Major news broke in the world of wrestling on Monday morning as WWE and NBC Universal announced WWE Network would be moving to Peacock.
The deal is reportedly for five-years and worth more than $1 billion according to Wall Street Journal.
Speaking to The Wrap, WWE President Nick Khan commented on how the deal benefits WWE.
"Vince McMahon and the WWF, at the time, were the first movers from closed circuit to pay-per-view in the early ’80s, the first mover in the sports/entertainment space, outside of Netflix, to the SVOD model in 2014, and we believe the first mover, again, in this deal to partner with a massive conglomerate that has significant reach, in order to serve our fans and expand our audience. So I’ll give you an example: Peacock is free in the [24 million] Comcast cable and Cox cable homes, as I’m sure you know, so…for the first time ever, WrestleMania, which is our Super Bowl, is going to be available for free to those homes. In addition to that, it cuts the cost for our consumers from $9.99 a month for WWE Network to $4.99 a month on the ad-supported tier of Peacock, where they’ll get not only WWE but EPL (English Premier League), “The Office,” Dick Wolf and so many other titles," he said.
Khan noted that this was not a cost-cutting move for WWE to not have to host or maintain its own service.
Khan also said nothing has changed in regards to WWE's relationship with Fox, which is the home of WWE SmackDown and hosts specials on Fox Sports 1.
When asked if the deal is directly tied to a loss of live-event revenue due to the pandemic, Khan said, "It wasn’t a consideration. We expect that we’re going to have fans at WrestleMania in a couple of months and expect that, when it can safely come back — above and beyond partial capacity — we’ll be one of the first ones to go. Keep in mind also, our events are typically priced fan-friendly, so that loss was not a deciding factor in this deal."
The current plan will see Peacock launch the WWE Network on March 18 and the first pay-per-view event streamed on the service will be WWE Fastlane on Sunday, March 21.
You can find more information on the deal by clicking here.
