WWE programing about to get even more messy

According to websites such as Awful Announcing, Forbes, and Deadline, WWE and ESPN have signed a five-year $1.6 billion deal.

As part of the deal, WWE Premium Live Events will be aired exclusively on ESPN through their direct-to-consumer app. The app will cost $29.99 US dollars, and will have NFL, US Open tennis and college football.

Currently in America, Raw is on Netflix, SmackDown is on the USA Network, and NXT is on the CW. The entire WWE library is on Peacock.

In Australia, WWE programming and PLEs are available on Netflix. Select past events are on Netflix, but episodes of Superstars and other matches from the past are on the WWE Vault YouTube channel. For WCW pay-per-views and episodes of Monday Nitro and Thunder are on a separate YouTube channel.

With ESPN programming on Disney+ in Australia, there has been no word on whether any WWE PLEs will be available on the platform.

While I am not an American consumer, I know from my own streaming fomo that it can be expensive to have multiple platforms. I can only imagine the pain they are going through. While I know now is probably the time for media organisations to cash in on streaming, how do they think they will go when the market is oversaturated? Only time will tell.

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