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TKO’s third quarter earnings call was held last week, two months after WWE began its five-year media rights deal with ESPN with Wrestlepalooza. The show featured John Cena and Brock Lesnar, as well as the in-ring return of AJ Lee, and was streamed on ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer platform. During the call, WWE President Nick Khan praised ESPN’s coverage of Wrestlepalooza on shows like College Game Day, but he did add one caveat to the coverage.
“It’s going to take time for ESPN to grow that platform the way that they want to grow it. We’re patient. We’ll continue to put on our product the way that we think only we can do.”
TKO COO Mark Shapiro added: “We want to sustain that. We need to sustain that. And I think at the same time, it’s extremely important to us. And we’re watching like everybody else to see that as they renew a lot of their, distribution partner deals, that they get the ability to authenticate for free. So, you know, ESPN DTC, if you’re, so-and-so subscriber, you know, I’m not going to get into, you know, who has it and who doesn’t. You know, some of these folks can just authenticate and they get the DTC partnership for free. They just carry the app and others are paying $29.99. And it’s their goal, of course, to redo all their transmission deals and get these consents. And we’re, you know, we’re anxious to see that happen.”
Shapiro likely is referring to ESPN’s carriage dispute with YouTube TV, which has caused millions to miss out on Monday Night Football, the NBA and college sports. As Shapiro noted, people can authenticate their cable subscription to get ESPN’s DTC product for free, which theoretically means they can easily watch a WWE premium live event.
A theoretical benefit of streaming Wrestlepalooza on ESPN was to increase the number of subscribers to its DTC product. Antenna estimated that there were 2.1 million sign-ups to ESPN’s streaming service from launch on Aug. 21 through Sept. 30. Those figures do not include existing Disney subscribers who switched from other plans or individuals who activated the service through a MVPD partnership. Antenna also estimated that 57% of ESPN subscribers opted for the new Unlimited service, which is needed to watch a WWE PLE. Antenna’s chart of weekly sign-ups showed a spike of sign-ups between 150,000 and 200,000 around Sept. 20, the date of Wrestlepalooza.
In comparison, the WWE Network plateaued at around 1.2 million domestic subscribers and peaked around two million globally, well short of WWE’s public goal of three million. Antenna estimated less than 200,000 daily sign-ups around Wrestlemania 41, which was on the same level as the Season 50 premiere of Saturday Night Live and Love Island USA season 7 premiere. The 2024 Paris Olympics, the Peacock exclusive NFL game in Brazil and a 2024 Black Friday promotion brought more sign-ups ranging between 400,000 and 600,000. Comcast quarterly filings showed that Peacock’s subscriber count only grew from 34 million in Q1 2024 to 41 million in Q3 2025,. Peacock exclusive NBA games did not happen during Q3 2025, so it’s unknown if that had an effect on the streaming service. Comcast’s quarterly filings also showed that Peacock’s losses narrowed to $217 million.
Whether he intended to or not, Khan’s comments called into question what TKO’s expectations are for ESPN for how it presents WWE on its platform. Khan’s comments were a week before ESPN and Penn Entertainment agreed to end their partnership and sunset ESPN Bet, which had trouble breaking through among ESPN viewers and the sports gambling community. It’s tough to gauge how much crossover there will be between ESPN viewers and pro wrestling fans, but it could be something TKO/WWE will keep in mind during their media rights agreement.