WWESPN
 

PLE's going to stream on ESPN's new Streaming. Seems price will be $29.99 a month and include WWE, NFL, and other sports content. WWE getting a 5 year $1.625 Billion contract. I wonder if 31 NFL teams are excited about being on the same service as WWE, while one specific team is not going to take this shit anymore!!! :rofl::rofl:

https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id...beginning-2026

I didn’t see this posted when I made mine in the casual thread. This is a pretty huge deal. The app is a direct-to-consumer app, but I think some, if not all, will just air on ESPN for those with a cable provider. It’s a pretty huge saving grace for cable.

Very smart of WWE to diversify its media rights. They still have a horse in the race with NBC Universal (NXT and potentially back catalogue). This just ties in ESPN, which I imagine most wrestling fans would have. Even so, $30 a PLE isn’t too steep an ask. Aren’t AEW still asking for $50 a pop?

It’ll be interesting to see if this affects how WWE produces its shows. If the app were the only way it was accessible, it could cut out the need for ads. But they might still want to make that moolah anyway.

I’ve been rooting for TNA to get a TV deal. I’ve been optimistic about the possibility of an NBC Universal deal. PLE were likely going somewhere else — Netflix was my guess — so it would make sense for NBC to mitigate that a little with TNA content on Peacock and USA.

Going from $10 to $30 is nuts.

You want to get nuts?! Let's get nuts!!

Triple H about to get fired. Can’t believe he is making WWE so undesirable and striking all these bad deals. First Netflix and now ESPN. All these entities are going to regret giving this company money any day now.

So you mean I have to have cable to watch WWE PLEs? What an absolute nightmare. If I don’t already have cable I have to pay $30 a month? This is an outrage. I’m going to take my money to AEW who give me…oh…

AEW is even worse. There is no one here who likes AEW.

No problem I'm not cheap like all of you.

I mean if you already have Cable, it sounds like this move will be saving you $10 a month by cancelling Peacock.

Either way though, WWE is now getting paid $1.6 billion by ESPN, and the NFL owns 10% of ESPN. That means that the NFL is paying $160 million of that money to WWE. 1/32 of that is $5 million. Shad Khan is paying WWE $5 million dollars now, which means...

https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-...ter-/960x0.jpg

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

The one thing that bothers me with this is what is going to happen to the archive!?!


I was very against paying Netflix just to watch Raw, but I did. They said all of the Raw episodes were going to be on Netflix...never happened. We only are stuck with the current stuff and selected episodes of the past. Very poor and technically, false advertisement because they lied about what was going to be available to hook you in to paying.


When the Peacock deal is up, does all of the past PPVs, Documentaries, Talk Shows, WCW, ECW, etc go to ESPN? Go to Netflix? Go somewhere else? Disappear for ever? That's my biggest thing. I almost rather go back to paying the $15 for DVDs so this way I can have it for the rest of my life span and never have to worry about this crap ever again.

I don't think most ppl have cable at this point.

Digital sucks. Welcome to physical media club.

Interesting how much money these networks will burn for content.

$325 million a year, divided by $360 (year's subscription) is about 900,000 subscribers.

But those $30 bucks are for all of ESPN and not just WWE, so you'd need how many people interested in WWE to make that a worthwile investment… And how many of the WWE watchers are already going to have ESPN anyway? Peak US WWE Network paid subscribers was like 1.2 million.

Congratulations to WWE for receiving an insane amount of money I guess.

ESPN is in about 30 million homes or something like that. About 65 million still have cable. It wouldn’t surprise me if this gets a few more providers to pick up ESPN. They can bump TNT and TBS, it’s alright.

If you don’t have cable, you can just get the app. Either that or go watch it with a friend.

the rare occasion where us Canadians actually get a better deal than the Americans for watching rasslin'. Netflix deal has been a godsend for us

It’s basically the same in Australia. I wish it had WCW, ECW, Mid-South, etc. but they will probably pop up somewhere else.

The only hope is them being dripfed onto youtube, no other commercial service is going to have the incentive that WWE themselves did.

I don't think most ppl have friends at this point.

Even if you don’t, you’re probably part of some sort of streaming share pool.

Yahar there always be a crew ye could be joinin out here on the digital seas, mateys.

*insert swashbuckling/dial up internet sounds here*

I’m not going to fault people for choosing open ocean adventure, but it’s really not as dramatic a move as some people are making out.

If you have ESPN, you have access. From my understanding, this DTC app is going to be bundled with Disney+ and ESPN+ too. Out of curiosity, is there anyone still floating around what’s left of TPWW that isn’t already plugged into that world?

The snippet I remember from a podcast was that ESPN was just going to show certain parts of certain events, probably as a promo/tease. The whole point of this deal is to drive the new platform, isn't it?

I dont use any of those apps currently. I'll do a month of hulu and disney a year or so but thats about it. Just long enough to get caught up on their offerings for the year. This wont change that. only one i keep year round is crunchy roll cause it needs the help the most. Netflix maybe 4-6 months out of the year. Their output is highest.

I have a sizable tape/dvd collection though. If the NJPW app wasnt awful to use id keep it. Its backlog is sublime.

I like using Peacock as it's more dependable than the high seas

In other news UFC events are getting a huge price drop from what I read.

I have found myself needing to return to the seas because Peacock won't even play live events a lot of the time any more. Both nights of SS would freeze as soon as they loaded for me.

The digital waves had no issue delivering me to my rasslin booty.

Looks like they’re going to Paramount+. TKO is wisely going to have a log in every fire. And if you’re a UFC fan, you get to save a tiny bit of money and/or redirect that money into apps that carry other content you want.

ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro has predictably expressed interest in the WWE back catalogue. I do wonder if they are going to keep everything together or if they are going to diversify the content. WWE could go to ESPN+ while WCW goes to HBO Max or something.

Pitaro also said he expects WWE to help fill out gaps in their schedule when necessary. Whether that means original content or even with the classic library remains to be seen. Has a classic WrestleMania ever been shown on basic cable in the US? Imagine a 41 week journey through Mania, hosted by Jesse Ventura and CM Punk or Jim Ross. Could turn a lot of people onto the product.

I cancelled NJPW World after they made Zack Sabre Jr champ again. Got no time for that. I’d rather give my money to my local barista. They make my coffee better than ZSJ wrestles.

I lost the WWE Network after they made Jinder Mahal champ too. I guess the contemporary product affects my desire to give people money.

I cant stomach modern NJPW. Its tragically awful

I still don't understand why they pulled every old Raw and NXT off Peacock. I get the deals with Netflix and CW might have included exclusive rights to the streaming rights of the new episodes, but all the older episodes should still be included in the current Peacock contract, even if they are no longer broadcasting the Raw or NXT brands.

Also, they had all the Smackdown episodes on the service even when Smackdown was on Fox, so it seems odd that Peacock would have got every Smackdown episode for the length of that 5 year contract, before they were actually broadcasting Smackdown, but would lose the streaming rights for the back catalogue as soon as their TV deals for Raw and NXT ended.

I would assume that the pesky little clause that says "content availability may change over time" has something to do with it. That is likely how they got around that with Peacock. WWE can pull down whatever they want whenever they want and Peacock had no leg to stand on. I'm just pissed that they lied about their deal with Netflix because they said all Raw episodes, even the old ones, were going over to Netflix and that never happened.

I think all the Raw episodes will eventually go up. I just don’t think Raws from 2008, for example, are a priority. Does anyone really want those?

I assume NXT is going to end up where NXT PLEs end up. Probably in select form with the NXT Vault being a home for a lot of them.

They tend to keep the backlog of IP with the active IP. Australia doesn’t get Saturday’s Night Main Event on Netflix, for example, because that’s an NBC Universal thing in the States and airs on YouTube over here.

I probably should have given some of the classic stuff more of a go, but I just couldn’t find an era that really grabbed me over other stuff I was watching. I did a few AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura matches.

I saw that UFC will be available on Paramount Plus next year. I wonder how much my subscription will increase.

I don't give a shit about UFC, but I enjoy (as does my kid) a lot of other shows and whatnot on the service.

Unless you rip them from Peacock, I'd start hunting for DVDs of whatever you'd like to keep watching. You can hope that someone will, or already has, put them on YouTube. But your best bet is to get back to discs (and even then, probably should rip them to a drive just in case).

i skimmed but didn't really read other posts in here before i responded to those two so my bad if someone already said the things i did

It’ll be interesting to see where TNA ends up. AEW isn’t going to have many options left. Someone is going to have a deal with almost every other media company. Plus, it’s very clear they have limited appeal anyway — hence Rampage being cancelled, ROH and Shockwave not having homes. Who are they going to have left to leverage against WB?

TNA rumored to get a WB deal and oppose whatever not ght AEW is on. Operation squash AEW before the get a media rights deal so big they will never die in commencement.