By: Nick Gambino
In a move that proves historical for both companies, WWE has forged a deal with Netflix to bring Monday Night Raw to the streamer in 2025.
“We are excited to have WWE Raw, with its huge and passionate multigenerational fan base, on Netflix,” Bela Bajaria, the Chief Content Officer at Netflix, said in a statement. “By combining our reach, recommendations, and fandom with WWE, we’ll be able to deliver more joy and value for their audiences and our members.”
The deal is estimated to be valued at around $5 billion or $500 million a year over 10 years. WWE has always aired Monday Night Raw on traditional TV, most recently USA, drawing in close to 20 million viewers a year. Those numbers are expected to go way up once it hits Netflix.
This transformative deal, which is the streamer’s first foray into live sports, will allow Netflix users in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, the U.K. and other unspecified territories to view the weekly wrestling program. Those regions boast over 100 million subscribers combined, putting a ton of potential eyeballs on WWE’s premier show. And that’s just the beginning.
The plan is for Netflix to be the global home for all WWE content. In addition to Raw, all WWE programming will be made exclusively available across the world in every Netflix territory. That is essentially everywhere. And by all programming, I mean every show like NXT, Royal Rumble, SmackDown, SummerSlam and WrestleMania.
As for those programs in the U.S., WWE has signed agreements with a number of traditional TV networks to air various shows on channels like The CW and the aforementioned USA.
“The WWE deal with Netflix signifies a monumental shift in the ongoing transition from traditional TV to streaming,” Andrew Tropeano, a technology expert with NWT Media (www.nwtmediagroup.com), says. “When Netflix began offering streaming with other platforms following their lead, it looked like a cheaper and more convenient option. Now, we’ve just about come full circle. Streaming is little more than on-demand cable.”
The USA deal will wrap up in October 2024 and Netflix will take over in January 2025. There is no word as to where Raw will air in the intervening months.
