The era of the WWE Network will seemingly come to an end next year as part of the promotion’s lucrative deal with Netflix.
This week, WWE and Netflix confirmed a deal that will see Monday Night Raw move to the streaming juggernaut. The deal, valued at over $5 billion, will last for ten years, though Netflix has the offer to end the deal at the five-year mark or extend it past ten years for another decade.
The End of the WWE Network?
For fans outside the United States, they will receive Raw, SmackDown, WWE NXT, and Premium Live Events as part of this deal. This has raised questions about the future of the WWE Network, which fans outside the U.S. currently use for said shows. On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said that Netflix will take up the brunt of the workload.
”For most of the world, they’re going to be taking over the WWE Network. The WWE Network itself, that exists outside the United States, that will be folding at the end of the year and Netflix will pick up the content.
“So a lot of people have asked will they pick up all the content? All the archives? I don’t know. But they will be the sole source of that, the archival content of all the old territories and all the old stuff that was on the old WWE Network. That will, that will move to Netflix outside the United States in January.”
Meltzer then looked at WWE’s relationship with Peacock, where the WWE Network in North America currently resides. Meltzer wouldn’t be surprised if this also falls under Netflix’s watch when the time is right.
“When the Peacock deal is up, if Netflix were to get that, that’d be interesting to see how much more they would pay. Obviously, it’s a $200 million deal per year deal right now. So that’s the next deal. That’s coming up.”
Raw will move to Netflix in Jan 2025, but their deal with the USA Network will expire in September 2024…