WWE has had a newsworthy week for a variety of reasons, including the latest lawsuit against Vince McMahon, who is facing horrific allegations, The Rock’s addition to the WWE Board of Directors, and the Netflix deal.
As PWMania.com previously reported, WWE reached an agreement with Netflix to move its flagship show, Monday Night RAW, from the USA Network to the streaming service beginning in January 2025. The agreement is for ten years and exceeds $5 billion. The deal is worth at least $500 million per year.
In comparison, WWE’s current five-year contract with the USA Network is worth around $250-260 million per year. WWE’s contract to air RAW on USA Network expires at the end of September 2024, and it is unclear where RAW will air between the end of that deal and the start of the Netflix contract.
According to Brandon Thurston of WrestleNomics, the deal is backloaded, which means Netflix will pay WWE more later in the ten-year term and less earlier.
Thurston estimates that the Netflix deal represents a 1.2x to 1.3x increase in value across all agreements. Analyst Brandon Ross from LightShed reached a similar conclusion, and David Baldini of PWInsider estimated a 33% increase (or 1.33x).
This comes after WWE received a raise for SmackDown’s rights from FOX to $205 million per year on average, with a future deal from NBCU worth $287 million per year when the show moves to the USA Network.
