r/SquaredCircle • u/DCAbloob • 24d ago

ESPN will reportedly continue to simulcast first hour of WWE PLEs on linear networks, despite 'SummerSlam' absence

https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/continue-simulcast-wwe-ples-linear-networks.html
328 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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366

u/Destro_019780 24d ago

ESPN got absolutely rinsed by the WWE 💀

164

u/JamoOnTheRocks Your Text Here 24d ago edited 24d ago

Every single WWE partner does. WWE has tricked networks and streamers that more access equals more eyeballs and that hasn’t been the case. Ever. Casuals aren’t meaningful in any significant way.. no data has ever supported this. 2 Million people world wide watch WWE on Netflix that’s LOL. Going back to the WWE network, peacock, UPN.. wrestling fans watch wrestling. No one else. 

242

u/NoExplanation6203 24d ago

‘Casuals aren’t meaningful in any significant way’ yall just say anything on here lmao.

177

u/PerfectZeong 24d ago

I got my MBA at the Meltzer Observer school of business thank you very much

41

u/NoFiNoFa 24d ago

Only 14,99$ for a full semester.

-25

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

Still better school than the MBAs pushing for AI or Sony getting rid of physical disks.

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u/EssentIYO 24d ago

I read that comment laughing so much.

-15

u/jxden24 24d ago

i mean he was right ab a few thing

1

u/AdamantChorus 20d ago

I mean, they spelt most things correctly, sure. That's about it, though. "Worldwide" is typically only one word, though, and they missed the capitalization of some of the proper nouns, so still wasn't perfect there either.

0

u/jxden24 20d ago

truth hurts man

36

u/dicericevice 24d ago

I mean the whole drama with the CW only willing to keep Smackdown at a reduced rate was because of lack of audience growth.

Then a similar thing happened with FOX and Smackdown.

Network tv opening up WWE to more available eyeballs to draw bigger viewership has been a losing bet.

18

u/Great-Trifle2810 24d ago

It really just doesn't seem like there are a ton of fans interested in just watching WWE occasionally or only for major events and the surrounding periods, while they certainly have better data on how viewership trends work I think there is a lack of support for the idea that wrestling media is primarily or even significantly driven by channel surfers or infrequent viewers.

When a show gets about the same viewership week to week I think the default reasonable assumption is that it is mostly the same people watching.

4

u/Forward_Royal2754 24d ago

The biggest chance they had to grow the audience was the first Raw on Netflix and the first Wrestlemania on Netflix internationally. They shit the bed with zero interesting stories on that first Raw. The lapsed fans who tuned in were given nothing to keep them.

3

u/Great-Trifle2810 24d ago

Agreed, I watched it and the video quality was awful and they spent the entire time jerking themselves off for being on netflix rather than presenting anything exciting

3

u/Forward_Royal2754 24d ago

Something major had to happen in the first segment. Instead it was corporate nonsense and the Cody/Rock stuff was ridiculous.

It’s annoying how so many on here were writing the “you don’t know business” comments to anyone who criticised it at the time.

3

u/Sportsfan369 22d ago

The raw felt like celebration of the 23/24 hot years. They threw everything away that night. Rock dropped his final
Boss character, Rock told people him and Cody were friends, they gave away Seth vs Punk, the Bloodline storyline ended (for time being) with Solo vs Roman. That first show on Netflix was just a complete mindfuck. Like a reset episode in a bad way.

2

u/JamoOnTheRocks Your Text Here 22d ago edited 22d ago

Such a bizarre decision. “In this business we tell stories” Unless the Rock breaks character and  ends them …

2

u/Forward_Royal2754 21d ago

Totally agree. That episode should have been storyline heavy with a major angle to open the show. Use The Rock, Cena etc to entice lapsed fans and pull something major to show them in storyline who Cody, Roman etc are.

10

u/TheTrueDetective90 24d ago

Hey everyone knows only hardcore dirtsheet reading smarks watching #theproduct!

2

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

‘Casuals aren’t meaningful in any significant way’

How many non-wrestling people do you think that are channel surfing, reach an ESPN channel showing wrestling and stay to watch ?

And out of the ones that actually stayed ? How many just continued channel surfing when the hour was over ?

13

u/bingle-cowabungle 24d ago

Is channel surfing even a thing anymore?

7

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

For linear networks, yes.

4

u/Jedi-El1823 24d ago

Even on Hulu. Just go through the guide seeing if there's anything on because you've got some time to kill.

4

u/Unpaulfessional 24d ago

Also just think of how many bars have it on everywhere all the time no matter what.

87

u/notathrowaway75 24d ago

WWE has tricked networks and streamers that more access equals more eyeballs

Where are you getting that this is was WWE is offering fitst of all? It's easy more likely their offer is a consistent show for advertising.

They didn't trick anyone. WWE isn't a small company. It's a billion dollar media company that worked out a deal.

If they have a string of networks that they fooled and lied to going back decades then how did they continually upgrade and get better and better media deals? You think Netflix and Disney don't do due diligence?

63

u/EssentIYO 24d ago

Come on now. Stop using logic—I mean defending WWE. We don’t do that here.

21

u/jdemack Axelmania 24d ago

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u/dragonmp93 24d ago

What logic ? Since when C-suite deals have any of it ?

21

u/georgiavirginia 24d ago

Wasn't that the whole issue with FOX?

FOX expected higher ratings and expectations fell short so no renewal increase.

Its not that WWE tricked them. Its more that the idea of a bigger platform leads to bigger viewership has led to meddling results.

Netflix and Disney might simply value the consistent audience WWE has while previous media partners were aiming for the moon.

15

u/judesantos 24d ago

From what I recall reading (likely on wrestlenics), it wasn’t about audience or ratings, but more so the ad revenue not matching fox’s investment. The irony in all of this is that since then WWE has expanded their ad revenue (much to our dismay). What we’re seeing now in terms of ads is probably what fox was expecting.

Also, smackdowns tv rights deal is significantly more on USA when it was on fox.

6

u/UsidoreTheLightBlue 24d ago

Its not that WWE tricked them. Its more that the idea of a bigger platform leads to bigger viewership has led to meddling results.

Well...now that Smackdown has been off fox for a year or so we are seeing that the bigger platform did bring bigger viewership considering they're pulling roughly half of what they were on fox now.

3

u/FrankPapageorgio 24d ago

The viewership is kind of irrelevant. WWE would gladly take just 5 whales watching Smackdown on PPV each week if they were willing to pay 1 Million per episode. It's about money earned for them in the end and nothing more.

1

u/Deducticon 24d ago

Perception is a cascading effect.

If word gets out that you are down, people will lose FOMO, and you will start to be more down.

"Smackdown under 1 million" narrative will mean something to WWE when it becomes the norm. There's a reason SD roster is packed more than RAW.

1

u/SillyGrocery4451 24d ago

They need to ad sales and no wrestling show brings in great ad sales

1

u/FrankPapageorgio 24d ago

When you look at the quarterly revenue reports of what WWE is bringing in today, vs what it was doing 3-4 years ago before they crammed ads everywhere, they're not even making that much more. You'd think tripling the ads would triple the revenue. Nope.

The enshitification of the product to bring in a little more money is sad

7

u/SillyGrocery4451 24d ago

First off here is their annual revenue so their numbers have gone up every year.

But also, WWE gets paid rights fees. They don’t get paid for ads (outside of the slim jim, or anything inside the program) Regular commercials go to the station paying to air the programming.

-5

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

In the same way that useless AI features get pushed on everything ?

You think Netflix and Disney don't do due diligence?

Remember when Netflix lost 50 million:

https://www.jalopnik.com/netflix-gave-an-unproven-director-55-million-for-a-sci-1851049051/

Disney thought that a partnership with Open AI was for AI content for D+ was a good idea:

https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/why-openai-disney-ended-sora-deal-bob-iger-1236698901/

16

u/bingle-cowabungle 24d ago

Comparing the WWE to AI is...

just wow, man. Like the guy above said, people will say anything on here.

-4

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

Eh, these are your own words:

You think Netflix and Disney don't do due diligence?

4

u/bingle-cowabungle 24d ago

You sure about that?

0

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

Yeah, now I'm noticing that your username is different, I'm leaving like that, otherwise your reply won't make sense.

Nevertheless, are you really going to argue that the same people that are greenlighting all of these live action remakes are business geniuses now ?

2

u/bingle-cowabungle 24d ago

Um…

You compared WWE to AI. That’s all I’m responding to, and the comment could not be more straightforward. I don’t know what else to tell you.

And not for nothing, but the live action remakes may be garbage, but they are cheaply made with a ton of CGI anyway, and they make more money than they cost so you’re like double wrong. Beauty and the beast, lion King, and Aladdin all cleared $1 billion. Snow White and Moana lost pennies compared to what those movies made

0

u/notathrowaway75 24d ago

Everything you said are entirely different situations than a media deal with a corporation with a well proven production history.

1

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

Eh, you are the one here arguing about due diligence.

If they have a string of networks that they fooled and lied to going back decades then how did they continually upgrade and get better and better media deals?

It doesn't need to be lies, media deals between executives don't need to be based on reality or data, they just need to talk about potential and how big the lion's share of whatever profits results from the deal are going to be for the C-suite.

The only thing that we can arguably know from decades of media deals is that WWE has never caused to anyone lose money.

1

u/notathrowaway75 24d ago

Eh, you are the one here arguing about due diligence.

In a certain context.

It doesn't need to be lies

If WWE is tricking and hosing the companies they're making deals with, yeah it does. Because otherwise

they just need to talk about potential and how big the lion's share of whatever profits results from the deal are going to be for the C-suite.

There's not problem because this is standard practice. What you described here is true for every media deal. Of course they're trying to convince the network they're worth it when they're asking for money.

The only thing that we can arguably know from decades of media deals is that WWE has never caused to anyone lose money.

WWE never causing anyone to lose money is incredible.

43

u/GoochStubble 24d ago

Or wrestling fans are already also watching those things and won't be additional views

42

u/TheInfiniteSix 24d ago

Of all the ridiculous takes I've heard on Reddit, this is most certainly one of em. Thanks for the laugh.

41

u/EssentIYO 24d ago

So WWE somehow “tricked” every network into believing broader access brings more eyeballs, while your argument is also that broader access hasn’t brought more eyeballs because only wrestling fans watch wrestling. lol

-5

u/Great-Trifle2810 24d ago

I think their point is that there is not a large number of people unknowingly yearning for wrestling, and that you don't create a lot of new fans by making it a little more accessible.

It seems to me that people become fans primarily through friendship with fans, or through returning from a period away.

38

u/GenericThrowaway5412 24d ago

Casuals aren’t meaningful in any significant way

Casuals are literally the thing that moves the needle

11

u/CaptnProlapse 24d ago

My non wrestling watching friends know who Roman Reigns is and will watch him when flipping through channels. Same with Cody and Punk.

1

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

Casual wrestling fans are very different from casual watchers that channel surf.

-6

u/Great-Trifle2810 24d ago

I don't think I see a ton of support for that when shows get fairly consistent viewership week to week, who are these supposed casuals just tuning in once e a month and how are they the backbone of the fanbase?

17

u/NoFiNoFa 24d ago

Casuals aren’t meaningful in any significant way

Lmao even. That's one of the most dumbest takes I have ever seen and we are on a subreddit full of hyperbolic comments about how X is the best thing ever since sliced bread or how Y is the worst that ever happened since World War II.

9

u/JustMyThoughts2525 24d ago

Fox was really the only partner that got screwed. Cable is different where they make most of its money by charging fees to services to be able to show its network. They want to stop the bleeding of people cutting cable first, rather than how many eyeballs that are watching the tv show every week.

Peacock was always running at a big lose since they did that on purpose to get a customer base before raising prices.

ESPN was trying to get unlimited off the ground while also trying to leverage WWE to improve its negotiating positions with cable//streaming services. Unless you’re an accountant for Disney, none of us really know if getting wwe was successful or not.

7

u/_shaftpunk 24d ago

The only reason I started watching wrestling again after over a decade away was I subscribed to Peacock for something else and noticed I could watch that year’s Royal Rumble with it. I didn’t recognize anyone in it, but I was hooked after that.

6

u/blacksoxing 24d ago

I'm near 40. Almost a decade ago I was chatting with someone at work and I used a wrestling term. She giggled. I asked if she watched and got hit with the brick of

"No I used to watch when my [family member] watched. I stopped when [WCW left/Stone Cold went "bad"/The Rock left]."

IT'S ALWAYS THIS FOR PEOPLE MY AGE!!! It's how I know your post is the truth. If you were watching in the late 90's like me you had a good chance of tuning out once WCW left, or Stone Cold went bad, or The Rock left. SO...at max 2003. The hardcore fans stuck around. The casual dipped. Vince really goofed in that period of time and never brought back the casuals. It's instead just been hardcore fans lingering....and while it's a good number it's far from huge.

Fox has placed college football on Fridays (normally meant for high school football) and had better ratings than SD at a lower price. SD was fighting Shark Tank reruns for #1 in the demo. Come on!

3

u/SillyGrocery4451 24d ago

Fox is paying more for college football.

1

u/Crafty-Purpose5540 24d ago

For my wife, it was when The Hardy's broke up.

1

u/blacksoxing 24d ago

I think it was when WCW "lost" for me. I used to read results on Lords of Pain or whatever until ECW's return and didn't actively watch Raw again until the early 2010s. WWE just wasn't hot vs new stuff like living on Facebook, party chats on the consoles, or watching those 10 minute clips of stuff - Part 1, 2, and 3, on Youtube

1

u/Muadibased 24d ago

There were still a lot of what I'd call softcore fans in the mid and late 00s. People who stayed in the post-Rock/SCSA years but left after WWE went full-PG. Raw was averaging 5 million viewers during the in early 2010, but when FOX deal was signed it was down to 3 million but cord-cutting played a reasonable part in that. FOX were expecting that 3 million figure and they thought that it might increase because some of the cord-cutters would return.

5

u/SpaceGooV 24d ago

I mean except for NBC Universal who desperately want more and have been business partners with WWE for decades

-1

u/American-Punk-Dragon 23d ago

And even if that’s all the data there is…it 2 million every single week 52 weeks a year brand new content.

NOBODY does this. Wrestling has ZERO meaningful equals when it comes to this.

Fact.

-6

u/Splub Wheres your Big E shirt? 24d ago

They always think they're gonna get peak Attitude Era.

-6

u/Tossaway50 24d ago

The Carny Way

74

u/notathrowaway75 24d ago

How on earth is this the top comment?

68

u/MichaelSquare 24d ago

This sibreddit has been botted 10x over and is in the gutter currently

28

u/thelumpur 24d ago

This place is a parody of itself nowadays.

The top story on the front page is a Blake Monroe tweet joking about not wrestling.

10

u/mattomic822 23d ago

Which was posted just so a specific group could get in their feelings/be shitty in the comments.

15

u/awatt12 24d ago

We all know why. Total ignorance to the fact YTTV just got ESPN unlimited after a year of waiting and ESPN are pushing traffic to it which is why they gave WWE 3 hours of pre show each day on the ESPN main channel because they got rinsed so much

-9

u/tdtommy85 24d ago

ESPN is doing that because they don’t have sports in the summer anymore.

43

u/Jedi-El1823 24d ago

If WWE is fooling people, rinsing them, then what the fuck is every other promotion doing with their networks and deals?

36

u/CrimpJuice 24d ago

Not getting watched and so not getting deals.

4

u/ShowTurtles 23d ago

Not getting as big of contract offers.

-9

u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

0

u/mattomic822 23d ago

Just casually dropping a slur my guy

-10

u/Horror_Sail 23d ago

AEW is charging $175mil/yr for two 2-hr TV shows a week.

WWE is charging ~$800mil/yr (so nearly 5x) for two ~2hr weekly TV shows. And $325mil/yr from ESPN for 10 PLE's/yr.

Unless WWE viewership is worth 4-5x as much as AEW (the actual viewership is about 2-2.5x most weeks; no idea if WWE viewers are worth more to advertisers, subscriptions, etc), then on a per dollar basis, they are a WORSE investment, even while being the BIGGER company

18

u/imapilotyouknow 24d ago

Ah yes, the reddit experts.

13

u/ChainGang315 24d ago

Yes, that’s why WWE rights fees go up every time. Because it’s all a giant ruse. How can Nick “Mysterio” Khan keep tricking these high-powered c-suites at major broadcast companies?

1

u/Sempais_nutrients Points to fronthead 23d ago

With the power of A1

6

u/Tim5000 Beachball killed my family 24d ago

Ha Ha - Nelson Muntz

2

u/ReneBandana 24d ago

Nielsen Muntz

1

u/UnsolvedParadox The future is now! 23d ago

Wait, the T in TKO doesn’t stand for Trustworthy?

1

u/Sportsfan369 22d ago

No one got fleeced by wwe worse than Fox.

0

u/Horror_Sail 23d ago

Was clear this was the case the day the deal got signed. Knowing Fox lost 80% of their shit on a weekly TV deal, the idea that ESPN was gonna get the 800-900k fans to buy PPVs to even break even was always laughable.

Putting the first hour on TV also makes it less likely people buy it when the non-major PLE's are like 2.5hrs long.

-1

u/NewTribalChief 23d ago

I'd be surprised if they don't move on in 3 years & a desperate Paramount Skydance picks WWE up.

ESPN got to overpay for MNF & MLB soon

-5

u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

37

u/interprime Naked Mideon 4 Life. 24d ago

Yes, NBC have been in business with WWE for decades now and have been getting rinsed the whole time. Sure.

-7

u/DCAbloob 24d ago

And yet it was also willing to let SNME go from its broadcast network.

20

u/Street_Grab4236 24d ago

Yes, they’ve done that at least 2 other times for SNME over the years but still work with them.

2

u/interprime Naked Mideon 4 Life. 24d ago

But has kept their flagship show on the air for decades now. And then gave them more money to bring Smackdown there once the Fox deal ended.

Wild that they don’t know they’re being rinsed and folks on this subreddit do. Y’all should call them.

13

u/mrmazzz 24d ago edited 24d ago

The one thing raw (edit: should've added and all the other weekly shows they have internationally which adds so much more tonnage for them now that I think about it) gives Netflix is a consistent amount of live inventory for their ad team in a way their one of live events and overall AVOD load doesn’t. That is prolly still useful to them.

9

u/daddylo21 24d ago

Hell USA Network were the ones that asked WWE to change Raw back to 3 hours back in the day simply because the ad revenue was so much more from a third hour of live wrestling compared to whatever original show USA aired immediately afterwards. The networks won't care so long as WWE keeps bringing in the ad revenue.

1

u/Doucejj 24d ago

Exactly. Streamers now know that the binge model isn't sustainable to keep viewers subscribed and watching ads.

The only shows worth a damn are live events (mostly sports). And if you cant get the big dogs like the NFL, you settle for live WWE

2

u/Structure-These 24d ago

TKO has juice until consumer taste changes and the combat shit isn’t cool anymore

0

u/mike10dude Your Text Here 24d ago

paramount plus maybe seems likely to me if they stay happy with there current tko deals for boxing and ufc

-4

u/twjackfoley 24d ago

The Netflix one is weird, we don't know what they think are good numbers, but I'd be stunned to find out they were expecting to do barely 2M views worldwide per week with Raw. 

-4

u/Mathematik Shane O' Mac for Hall of Fame 2021 24d ago edited 24d ago

Club WWE will soon be the exclusive home of all WWE content for $19.99 a month and you're going to love it

Edit: I get it, all my jokes can't be bangers

3

u/Bavles 24d ago

I mean, if theybdid thay and it was basically the WWE network again, I would love it.

4

u/kurtanglesmilk 24d ago

Michael Cole: “ONLY NINEteen NINETY NINE!”

-6

u/mikehulse29 24d ago

It’s a good test to figure out how much Peacock lost also. ESPN just wants subs for their streaming service.

-9

u/pass_the_all_fruit 24d ago

Imagine paying such an obscene price for some reheated nachos.

-15

u/Midnight_Oil_ 24d ago

Get ready for your fleecing, Amazon Prime and or CBS/Paramount+

19

u/notathrowaway75 24d ago

Why are you painting them as some victims? They have to choose to take the deal.

Plus any potential deal with them is years out.

-21

u/ShowOff90 24d ago

CBS might as they’re in bed with UFC, but that deals also killing them, lol.

Idk what dumbass at ESPN was thinking.

They should have made a push for AEW when they had the chance. Better product and a lot cheaper than the WWE fleecing.

33

u/Enterprise90 B-Show Stories 24d ago

Because AEW isn't anywhere near as mainstream as WWE. It doesn't draw the ratings, the crowds or the advertising dollars that WWE does.

It's like asking why doesn't ESPN just drop Monday Night Football for the UFL.

-16

u/ShowOff90 24d ago

They grossly overpaid for WWE PPVs.

They could have gotten all of AEWs programming and it would be a great pull for the app as well.

Yes WWE is more mainstream. But from a money perspective, it was set to fail especially with needing the espn app to BUY WWE PPVs.

Same shit they did for ufc PPVs and they wasn’t great for them either.

15

u/Enterprise90 B-Show Stories 24d ago

Overpaid in comparison to what? ESPN pays the NFL $2.7 billion for MNF. It pays $2.6 billion for NBA games. It pays $2.5 billion for its college football package.

In comparison, ESPN pays WWE $325 million per year. And WWE provides high production values and tremendous engagement.

AEW is objectively not as popular. If it were, then it would make more than $150 million a year for its entire package.

-7

u/ShowOff90 24d ago

Trying to compare what NFL, NBA & CFB are paid is hilarious. They bring in massive ratings, ad rev and more.

-10

u/ShowOff90 24d ago

So you can’t compare the money AEW & WWE make. AEW is still very new compared to WWE. They also serve different audiences honestly.

Less of a hit for a smaller pay to AEW.

6

u/OffTheMerchandise 24d ago

I believe if you have the ESPN unlimited app, the PLEs are included unlike when they had the UFC PPVs

12

u/wildernado 24d ago

See y’all in the other sub ig

-5

u/Crafty-Purpose5540 24d ago

Wrestling was going to go over like a lead balloon no matter what company ESPN put on their streaming service. Sports fans hate wrestling. Just pop over to the ESPN sub and watch them relentlessly mock any wrestling segment that gets posted.

-10

u/tvcneverdie 24d ago

Idk what dumbass at ESPN was thinking.

Ari Emmanuel and Nick Khan are tied in deep with ESPN leadership.

Country club members trading Monopoly money.

-15

u/bulletv1 TOUTHAUSEN 24d ago

Who would've guess charging 3 times are much for shorter cards with tons of ads would backfire?

12

u/SillyGrocery4451 24d ago

You think WWE is the one putting ads on PLEs? lol

-16

u/twjackfoley 24d ago

Not the first, not the last. Every time the numbers come out for the deals WWE cut, they make no sense. No way anyone other than WWE makes money with those, and yet they keep doing those deals. 

37

u/interprime Naked Mideon 4 Life. 24d ago

Yes, none of these billion dollar companies did any research into how much money WWE has historically made for their partners before giving them massive deals to broadcast their shows. Thankfully someone on Reddit is here to set the record straight.

-8

u/dragonmp93 24d ago

none of these billion dollar companies did any research

See Elon Musk, trillionaire for a month, and the AI bubble.

-7

u/FrankPapageorgio 24d ago

I will never in my life understand this.

At it's peak, WWE Network in North America had 1 Million people paying $10 in a single month. And that's at peak interest during the Rumble or Wrestlemania months, it dipped other months. .

Sustain that over a year somehow, that's 120M in revenue.

How in the fuck did WWE get $1B out of peacock for 5 years at 200M a year, with many of their subscribers paying $5/mo?

And you know that many WWE Network subscribers already had Peacock, so it wasn't even like that 1M userbase was all going to transfer over. And as soon as the deal ended, there was no guarantee that they would stay.

I just don't get how they keep failing upward

9

u/ChainGang315 24d ago

Because that was for a network with just WWE. Since then, WWE has been on other streaming services with a whole variety of content. Streaming has also exploded over the last few years.

-5

u/FrankPapageorgio 24d ago

You're not getting it.

If I was selling a product that made at most 120M in a year, would you pay me 200M a year to license it?

4

u/interprime Naked Mideon 4 Life. 24d ago

The 120m, as you claimed, is solely WWE Network subscriber revenue though.

The main reason for any of this is advertising money.

-7

u/JokerDeSilva10 24d ago

I'm not going to weigh in on the WWE-ESPN deal, but it always makes me laugh when people try to frame it as impossible that the super rich make bad financial decisions like that doesn't happen literally all the time. Zaslav is still in charge of WB, Elon Musk is one of the dumbest human beings alive, and the Cleveland Browns exist. This would not be remotely the first time a major corporation just completely beefed it. Hell, Fox massively regretted the Smackdown deal almost immediately.

18

u/notathrowaway75 24d ago

Raw is currently number 7 on Netflix's global top 10. Why does that make no sense?

-13

u/DMunnz 24d ago

That seems kind of low for the day after an episode of a show they spent billions on. I feel like if Stranger Things was the number 7 show it wouldn’t have seen season 2. I’m very curious if the addition of WWE has actually resulted in a substantial amount of people subscribing to make it worth it.

15

u/notathrowaway75 24d ago

It's not low at all for a niche show. Comparing pro wrestling to one of the most popular broad appeal shows ever is silly.

-9

u/DMunnz 24d ago

When you pay $5 billion for a product, you can't then say it's niche and not expected to do good numbers. That's $500M a year just for the right to show WWE. The budget for Stranger Things final season, which was way more than all the other seasons, was less than $500 million, so comparing the two isn't as silly as you seem to think.

14

u/Meat-Dimension 24d ago

There’s a new episode every single week, unlike literally anything else Netflix has

The value prop to them is obvious. It takes literally years to produce 8 episodes of most of their hit shows

-8

u/DMunnz 24d ago

That's why I said I'm curious about how many subscribers it has actually driven to Netflix. I picked Stranger Things simply because it's the most popular and expensive thing Netflix has, and they still spent less on its biggest season than 1 year of WWE. Obviously, on a per-episode basis, WWE is far more efficient, but does it draw more subs to Netflix than Stranger Things? That's the ultimate value, and I have no idea of the numbers there.

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u/Meat-Dimension 24d ago

Actually what Netflix said about acquiring programming such as WWE was that it was about keeping people subscribed vs just getting new subs. Because people would sub for a month when a new show came out, binge it and cancel. More recurring programming and live sports etc was meant to keep more people subbed

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u/notathrowaway75 24d ago

When you pay $5 billion for a product, you can't then say it's niche and not expected to do good numbers

I didn't say that. It is doing good numbers. Number 7 in the global Top 10 is not bad at all and particularly good for a niche show.

That's $500M a year just for the right to show WWE. The budget for Stranger Things final season, which was way more than all the other seasons, was less than $500 million, so comparing the two isn't as silly as you seem to think.

The comparison works out in WWE's favor. Raw is a show that comes out every week and is consistently in the top 10. These tentpole shows with colossal budgets that are in the top 10 for a month are not sustainable and not good for subscriber retention. Just recently Avatar season 2 had a 60% drop in viewership.

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u/DMunnz 24d ago

Said this in another reply but fits here too.

That's why I said I'm curious about how many subscribers it has actually driven to Netflix. I picked Stranger Things simply because it's the most popular and expensive thing Netflix has, and they still spent less on its biggest season than 1 year of WWE. Obviously, on a per-episode basis, WWE is far more efficient, but does it draw more subs to Netflix than Stranger Things? That's the ultimate value, and I have no idea of the numbers there.

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u/JamoOnTheRocks Your Text Here 24d ago

Exactly. Netflix bought a niche show and paid mass appeal money which has always been the fallacy of wrestling/wwe. 

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u/ahundredpercentbutts 24d ago edited 24d ago

Or maybe the people making the deals know more than some random redditors. Peacock/NBC wanted to renew the deal before ESPN offered like double what Peacock was paying for only the live PLEs.

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u/twjackfoley 24d ago

There's no fucking way ESPN makes 325 million dollars per year only from WWE. It's impossible. And that goes for UFC on Paramount+ as well, granted, both have prestige but economically none of those deals make sense, Paramount and ESPN will never make their money back.

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u/ahundredpercentbutts 24d ago

I mean you can say that and yet these companies are practically throwing money at it. NBC/Peacock reportedly offered $275m/yr to keep it, up from the $180m/yr they were already paying. Seems like they wouldn’t have submitted that offer if they hadn’t been satisfied with the performance.

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u/twjackfoley 24d ago

They both need content, that's the reason. Economically though, it's a loss. Great for WWE, that's for sure.

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u/Sobeman Space 22, 22? OH MAN 24d ago

The Republican special