WWE ‘Monday Night Raw' To Stay On USA Network Through Year-End Before Netflix Shift; Rights Extension With NBCU Valued At $25M
WWE ‘Monday Night Raw’ To Stay On USA Network Through Year-End Before Netflix Shift; Rights Extension With NBCU Valued At $25M
WWE’s Monday Night Raw franchise will stay on USA Network through the end of 2024 under an extended rights agreement between the wrestling circuit with NBCUniversal.
TKO Group Holdings, which owns WWE, announced the mini-extension Wednesday along with its first-quarter results. NBCU paid $25 million for the additional months of rights, according to TKO.
The milestone Netflix deal, announced earlier this year, is slated to start in January 2025. but the prior Raw agreement went only through September 2024. There had been questions lingering among Wall Streeters, viewers and fans about who might carry those intervening months for the 52-week-a-year entertainment draw.
Starting in January 2025, Netflix will be the exclusive home of Raw in the U.S., Canada, UK and Latin America. The streaming giant paid more than $5 billion for a 10-year deal in a major statement about the company’s appetite for live sports (or at least sports-adjacent) programming. Additional territories from Netflix’s footprint of more than 190 are to be added over time. USA launched Raw in January 1993.
Along with the main Raw program, Netflix will become the home for all WWE shows and specials outside the U.S., including other weekly franchises SmackDown and NXT. It will also stream the company’s roster of live events, including WrestleMania, SummerSlam and the Royal Rumble, and also make WWE documentaries, original series and forthcoming projects available on demand outside the U.S. (Peacock, via the WWE hub it originated in 2021, has domestic rights.)
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