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WWE and ESPN announced this morning a new agreement that will make ESPN’s forthcoming direct-to-consumer streaming platform the home of WWE’s premium live events in the U.S., including WrestleMania in 2026.
The new deal with ESPN is for five years and doesn’t include access to WWE’s large archival library, Wrestlenomics has learned, though new PLEs that air live on ESPN’s platform will be available there for replay.
The deal will pay WWE an average of $325 million per year, according to the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. That’s a 1.6x increase over the $200 million that NBCUniversal has been paying since 2021.
Under the deal, ESPN’s streaming platform will carry WWE’s live PLEs. The announcement also notes that select PLEs will also broadcast on ESPN’s “linear platforms” (read: traditional TV channels). The press release from TKO and ESPN doesn’t specify which PLEs those might be or what traditional ESPN channels might simulcast certain events.
ESPN also announced today that the new service will launch on August 21 and will be priced at $29.99 per month and will provide access to all of ESPN’s traditional TV channels: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNews, ESPN Deportes, as well as additional sports broadcasts that air on ABC, ESPN+, and other platforms.
If you’re already a pay TV subscriber and you get ESPN as part of your package, you may or may not need to subscribe to the new ESPN service—it depends on which pay TV system you have, according to a person with knowledge of the agreement.
If you’re a pay TV subscriber for any of these systems and you already get ESPN, you won’t need the $29.99 per month subscription.
- Charter (Spectrum)
- DirecTV
- FuboTV
- Hulu Live TV
- Verizon Fios
Which means, customers who access ESPN through any other pay TV systems not named above—and that includes Comcast (Xfinity), YouTube TV, DISH, Sling, Altice, Cogeco, Frontier, and Cable One—will need to subscribe separately to ESPN’s new streaming service to access WWE’s premium live events beginning in 2026.
It’s always possible ESPN could cut new deals with carriers in the future that changes this but as things stand right now, about half of the pay TV universe will need the extra subscription, the other half will not.
According to our tracking of the pay TV universe, Charter, DirecTV, FuboTV, Hulu Live TV, and Verizon Fios add up to about 30 million households, out of the roughly 65 million pay TV homes.
The new deal means at least live broadcasts of PLEs in the U.S. will leave Peacock in early 2026.
ESPN’s platform will also air pre-shows and post-shows of the PLEs, according to a person familiar with the new deal. WWE’s vast archival library of wrestling content are also not a part of the new deal.
We’ve asked WWE and NBCUniversal if Peacock will continue to be the home of WWE content, including WWE’s video library. We’ll update our reporting if we learn more.
ESPN also has rights to create original WWE-related content and plans for SportsCenter to broadcast from the locations of certain WWE PLEs, we were informed.
The new deal doesn’t affect international distribution of WWE PLEs, which continue to be available on Netflix in most regions outside of the U.S.
Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He operates and owns Wrestlenomics.