This past week, WWE announced a major change to how it’ll be broadcasting its events in The United States. Starting in 2026, all of the company’s premium live events will be available exclusively on ESPN’s new streaming service that’s about to launch later this month. The news was met with loud and aggressive outrage from many fans who weren’t happy about the change, as the ESPN service is going to be a lot more expensive than what fans pay for Peacock, which currently houses WWE’s PLEs.
Within hours of the initial announcement and fan pushback, WWE executives clarified to journalists that ESPN’s streaming service will be free for anyone who currently gets ESPN through a traditional cable package. That clarification did a lot to calm fans, who didn’t like the idea of shelling out almost $20 more per month, but days later, there are still some fundamental questions about the deal that haven’t been answered. Let’s talk out the three biggest ones.
What Counts As Getting ESPN Through A Traditional Cable Package?
When journalists first started publishing clarifications about how the ESPN streaming service will work, most said if you currently get ESPN the channel, you will have access to the streaming service and the premium live events. Many pointed to this article that ESPN put out back in May that clarifies the specifics. In it, the network says YouTube TV counts as a traditional cable provider. Awful Announcing, however, later published a story saying sources are telling them subscribers to both XFinity and YouTube TV are not currently going to get access.
Now, the ESPN streaming service and its relationship with cable providers is a lot bigger than WWE. The NFL season is about to start, and ESPN just acquired access to Red Zone, among other offerings. I’m sure there is a lot of behind the scenes negotiating between ESPN and companies like Comcast and YouTube TV over who is going to have access to what and how many dollars per subscriber the companies are going to need to pay.
So, at this point, I don’t think it’s worth it for wrestling fans to make decisions based on whether their cable provider is currently included. Let’s give this a few months to shake out and then we can all decide what the best way to get access is. I’m sure there are going to be a ton of bundle offerings and potentially special discounts, as well, which could make the service cheaper than it appears.
Where Are The Old PLEs Going To Live?
This new ESPN deal is reportedly going to include ten new PLEs each year for a total of five years. It reportedly does not include WWE’s extensive back catalog of old PLEs, which are currently available to stream on Peacock. Where those are going to live is an open question. I’ve seen some journalists speculate that they’ll likely end up on Netflix, which currently houses them for all international customers outside The United States. Fightful speculated that they could go to the YouTube vault, since WWE is pouring more time and money into that relationship.
This is particularly important to me, as someone who just throws on old premium live events in the evening while I’m doing other things. I really, really hope WWE makes a decision that’s as considerate as possible for fans and finds a good home, ideally one that’s reasonably priced and is willing to host large portions of the back catalog. It’s already frustrating that many older episodes of Raw are unavailable to watch anywhere. I don’t want a future in which I can’t just throw on classic WrestleManias whenever I feel like it.
What’s The Story With Commercials?
WWE’s current premium live events contain short breaks in between matches. Customers who pay for the premium version of Peacock get previews of the upcoming matches and the rest get a small runtime of commercials. WWE is going to keep producing the events in-house, which makes sense given they’re going to live on Netflix internationally and ESPN in the States, but it’s very possible we will get some kind of different ad structure based on this new agreement.
I do not think that means we’ll get mid-match ads during the PLEs. I don’t think WWE would be willing to do that, given it would be a terrible user experience and undermine their most important events of the year, but I do think WWE may find a way to work in more advertisements, especially since some of the events are going to be broadcast on traditional television, as well.
To Sum Up
For now, nothing is changing. PLEs are going to continue to stream on Peacock in the US and Netflix internationally, but early next year, everything is going to be different, at least domestically. Between now and then, we need clarification on who exactly will have access to the new streaming service via their cable provider and who will need to subscribe separately. We also need clarification on where the old PLEs are going to live and if there will be changes to the structure of PLEs to accommodate more commercials.
Ultimately, I think this deal can be good for WWE. ESPN is the biggest game in town, at least from a sports standpoint, and being more interconnected there should help them reach a bigger fanbase, just as it has with Monday Night Raw being on Netflix.
That being said, WWE needs to work with ESPN to make sure as many people have access to the streaming service as possible, and they need to make sure the product remains as easy to watch as possible, as some of the more traditional sports have gotten way too ad heavy, especially near the end of games.
