WWE could have aired another show other than Raw on Netflix before talks changed.
The deal
WWE made a deal with Netflix that will see its flagship show, Monday Night Raw, move from the USA Network to the streaming service beginning in January 2025.
WWE got a raise for SmackDown’s rights to $205 million on average per year currently from FOX as they will get $287 million per year in its next deal from NBCU when the show moves to the USA Network.
The Raw deal is for ten years and more than $5 billion, valued at least $500 million per year. WWE’s deal to air Raw on USA Network runs through the end of September 2024, and exactly where Raw will air between the end of that deal and the beginning of the Netflix deal is still being determined.
Original
Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics was providing notes about the talk from TKO COO Mark Shapiro at the Morgan Stanley Conference, where Shapiro noted that WWE originally had talks with Netflix about airing NXT prior to talks about moving Raw to the streaming service.
Once the Raw talks came into play, that’s when the global rights conversation began. He credited WWE President Nick Khan and TKO CFO Andrew Schleimer for negotiating the deal.
"Not in my wildest dreams" did Shapiro expect Netflix for the Raw deal. He says the conversation was originally about NXT. Then the Raw conversation became a global rights conversation.
He credits WWE President Nick Khan and TKO CFO Andrew Schleimer for negotiating the deal.
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) March 6, 2024
