WWE RAW MOVING TO NETFLIX! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!!

[SturmCRF]

So close to being able to cancel TNT Sports, between this and UFC being so riddled with bastards that I no longer want to watch it. It's not really worth it for a quarter of each weekend's football matches, but fuck, I still need the ability to watch Bournemouth vs Sheffield United at 12:30 on a Saturday. 

[Villanova Grad]

It’ll be interesting to see which show is the A show five years from now.  I’m skeptical a lot of the audience will follow Raw to streaming if they don’t already subscribe to Netflix.  I’m probably not a good example but I watch a watch a bit of Raw here and there.  Now that I’ll no longer be able to channel surf by and linger, I’ll probably end up watching zero minutes of Raw in 2025.  I already subscribe to Netflix.

 

[SirSmUgly]

1 hour ago, For Great Justice said:

This feels bad for USA? If it isn’t the home of Raw, what is it exactly?

If TNT/TBS were to lose AEW, not a big deal, as Inside the NBA and other roundball things is their identity. 

Without WWE, I’m not sure what USA’s identity is other than being a completely fungible cable TV show and movie channel that you might tune into as background noise when Burn Notice reruns are on.

I get NBCU likely doesn’t give two shits about USA, but still.

Premier League, B10, maybe this is an indication that NBC is making a serious play for partial NBA rights, the latter of which could be why they let WWE go (to redirect the money for RAW elsewhere).

[Curt McGirt]

We subscribe and I never use it. Unless there's hype for something I won't be watching at all probably. Sorry but you lost a fair-weather fan already, Titan. Only a year ahead of time! Whatta maneuver. 

USA is gonna be another dead channel like Comedy Central. It will be comprised entirely of marathons of old shows, movies, and all new material will go on paid services like Hulu. 

[SirSmUgly]

It could go down that way, but NBC Comcast reportedly killed NBCSN so they could take USA back to its original focus as a sports channel.  

I think you'll see more PL games on USA (which is too bad as I really want to ditch Sling and just watch PL games on Peacock). You'll see more B10 basketball and football on that channel. You might see more NFL content since NBC has a piece of the NFL rights. I bet daytime USA carries tennis and truncated footage of the big cycling competitions in Europe (with a push to go to Peacock to see the full footage of the event).

And again, if they do get in on the NBA rights, they'll have that programming as well.

I hope they decide they need more daytime programming and go get the PBA from FOX with the caveat that tournament finals will be broadcast on Mondays and that Rob Stone isn't allowed anywhere near the broadcast. I digress.

This could all fail, sure, but that's what NBC Comcast has been openly strategizing w/r/t USA Network for a couple of years now. 

[Greggulator]

I am not a media industry expert (despite working in the media) by any means. But my early thoughts:

1) $5 billion over 10 years for Raw and overseas things is insanity. I think that shows Netflix had to pay a giant premium (up their bidding price) to get Endeavor and the like to hand over the show to a streaming platform and not keep it on a basic cable network. I know there is cord cutting and etc., but a lot of people have Hulu or whatever to essentially watch cable. That is essentially though $500 million for 52 episodes of Monday Night Raw and international broadcast. I have no idea and don’t have time to look up how well international broadcasts do for the WWE. But if you factor it in just for Raw — Netflix is paying $9.6 million to air every single episode of Raw. 

2) I saw Netflix has an out after 5 years. They also can extend for another 10. I have no idea if that extension would be at the same price or if there would be a negotiation. But Netflix is hedging it’s risk on both ends — it can cut bait if this doesn’t work, and it can avoid a bidding war if it doesn’t. 

2A) Why would the WWE not want to have another bidding war for Raw in a few years? Because Netflix is paying them $9.6 million to broadcast a single episode of Raw. Take the money and run.

3) Can wrestlers please become full-time workers? The people getting paid from this are going to be company executives with stock options and big Wall Street investors. (Technically any investor but you get what I am saying.) Do the WWE guys still pay for their own travel? And health insurance? They should be in SAG or something already. They literally risk their lives every week and man none of them are getting anything close to their fair share.

[Curt McGirt]

Shit, looking at the guide, they already ARE a dead network. Nothing but Law and Order, NCIS, 9-1-1, Chicago Fire and movies.

[Kevin Wilson]

This is not the main thing to take away from this but something I thought about - after 30 years of talking about RAW Ratings (UP? DOWN? VS NITRO? VS TNA? VS AEW?) that will finally end. Netflix not only doesn't like releasing numbers but the numbers wouldn't be 1:1 anyway. Their viewing reports (if they keep releasing them) will be interesting but aren't measured the same way. What will people do with their extra free time.

[Matt D]

5 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

This is not the main thing to take away from this but something I thought about - after 30 years of talking about RAW Ratings (UP? DOWN? VS NITRO? VS TNA? VS AEW?) that will finally end. Netflix not only doesn't like releasing numbers but the numbers wouldn't be 1:1 anyway. Their viewing reports (if they keep releasing them) will be interesting but aren't measured the same way. What will people do with their extra free time.

Talk about Smackdown on USA after it moves in October? I tend to think people are more interested with NXT (going to CW) and Smackdown anyway since they're more comparable to AEW (NXT vs Dynamite and Smackdown being on the same night as Rampage so both ratings drop at the same time even if it's apples and oranges).

[FourPostMassacre]

1 hour ago, For Great Justice said:

This feels bad for USA? If it isn’t the home of Raw, what is it exactly?

If TNT/TBS were to lose AEW, not a big deal, as Inside the NBA and other roundball things is their identity. 

Without WWE, I’m not sure what USA’s identity is other than being a completely fungible cable TV show and movie channel that you might tune into as background noise when Burn Notice reruns are on.

I get NBCU likely doesn’t give two shits about USA, but still.

The home of the Westminster dog show(and Smackdown I guess). 

[Kevin Wilson]

11 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Talk about Smackdown on USA after it moves in October? I tend to think people are more interested with NXT (going to CW) and Smackdown anyway since they're more comparable to AEW (NXT vs Dynamite and Smackdown being on the same night as Rampage so both ratings drop at the same time even if it's apples and oranges).

Sure, but they do that now too, its just one less thing to analyze every week. Or if AEW ratings will be impacted by people that don't have/can't get Netflix giving them a chance when they didn't before. Still some things to analyze, its just the end of a 'talking point' era.

[Kevin Wilson]

I have no doubt they will figure it out (if they haven't already) but at the moment, RAW ends on USA in October and starts on Netflix in January. Logic says that USA will just pay X amount to extend it two months, its not like they are on bad terms now, but if it wasn't that any other option would be pretty interesting.

[Infinit]

This is such huge news. 

I wonder if they will keep the product PG or will push boundaries since they are on a streaming platform now.

Will they bring all of the Network stuff over to Netflix as well? 

Very interested to see how this plays out. 

[Curt McGirt]

38 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

Netflix is paying $9.6 million to air every single episode of Raw. 

This is hilarious. I won't pay $1 to watch an episode of Raw. 

[Andrew POE!]

Part of me hope this will lead to WWE going to back to TV 14 / more mature storyline era and leave behind TV PG but I should know better.

And we all know Roman Reigns will still be WWE Unified Universal Champion in 2025. So maybe he'll move to Raw and Seth Rollins (or whoever the World Champion is) moves to Smackdown.

[Infinit]

Will also be interesting to see if this has raised what AEW may potentially get in their next contact. 

[Craig H]

A year to figure out live broadcasting on Netflix is like a storyline from Silicon Valley.

And if the entire history of Netflix has taught me anything, it’s that they are for sure opting out at that 5 year mark.

[Shartnado]

Yeah, this interests me as far as the fate of WWE Network is concerned. I guess I need to wait and see about any additional info on the current library. If, for example, the back catalogue of PPV's and old tv episodes doesn't move over to Netflix and WWE Network just stops being a thing in 2025, I may have to binge on whatever I have time for during 2024. But I'll wait for a bit if we can find out more.

@Craig H Yup, WWE is cancelled after the end of season 3 (without a proper conclusion), or after 6 seasons if they'll get super lucky.

Edited January 23 by Shartnado
Netflix being netflix

[SirSmUgly]

The Peacock agreement runs to 2026. Do we know if that stuff is moving to Netflix as part of this deal or are the U.S. rights to the WWE back catalog going to be negotiable with any and all buyers?

[Elsalvajeloco]

4 hours ago, Infinit said:

Will also be interesting to see if this has raised what AEW may potentially get in their next contact. 

I was going to just quote @For Great Justice's earlier post but I guess I will just go with this one: I don't think it hurts. As I said weeks ago, I don't think Raw to WBD made sense for either side especially for the amount of money WWE was looking for. If you cannot have both Raw and Smackdown, then you might as well keep AEW for a more manageable rights deal you're not going to regret immediately 2-3 years in and can walk away from. And the reason I was going to quote the other post was I don't think the TNT/TBS identity is Inside the NBA or basketball in that you don't build around something seasonal. The NFL provides pretty good ratings for CBS, NBC, and Fox but they don't lean exclusively on that as much as they make that a priority for half the year and then make original programming paramount the other half of the year. I am not saying you can lean on AEW programming, but it provides a decent substitute while they do figure what direction they want to go in. I am of the opinion AEW should move if they can partly cause of that, but I do realize right now what mutually works for all parties involved.

5 hours ago, Greggulator said:

I am not a media industry expert (despite working in the media) by any means. But my early thoughts:

1) $5 billion over 10 years for Raw and overseas things is insanity. I think that shows Netflix had to pay a giant premium (up their bidding price) to get Endeavor and the like to hand over the show to a streaming platform and not keep it on a basic cable network. I know there is cord cutting and etc., but a lot of people have Hulu or whatever to essentially watch cable. That is essentially though $500 million for 52 episodes of Monday Night Raw and international broadcast. I have no idea and don’t have time to look up how well international broadcasts do for the WWE. But if you factor it in just for Raw — Netflix is paying $9.6 million to air every single episode of Raw. 

2) I saw Netflix has an out after 5 years. They also can extend for another 10. I have no idea if that extension would be at the same price or if there would be a negotiation. But Netflix is hedging it’s risk on both ends — it can cut bait if this doesn’t work, and it can avoid a bidding war if it doesn’t. 

2A) Why would the WWE not want to have another bidding war for Raw in a few years? Because Netflix is paying them $9.6 million to broadcast a single episode of Raw. Take the money and run.

3) Can wrestlers please become full-time workers? The people getting paid from this are going to be company executives with stock options and big Wall Street investors. (Technically any investor but you get what I am saying.) Do the WWE guys still pay for their own travel? And health insurance? They should be in SAG or something already. They literally risk their lives every week and man none of them are getting anything close to their fair share.

I don't think it's a coincidence Dana said recently UFC is working on their rights deal the next 4-5 months. Those in the know already forecasted it to be insane. Therefore, you can swap out wrestlers with fighters in your third point and not lose the point at all.

[Johnny Sorrow]

2 hours ago, Villanova Grad said:

It’ll be interesting to see which show is the A show five years from now.  I’m skeptical a lot of the audience will follow Raw to streaming if they don’t already subscribe to Netflix.  I’m probably not a good example but I watch a watch a bit of Raw here and there.  Now that I’ll no longer be able to channel surf by and linger, I’ll probably end up watching zero minutes of Raw in 2025.  I already subscribe to Netflix.

 

The A show has been Smackdown ever since they moved to FOX. We'll see how things go from here.

[RIPPA]

36 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

The Peacock agreement runs to 2026. Do we know if that stuff is moving to Netflix as part of this deal or are the U.S. rights to the WWE back catalog going to be negotiable with any and all buyers?

It appears to be the later

[Technico Support]

Crazy Netflix signed a 10 year deal, since they're so quick to cancel shows instead of..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...finishing the story

[Cobra Commander]

47 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

The Peacock agreement runs to 2026. Do we know if that stuff is moving to Netflix as part of this deal or are the U.S. rights to the WWE back catalog going to be negotiable with any and all buyers?

Feels like Raw not being on Peacock for 30 days is relevant information in regards to the situation in the short term

[Zakk_Sabbath]

29 minutes ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

The A show has been Smackdown ever since they moved to FOX. We'll see how things go from here.

I could see a world where NXT becomes the A-show by default, simply by virtue of being in nearly 100% of American homes with CW being an OTA broadcast station.

The question then becomes, does NXT suffer from "programming drift" where top stars are featured more (to serve the 'ratings' master) rather than the usual developmental format?

We've seen it already on USA on a few occasions, including that last head to head with Dynamite when it was moved for a week because of hoops. 

I would say it probably hinges a lot on whatever CW's expectations/performance benchmarks are - one would assume the 'goals' differ as versus something main-roster-oriented from jump, like SD on Fox or the '05-'07 SNME reboots for example.