The WWE and Netflix Partnership is The Largest Streaming Deal in History

Beginning in 2025, WWE will only be available on Netflix in the UK. This will include live weekly shows and monthly premium live events. It’s a momentous occasion that changes Netflix’s future trajectory.

Netflix and WWE have reached a deal that will significantly alter how Netflix provides content to its audience. It is embracing live television for the first time in history.

In addition to taking the place of TNT Sports as the home of shows like WWE Raw, Smackdown, and NXT, Netflix will take over the WWE Network in 2025 as the venue for high-end live events like Royal Rumble and WrestleMania as well as other archival material.

While Netflix has previously dabbled in live-streamed stand-up comedy specials, the proposal is entirely changed when it acquires the rights to all WWE content in the UK (and only RAW in the US for the time being) as part of a $5 billion global agreement.

Now available on Netflix all year round are multiple live TV shows every week. Netflix is offering television by appointment for the first time. New episodes will be released every week to subscribers, and those events will be available both live and on demand.

With this move, Netflix essentially becomes a linear TV provider for the first time, adopting the weekly episodic model that served as the foundation for the whole industry before the advent of Netflix’s binge-it-all-now strategy.

It’s also live!

It’s the latest example of Netflix progressively resembling the TV industry that it so successfully upended at the beginning of the streaming era. To date, it has experimented with introducing advertisements, staging live events, and drastically changing its stance on password sharing while trying to strike a balance between the ease of streaming and long-standing TV industry best practices.

Currently, Netflix has the opportunity to cultivate a product’s audience on a weekly basis as opposed to just throwing a series at its subscribers. For the first time, it will have access to a hugely successful worldwide brand with millions and millions of devoted, lifelong fans.

In the television business, live content is highly sought after. Netflix has now matched other streaming services’ selection of accessible live sports (or, more accurately, “sports-like”) programming.

Major League Baseball and Soccer are available on Apple TV+, while some Premier League is currently available in the UK on Amazon Prime. This trend is even more noticeable in the US, where Peacock, Paramount+, and other companies are all vying for viewers’ attention.

A certain element of Netflix’s subscriber base will remain loyal thanks to its upcoming year-round programming, which will also attract a large number of new subscribers.

For those people, there won’t be a way to stop paying for Netflix’s monthly streaming service until a ton of new episodes are released.

Deal that’s kid-friendly

Even though WWE is now broadcast on TNT Sports, young people still face a similar obstacle to entry.

Millions more young people in the UK who currently have no control over the TV packages or streaming services available in their homes will now have access to WWE programming thanks to the partnership with Netflix.

In the UK, Netflix has about 17 million subscribers, which probably translates to at least that many households. Netflix starts at just £5.99. For example, those who have never been able to watch WWE Raw or Smackdown will now be able to do so. The good news for youthful fans of wrestling is this.

The bottom line is that WWE will be Netflix’s biggest content acquisition to date!