WWE’s move of its Network in the United States to NBC’s Peacock streaming service will guarantee a fixed income for the company no matter how many subscribers the service has, with a deal reportedly worth more than $1 billion over five years according to the Wall Street Journal.
In Q3 2020, WWE Network had 1,130,000 subscribers in the United States plus an additional 400,000 internationally. Those 1.13 million paying $9.99 a month translates to just over $11 million income per month and multiplying that for a year, assuming they all stay, amounts to nearly $135.5 million per year. $1 billion over five years equal $200 million per year, much more than the $135 million they’re currently doing right now.
The deal is a win win situation for both companies. WWE gets more money and Peacock gets a ton of new subscribers to their new service who will be paying $4.99 a month, including access to the WWE Network, or else $9.99, same as a current Network subscription, without adverts. Peacock also gets thousands of additional hours to their service, which is competing with the likes of Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, and soon Paramount+. The WWE product will also be exposed to the 22 million subscribers that Peacock already has subscribing to the service.
This is the same model that WWE has adopted in India, where it sold its streaming rights to the Sony LIV streaming provider. Those who live in other countries will see no change to the WWE Network, at least not for now.
Fans in the United States will have their accounts ported to NBC Peacock as time gets closer and will be saving $5 a month initially while getting access to the WWE Network and NBC Peacock’s full catalog.
All pay-per-views will air on the service at no additional charge, starting with Fastlane on March 21. There were plans to sell pay-per-views to a streaming provider and get them off the Network while WWE retained the rights to the Network, but this deal probably works out better for WWE.
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