The big news that surfaced this morning was that WWE Raw would be moving to Netflix in 2025, a deal that is worth $5 billion for the next ten years, with Netflix having the option to opt out in five years or extend.
Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel spoke with CNBC about the deal and what it will mean for the future of TKO, the alliance that represents WWE and UFC.
All I can say is that we are in line with the market expectations and where our step up would be. The only other thing I would say is it’s Netflix. They’re the global leader. They’re the best company with regard to sports entertainment whether they’ve done it with Formula One or Tour De France, this is the next iteration as they go to live and moving into live. This is an important step for them in their SVOD and subscription service and live is important for them,” he said “The word Netflix is important for this. Ten year deal, with Raw, it’s a big deal.
Emanuel would go on to explain why it is a great deal for Netflix, and how live programming will begin to get incorporated more into streaming.
We just saw, two weekends ago on Peacock, how big football played. 27 million people. I don’t think linear is going away, I don’t think cable is going away, but there is a push to streaming. On this deal, we did that early on with the UFC on ESPN and ESPN Plus. From our perspective, this is the next iteration of where this goes. We have a linear play with SmackDown and NXT. This is the streaming play. For us, it was the next step. It’s a great deal for Netflix, in our opinion. They get 150 hours of programming over $5 billion dollars. It’s like two and a half movies for 150. For us, it’s the global player in streaming. It’s a great deal.
More details about Raw moving to Netflix can be read here.
