11 months ago
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Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos is excited about their deal with WWE.
As announced on January 25, WWE RAW will have a new home in January 2025. The show is moving to Netflix. Multiple figures on the WWE side, including Nick Khan, have discussed the deal. Now, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has commented as well.
On Netflix’s quarterly earnings call, Sarandos discussed the deal and stated that Netflix was thrilled to bring WWE programming around the world. (H/t Jeremy Lambert of Fightful for the transcription)
“We are thrilled to bring WWE live programming to our members around the world. WWE Raw is sports entertainment, which is right in the sweet spot of our sports business, which is the drama of sport. Think of this as 52 weeks of live programming every week, every year. It feeds our desire to expand our live event programming. Most importantly, fans love it.
“For decades, WWE has grown this multi-generational fanbase that we believe we can serve and we can grow. We believe WWE has been historically under distributed outside of North America, and this is a global deal. We can help them, and they can help us build that fandom around the world. This should also add some fuel to our new and growing ad business.”
Netflix CEO: WWE’s Events Are Storytelling, This Is A Proven Formula
The RAW deal was reportedly valued at $5 billion over 10 years. On the financials call, Ted Sarandos was also asked about how spending on WWE fit into Netflix’s $17 billion budget for programming spending. Sarandos emphasized that they had talked about expanding Netflix’s live event programming, and this fit into that.
“Expanding the live event programming is something we’ve talked about for a while and this has been in the works,” Sarandos said. “This fits inside our $17 billion programming spending. In terms of building on it, you should think of Formula One, this is almost the inverse of Formula One, which is a very big and passionate US fanbase and a lot of room to grow outside of the US.
“We can build that, as we have with Formula One and other sports, through our shoulder programming like Drive to Survive, Full Swing, Break Point, and Quarterbacks. The events itself are the storytelling in WWE. This is a proven formula for us and we’re excited to jump into. This is sports entertainment, very close to our core, the deal is long-term, we’re super excited about it.”
Click here to see what TKO CEO Ari Emanuel had to say about WWE’s deal with Netflix and how it strengthened the brand.
