE programming, including Raw, Smackdown, NXT, and premium live events in the U.K., Canada, Latin America, and other regions.
Except for in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, this will include all territories except for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as deals in those regions expire. This includes WWE’s #2 media rights market (behind the U.S.), India, where rights are currently held by Sony.
The deal between WWE and Netflix is a ten-year agreement worth $5 billion throughout the deal, according to a TKO filing, which implies an average annual value of $500 million per year. WWE’s current U.S. deal for Raw, with NBCUniversal, is worth an average annual value of $265 million. It’s not clear to me what the total value is of the international rights this deal will supersede. Therefore, it’s not obvious to me whether this deal represents an increase or decrease in media rights value.
The deal allows Netflix to opt out of the contract after just five years. The streamer also has the option to extend the deal for an additional ten years, meaning, if Netflix chooses, this could be a 20-year deal.
Sports Business Journal reported Netflix COO Bela Bajaria led talks for her side, negotiating with TKO CEO Ari Emanuel, TKO COO Mark Shapiro, WWE President Nick Khan, and TKO CFO Andrew Schleimer.
TKO shares were up strongly following news of the deal, increasing about 18% to about $91.51 as of 11:07 am ET. Shares closed at $77.41 yesterday.
Netflix’s reach is significant
Netflix is easily the most popular subscription streaming service in the U.S., with 77.3 million subscribers between the U.S. and Canada, as of their last earnings report, and 247 million worldwide.
Netflix doesn’t disclose a straightforward number of U.S. subscribers. If subscriptions between the U.S. and Canada are distributed equally relative to their national populations, that would mean there are about 69 million Netflix subscribers in the U.S., a number that’s nearly crossing paths with the roughly 70 million households in the U.S. that have some form of traditional cable television (including cable, satellite, and, yes, Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, Sling, Fubo, etc).
Netflix will give an update on subscriber numbers when it reports quarterly earnings tonight.
I will join John Pollock today (Tuesday) at 1 pm ET for a breaking news podcast discussing the latest news of the deal:
Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He’s also worked as an independent wrestler and trainer.
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