A huge move for World Wrestling Entertainment as they have partnered with NBC Universal and will move their massive WWE Network with over 1.5 million subscribers to Peacock on March 18. Peacock is NBC’s new streaming service competing with Netflix, Hulu, and others.
Peacock has an amazing 33 million sign ups according to Comcast’s fourth-quarter financial report.
WWE President and Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan said that the discussions for WWE Network’s future had been ongoing and happening during the pandemic.
“The big question internally was how much can you invest and keep pace with the technology? It would be a massive investment,” he said.
The WWE Network averages over 1.5 millions subscribers who pay $9.95 per month, which is a massive financial get for Peacock, and the WWE will be a great partner for them.
“We can drop the price in half (WWE Network was $9.99 per month, while Peacock will be $4.99 per month) and add their technical support. Ultimately it became a no brainer, especially with their reach,” Khan said.
The move to Peacock will provide a nice financial boost for WWE after they went from 310 live events in 2019 to 42 in 2020 because of the pandemic. WWE will also see an average of $200 million a year in revenue from Peacock during the first give years of the agreement.
WWE will shut down the existing standalone WWE Network app on April 4, meaning WrestleMania will be exclusively on Peacock.
Comcast said in a release on Monday that the entire WWE Network archive should be on Peacock by mid-August.
Obviously getting fans back into arenas and doing live shows for the WWE is the ultimate goal.
With live road shows not expected to return until at least July, WWE still has not finalized a location for ThunderDome beginning in April. They are currently using Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, but have to leave when the Tampa Bay Rays have their home opener on April 9.
“Bringing back fans was needed, and we’ve been able to try things out that we have thought about but not had the chance,” WWE chief brand officer Stephanie McMahon said. “I’ve been blown away by all capabilities we have had with it and bringing it to life. We can apply everything that we learned to the future when we do have a merging of the physical and virtual fans.”
This year’s WrestleMania was originally scheduled for SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, but it will take place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. Last year’s event was also scheduled for Tampa, but ended up moving to the WWE Performance Center due to the coronavirus.
You can read more from our friends at the Associated Press.
