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.

I wish WWE would get Smackdown a digital airing possibility because I don't have cable so I never watch it. I'm not really interested in rewatching the whole show either when I can watch the 20 minutes clipped version on YouTube immediately after the show.

Saw a meme on reddit today saying if you want to watch all of WWE programming for a year in 2026 it would cost over 1k.

Not sure how true that is since it's a meme but I'm surprised SD isn't on any streaming service.

Yeah that is under the assumption that you would only subscribe to Netflix, ESPN, and Peacock solely to watch WWE. I myself will probably get rid of Peacock, but I would have Netflix and ESPN even without WWE. I suppose it just depends on how you look at it.

It's Netflix, ESPN, and a cable/streaming TV package, right?

But if you have the TV package, the ESPN stuff is included for the big events.

I have Netflix (~$19 a month, ~$233 a year) and YouTube TV ($89 a month, $1068 a year). This means I can get RAW on Netflix, SD on FOX, and the PLE stuff on the new ESPN app, through YouTube TV.

So that meme is correct in some cases. I do not know how much Hulu Live or a traditional cable sub cost. And I would guess RAW is also available if you have the cheapest Netflix plan. So it could be cheaper across the board.

That was a bullshit meme apparently started by a dude who steals PPVs anyway.

Ffs, you’re getting WrestleMania on ESPN. Even if you have to pay $30 for the app, including Disney+ and ESPN+, most people probably already having Disney+ anyway — you’re still coming out $20 ahead of AEW fans who still have to pay $50 a pop for PPV.

Somewhere in there I’m sure some of that shit gets bundled into your phone plan and the like. If you don’t want to pay it just watch the WWE Vault.

I guess I'll just watch the WWE Vault then.

There’s also a WCW channel. AAA’s shows have been going up on YouTube. I don’t know if Main Event is just international, but that has some good wrestling and can catch you up on Raw.

Do you really not have Netflix or cable?

No but even if I did I wouldn't watch wrestling on them for the most part.

That’s fair enough. But I guess that would mean you’re not really much of an active fan, right?

ppl here either like WWE or are not so much into it. No one here likes AEW.

WWE is kicking the ESPN deal in early. The Clash in Paris show is going to be the last mainline WWE PLE on Peacock. Wrestlepalooza will be the first PLE on ESPN. It’ll be September 20th against AEW All Out.

Saturday Night’s Main Event is going to be on Peacock exclusively going forward. There are rumors that WWE will be dropping a memento show for Peacock — possibly another “main roster show,” whatever that entails.

Should we be happy we get to pay $20 more sooner?

who's forcing you to waste $20 when you could buy something else like a new blow up doll to make you happier

Good point!

Lol people still whining about this. How were y’all watching wrestling before?

I already told you I was using peacock

Stephanie McMahon doing an ad read for a VPN on a podcast is the kind of unintentional comedy I enjoy

Were you expecting me to say I pirate it? Is that why you haven't responded?

Wrestlepalooza made Tony Khan change the time of All Out — fucking over many of the fans who bought tickets. Dave got into an argument with Bryan defending the move because he imagines PPV buys are going to hold strong despite every visible metric cratering.

Tony Khan fears AJ Lee like he fears a falling computer monitor, feared for his life!

AEW should just do PPVs at midnight on a Tuesday and say they’re clever doing it unopposed.

I love how Meltzer is like “WWE only hurts themselves by doing this” and then WWE does it again and AEW is in the same time slot as Good Morning America.

There’s no way Meltzer isn’t lying about the PPV numbers either.

Every other metric has crashed. It doesn’t make sense for PPV to remain stable and even grow. Their 10% conversion of TV viewers to PPV buyers seemed fantastic at the time. As in fantasy. 5% is what I remember the big promotions doing when they’re hot. If we just go with that number, that would mean a show doing roughly 600k viewers could expect about 30k PPV buys. They’re just not reporting that because LolTNA and they don’t want to be compared.

Dave has also seemingly shut up about HBO Max numbers completely now that they know they’re going to come out. Funny that.

Dave's new tactic is to lie about Raw's Netflix numbers, as opposed to lying about AEW's Max numbers.

According to Dave, there are "high level mathematicians", his words, on his wrestling forum, the one with the people smart enough to pay $14.99 a month to listen to Dave, that have figured out a formula that proves that only about 185,000 people watch Raw live.

This of course means Netflix is lying to all their stockholders about the number of people who watch Raw (just Raw, no lying about other shows apparently). The entire basis of this formula is that based on the amount of minutes watched, if you remove advertisement times from the total, that you can prove how few people actually watch live.

To Dave and the intelligent people who still have not figured out Dave has been scamming them out of money, it is impossible for the Raw numbers to be correct. WWE you see, simple cannot be successful on Netflix.

Dave and his minions of course ignore every possible variable. People either watch every single minute of Raw live, or watch every single minute Raw later. Nobody starts 15 minutes late, and thus misses the first few ad breaks, catches up to the live feed, and sees the remaining ads, thus has a different amount of viewing minutes than both somebody that watches every minute live with all the ads, or somebody that watches on a Wednesday afternoon with no ads.

There is also no acknowledgment whatsoever about the people who fast forward parts of the show, other than Dave stating "most people" do not know how to fast forward on Netflix. You see, in Dave's mind, everybody who doesn't subscribe for the right to listen to his stuttering umms and ahhs, well those people must be to mentally deficient to understand fast forwarding... :rofl::lol::rofl::lol::rofl:

:lol:

You’ve done a great job recapping it all.

Netflix and WWE are lying. It can’t be as simple as, say, 2.74 million x2 = 5.48 million. Those numbers rounded appearing as 2.7 million and 5.5 million respectively. That would be insane.

This guy also believes 350k are watching on HBO Max without question.

All you need to qualify as a mathematician in Dave’s book is to say nice things about AEW.

You know someone is an idiot when even Vince Russo can this easily destroy them.

The "Max" in HBO Max = the amount of viewers possible.

350k watching AEW on max seems reasonable. Wasnt that what RoH was pulling when they were with Sinclair? AEW is objectively more relevant than they were and there's a baseline of wrestling fans that will watch EVERYTHING no matter the quality as long as its accessible.

If NWA Powerrrr was on ESPN at 4am every 3rd Tuesday except for Tuesdays that are a multiple of 3 and then it would air Saturday 11am it would draw 350k. That shouldnt be a compliment.

Desty, love ya brah, but you are really bad with this TV stuff lol.

It’s like 1/10 of what Dave is suggesting.

Warner Brothers Discovery announced their highest viewed NBA game had 48,000 viewers on HBO Max. More people actually watched that game on TruTV, not just TNT, but legit TruTV than they did on Max. Yet if we are to believe the AEW Stans, Dynamite gets 7 to 10 times more viewers than the NBA, because THAT makes total sense! :roll:

Collision gets <200k on prime time TNT. Not sure what ROH was getting years ago, but they didn’t even get 200k on YouTube for the major show they put up.

Here’s how we KNOW AEW doesn’t get 350k on HBO Max:

* Warner Bros Discovery streaming services have about 1/7 of the usage rate of Netflix. WBD announces the numbers for all its top shows. If shows underneath were doing numbers like 350k then it would be on par with Netflix.

* Zaslav has pointed out what the big drivers for HBO Max are — movies, classic shows, new drama like The Pitt and White Lotus. Sports is expressedly not.

* 25% of content consumed on HBO Max is also found on linear television. Given the numbers of The White Lotus, we know that is mostly that.

* Rampage wouldn’t have been cancelled if AEW content was valuable to streaming. They would have a PLE deal. There is no streaming-exclusive content for AEW.

* Other business metrics have seen a notable decline. This doesn’t compute with an increase in viewership. You can tell by looking at the product that the Max numbers are insignificant.

* HBO Max numbers are about to get included by Nielsen. TK immediately stepped back from reports suggesting high numbers and even Dave has shut up about them. A 5-10% increase has been estimated for most simulcast sports, but not guaranteed.

For funsies I made an estimate the other week. I was pretty close with my Netflix numbers. When you figure in what AEW does on basic cable, move that to a Netflix-size streaming platform, downsize that for Max, factor in that it’s still on linear television and the HBO deal is US domestic, not global…I got about 35k views. Multiply that by 1.3 and you get 45k viewers.

35k puts them in that 5-10% increase range. It also keeps them below NXT most weeks, which is why you don’t get gloating from that side. It also matches what we see — no significant effects on attendance, merchandise, popularity and the lack of any sort of exclusive streaming content.

If that’s the case then my 35k estimate might be too high, which wouldn’t shock me.

Keep in mind that sometimes the numbers for active Fight Forever players on Steam is as low as 4.

Why do you bring up AEW and their rating in every single thread?

I can't speak for anybody else, but AEW ratings are funny to talk about. If the likes of Meltzer and the other "journalists" weren't so over the top batshit, maybe there would not be such a comical abundance. Until then, when there are narratives like Dynamite gets more viewers than Raw being put out, it is too absurd not to laugh at.

They’ve made the rod for their own backs. This is what happens when you set your watch to what the internet thinks about you.

There are times when I worry that we’re going to lose the lolcow. What else will we laugh at if AEW disappears? But I remind myself that it is going to be okay. We were fine before AEW and we’ll be fine after. It’s best for wrestling that it goes.

i'm kind of excited to see how wrestlepalooza (gay-ass name) turns out. first show on ESPN you know they're gonna want to make it look cool. such a dumb name though.

Rasslepalooza was the name of the "Wrestlemania" type event in the e-fed I used to play "back in the day".

So yeah, it is kinda bush league name.

next PLE should be former TPWWer e-fed characters all competing in the ring

I had this one e-fed character(s) who were conjoined twins. One was a foul mouthed heel and the other was a goody two-shoes face. Nevertheless they wanted to be a tag team.

A classic odd couple pairing. Never fails to work!

That wasn't my main guy though.... main guy was just a delusional super egotistical annoying heel. Feel like Bo Dallas heel NXT was based on him. Thinks he is a face, a hero, a role model... but is in fact hated, booed, super annoying, and a coward.

Although my character did save the world a bunch of times, as well as all of creation once.

Pumped for Palooza! I like the job they’ve done on Brock/Cena. Got no problem with the name. Love when they use retro IP. I’m for them bringing back SuperBrawl and Starrcade. Could have used Souled Out for the Rock/Cody stuff too.

Imagine falling out of wrestling and then coming back in and just casually hearing that Wrestlepalooza is now a major event in September for WWE. Wild lol.

Bo Dallas is really beginning to resemble Bray. He got mentioned here so I’m just throwing it in. Used to think the guy had a ton of potential. Very happy he has a job, but you obviously don’t see his work much with him being in the role he is.

Heard it wasn't good except for the matches featuring women.

I started watching it last night after SNF (was getting married Saturday couldn’t see live). USO’s put me to sleep

Did Mrs. Dogg like it?

I had to laugh at the opening because I don't think Triple H is ever going to get tired of huffing his own farts

To be fair, I guess "Humble" is not one of the three H's

Unless HHH stands for "Humble? Ha, Hearsay!"

She is not really into the rasslin’ but tolerates it a bit when I talk about it and watch with her. Her first introduction to Vaquer was when my group chat was getting excited about the “busty Latina” being called up to the main roster. Everybody loves La Primera

Wrestlepalooza was fine. Brock/Cena and Steph/Iyo were great. AJ Lee was always a bit shit. Surprised she wasn’t better tbh. Main event was fine. Usos/Brons was ok. Didn’t pop as a show, but hardly bad.

Of course you think it was great.

It was pretty bad lol but Raw after kind of made up for it

Raw was ok too. Not great. Things get milked way too much. Everything could be way more focused. And some of the stories are just goofy. But the wrestling itself was pretty good. Rusev is a gem.

One thing modern WWE lacks is replay value. I’ve got no desire to rewatch something they do again. It’s just lacking that extra kick.

WWE so bad

And yet it’s creating a wider margin between it and its nearest competitor. If you want to argue it’s bad, then you’d surely have to keep the same energy with the things doing worse. It’s an indictment of wrestling if the WWE was that bad and is actually growing in popularity compared to other options.

A bit of a self-own there.

Honestly, I think there’s just this weird cult around thinking you can do things better than WWE. Most wrestling fans seem to be going absolutely bonkers for the product.

So bad.