WWE’s current contract with the USA Network expires in September 2024, and RAW will continue to air on the network as a transitional phase before moving to Netflix in January 2025.
This will be the first time Monday Night RAW will not be available on cable television since its inaugural broadcast in 1993.
On a recent edition of “The Main Event” podcast, TKO/Endeavor President Mark Shapiro discussed the challenges in finalizing the deal between WWE and Netflix.
Shapiro explained the extensive effort required to persuade Netflix’s CEO, Ted Sarandos, and CFO, Spencer Neumann, with the involvement of himself, TKO/Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, and Netflix’s Chief Content Officer.
Shapiro said, ”No, I don’t think they’re jumping into that any time quick (Shapiro responded to the question of if he thinks Netflix will bring more live sports into their portfolio) and I will tell ya, this (WWE on Netflix) wasn’t an easy deal. Ted Sarandos is amazing and just an incredible track record of success and frankly, driving change in the business along with Reed (Hastings) and you know, Bela (Bajaria) has just completely reorganized the content team there. Showing the willingness to take chances and big swings and not afraid of risks and has a $17 billion dollar budget behind her. So, they’re in it. If they think there’s something out there, premium, that’s going to bring in subs and keep subs and allow them to raise prices and sell advertising, they’ll jump in so in that respect, if sports is going to do it at a reasonable price, they’ll do it.”
He continued, “But there’s no behind the scenes strategy. Wink, wink — we’re getting into WWE which is close to sports and then we’ll get some NFL games and then we’ll really open up the floodgates. It took ‘em a lot of convincing by Bela and Ari (Emanuel) and me to Ted directly and Spencer Neumann, the C.F.O., to get them all in on the WWE and then they took a shot. But guess what? They drove a hard bargain, they were terrific negotiators. The devil’s in the details and there are a lot of details and they held their ground and I think they got a great deal for themselves as well.”
The deal between WWE and Netflix is worth over $5 billion and will last ten years.
