Executives from WWE and Netflix teamed as much as reveal their plans for the upcoming debut of Raw with the media on Tuesday because the sequence prepares to pivot from linear to streaming on January 6 stay from Los Angeles.
The pleasure on the Netflix headquarters in Los Angeles was palpable from each side of the room. On stage, the panel contributors included the moderator Michael Cole, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria and VP of Nonfiction Series and Sports, Brandon Riegg, and on behalf of WWE, President Nick Khan and Chief Content Officer, Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque.
In January, the leisure giants revealed they signed a multiyear deal to air Monday Night Raw (within the U.S., Canada, U.Okay., and Latin America) as a part of Netflix’s enlargement into premium stay occasions (previously often known as pay-per-view). Netflix additionally nabbed the rights to stream WWE specials—like WrestleMania, Summer Slam, and Royal Rumble—and weekly reveals Raw, SmackDown and NXT—exterior of the United States. All for the discount value of $5 billion and a 10-year dedication.
“There was little question in my thoughts,” Levesque mentioned about altering to the streaming mannequin by going into enterprise with Netflix. “As quickly as that dialog occurred and the primary time [streaming] was introduced up, in my thoughts, I used to be like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s a sport changer for us.’ Not solely due to the setting, just like the attain and the way a lot that may broaden our base, however simply take a look at the reveals they do. [Look] on the issues that they do and the liberty that they’ve inside that. It’s a sport changer for us.”
And whereas many issues will change, others will keep the identical, confirms Khan.
“We’re not altering the score of our programming. So there’s some on-line chatter about, ‘oh, it’s going to be R-rated, or for us outdated of us, X-rated.’ That’s positively not occurring,” he mentioned. “It’s family-friendly, multi-generational, advertiser-friendly programming. It’s going to remain that means. I’d search for extra international aptitude, particularly as the connection continues to develop. Countries exterior of the United States are as necessary to us because the United States is. So we’ve got sure focused nations which are priorities for Netflix. They’re priorities for us. You’re going to see extra of that. I believe that’s the best way you’ll see a little bit of a distinction.”
Before Raw‘s upcoming early January premiere, Netflix launched two stay occasions almost a yr aside. The Chris Rock comedy particular Selective Outrage! streamed final spring and most lately, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson “battle” final month. The latter was marred by complaints of technical points like extreme buffering and the lack of the sign fully.
Bajaria mentioned the matter and what they’re doing to enhance.
“Whenever we do stay occasions, we would like it to go easily for each single certainly one of our members. That’s actually necessary—additionally, to place it in perspective, it was 65 million concurrent streams, proper? It was a really profitable evening. Lots of people [watched], the size was very large, which is nice. There’s a whole lot of curiosity in it,” she mentioned.
Adding, “We anticipated an enormous quantity, for certain. It was an enormous quantity. But once more, you don’t know, and you’ll’t study these items till you do them so you’re taking an enormous swing. Our groups and our engineers are wonderful, moved tremendous shortly, and stabilized it, and most of the members had it again up and working fairly shortly. But we study from these issues. And we’ve all clearly finished a whole lot of stuff to study and prepare for the NFL and Beyonce at halftime and so we’re completely prepared and excited for WWE.”
Added Levesque jokingly, “I’ll simply say, if it blinks a few instances and we do 60 million, I’m good with that.”
The scores have the potential to go even increased for say a WrestleMania particular with Netflix making it extra accessible globally. WWE carries an enormous fanbase exterior the U.S. in Latin America, India and Japan, to call a number of.
And that’s with out mentioning among the buzz throughout lunch whereas chatting with fellow journalists, WWE superstars, and executives. I heard that the long-discussed match-up between Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Roman Reigns is on deck however no person would affirm on the document. I hope that performs out as a result of it’s one the followers deserve as soon as and for all.
Looking in the direction of the long run, each Netflix and WWE have had ongoing conversations about potential IP enlargement and alternatives for wrestlers and people who love them, particularly their passionate celeb followers which embrace Bad Bunny, Travis Scott and Jelly Roll. Levesque shared that there shall be extra celeb involvement on Raw, an ideal state of affairs for a minimum of one of many three beforehand talked about with main wrestling ambitions.
“I simply noticed Jelly Roll the opposite day and he’s nonetheless raving about wrestling. Every time I see him he says the identical factor, ‘I received one other 100 kilos in the past, child, and I’m doing a match with you guys,” Levesque mentioned in regards to the “Son of a Sinner” singer who has already misplaced 120 lbs.
As John Cena appears towards spending 2025 on his farewell tour and his last look on WrestleMania in April following his retirement information, he’s already secured a brand new movie undertaking at present in growth at Netflix.
“We are actually wanting ahead to doing documentaries and taking a few of [WWE’s] nice historical past and characters and doing that on the unscripted and scripted aspect,” she mentioned. “Again, we’ve got so many nice stars that come from WWE that we’ve had an incredible relationship with on the TV and film aspect. We are about to do a brand new film with our very personal John Cena. It’s a extremely nice comedy referred to as Little Brother [starring Cena] and Eric Andre collectively, and we’re tremendous enthusiastic about that,” she continued.
WWE’s take care of Peacock is because of finish in 2026 and if all issues look good, there’s a possible for Netflix to be the official house of almost the whole lot excluding SmackDown and NXT (the CW). SmackDown simply moved to USA Network in October as a part of a 5-year deal following the conclusion of WWE’s Fox deal.
“Peacock is our incumbent accomplice, and we’re all the time going to respect our incumbent’s rights within the relationship we’ve got there. So we’ll have these conversations with them in 2025 and we’ll see what shakes up,” mentioned Khan.
