ESPN, WWE ink five-year deal for WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, other live events

WWE is coming to Espn.

. Disney-According to people who refuse to name the conversation about the sporting sports and entertainment work, the agreement features, starting from 2026, Wrestlemiaa, Royal Rumbles and Summerslam will pay an average of $ 325 million per year for the largest live events of WWE for five -year US rights. The spokesmen in WWE and ESPN refrained from commenting.

NBCuniversal’s Peacock had paid $ 180 million a year before for five years for the package, according to two people who knew the subject.

10 of WWE’s premium live events every year’s new events of $ 29.99 in the US Select events of ESPN will be simulstian in the linear networks of ESPN.

Disney reported three -month earnings on Wednesday, which increased its domestic ESP income to $ 3.93 billion with an increase of 1%.

WWE and ESPN strategically approached each other in recent years, he said TKO group Mayor and Operation Officer Mark Shapiro in an interview. TKO is the control of WWE. Shapiro was a senior executive in ESPN in the early 2000s.

“In many ways, this is our destiny,” Shapiro said. “If you want to expand the audience, our fan base, the fire around WWE and to grow on a real national scale, you cannot do it because it is about the sports world without partnership with ESPN.”

ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN, even if it is not about to release the new flow service, said he would want to bid the event package. Nevertheless, adding activities for the subscribers of the digital product for extra fees will help reduce the complexity for professional wrestling and expand ESPN beyond traditional sports.

“Our place was built as an entertainment and sports programming network, Pit Pitaro said, referring to the real meaning of the abbreviation” espn “. “This is a great way for us to expand our audience. Young, more diverse and more women than we see at the network level.”

WWE President Nick Khan, thirty -eight percent of WWE’s audience is women. In an interview, about 50% of the people who participated in WWE live events came with children.

Khan, “Multi -beloved imaging and ESPN’nin very generated imaging,” we think. ” He said.

In 2024, WWE signed an agreement of $ 5 billion for 10 years Netflix Every Monday night “RAW” flow, starting this year. Netflix will continue to publish WWE activities of the Election Framework outside the USA

“Smackdown” on Friday, the US Network, will continue to be broadcast on Peacock. According to people familiar with the issue, this agreement ends in 2029.

Description: ComCast is the owner of NBCuniversal, the parent company of CNBC and USA Network.

Explanation: This story clarified ESPN that WWE Premium in Netflix, USA, will hold the right to publish live events.