WWE Raw and Smackdown moving to Netflix?

Bengaluru, August 17: On the sunset of the Vince McMahon era, the traditional rules will be broken with respect to the WWE. For four decades, the company has offered its flagship programme on free Cable TV, but that may not be the case in the near future.

Last night, WWE hosted its latest quarterly earnings presentation officiated by the co-CEOs of the company Stephanie McMahon, Nick Khan, Head of the Creative Team Paul “Triple H” Levesque, and Frank Riddick.

Vince McMahon’s successor, Stephanie celebrated the improved viewership of the WWE premium live events over the past quarter or so. Additionally, increased viewership was declared for WWE Raw and Smackdown despite the alleged decline in ratings and viewership via different outlets.

Nick Khan, co-CEO of the WWE also mentioned that WWE’s television rights renewals for both Raw and SmackDown will be up around 2024. Currently, the rights for the broadcasting of these two programs are held by NBCUniversal and FOX, respectively.

Khan added that the group of possible bidders for both WWE Raw and Smackdown has been crowded enough. Besides, Netflix has also entered the conversation as the worldwide streaming giant looks forward to airing live TV content.

“On Netflix, we’ve been saying on these calls for many months that we believe Netflix is looking to enter the live space.

"We got confirmation of that this past quarter when Netflix made a bid for the rights for Formula 1. We believe Netflix’s appetite for live (programming) will only increase after the introduction of their ad tier. As we all know, the strongest CPMs are those sold against live programming.”

In more news from the Q2 earnings call of the WWE, the revenue of $328.2 million was shown, an increase of 24%; Operating Income was $69.3 million, an increase of 50%; and Adjusted OIBDA1 was $91.5 million, an increase of 34%.

WWE announced its second “Next In Line” class consisting of 15 college athletes and thereby extending the Company’s talent development program. The long-term partnership with Fanatics was enhanced with the launch of a digital platform for e-commerce and licensed merchandise.

Also, Each WWE premium live event over the spring (WrestleMania, WrestleMania Backlash, and Hell in a Cell) was declared the most viewed event in its history with year-over-year increases noted of 60%, 49%, and 45%, respectively, in the domestic market, as per stats shown by Peacock.