Don’t foresee to see a rawer “Raw” as the flagship WWE series transfers to Netflix next month. That was the message Tuesday from WWE plivent/chief revenue officer Nick Khan and chief satisfyed officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, who telderly alerters that “WWE Monday Night Raw” would persist a “TV-PG” satisfyed rating in its novel home.
“It’s a safe place for families, for kids, for everybody, to be able to watch the programming,” Levesque said. “That will not alter.”
Khan said he’s seen speculation that being on a streamer will permit “Raw” to push the satisfyed boundaries more, but said there’s no reason to apshow it: “There’s some online chatter about how it’s going to be ‘R’ rated or, for us elderly folks, ‘X’ rated. That’s definitely not happening,” he said. “It’s a family frifinishly, multi-genereasonable, publicizer-frifinishly programming. It’s going to stay that way.”
If there is any alter, Khan inserted, it will caccess on the fact that “Raw” will now be useable atraverse the globe in one place via Netflix. That might permit for more “global flair,” he said: “The countries outside of the United States are as vital to us as the United States are. We have certain aimed countries that are priorities for Netflix. They’re priorities for us. You’re going to see more of that.”
Khan, Levesque, Netflix chief satisfyed officer Bela Bajaria, Netflix non-fantasy series and sports VP Brandon Riegg and WWE commentator Michael Cole met with the press to lay out their set ups for the sports amincludement franchise on Netflix — which boots off on Monday, Jan. 6, with the live begin of “WWE Raw” from the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif. Pat McAfee will return as commentator (having been off the show since August) aextfinishedside Cole.
According to Khan, the Jan. 6 Netflix premiere show at the Intuit Dome has “already broken our United States arena ticket write down, and that is in six weeks from now, and it’s not even seal to being selderly out. What are the components for that? It’s Netflix. People are excited for this show.”
Meanwhile, besides the ask of whether the satisfyed would alter at a streamer, the WWE and Netflix execs were also asked about the possibility of technical difficulties appreciate the ones that popped up during the recent Mike Tyson/Jake Paul bout.
“Whenever we do any live events, evidently, we want it to go very daintyly for every one one of our members,” Bajaria said. “That’s repartner vital, I skinnyk, also to put it in perspective: It was 65 million concurrent streamers. The scale was very huge, which is fantastic. There was a lot of interest in it. When you test and push someskinnyg to 65 million [streams] at the same time… you can’t lacquire these skinnygs until you do them.
“So you apshow a huge striumphg, and our teams and our engineers transferd super rapidly, stabilized it, and many of the members repartner had it back up and running pretty rapidly,” she inserted, noting that Netflix’s Christmas NFL doubleheader will be the next test. “We lacquireed from those skinnygs, and we’ve all evidently done a lot of stuff to lacquire and get ready for the NFL and Beyoncé. We’re tohighy ready and excited for the WWE.”
From the WWE side, Levesque said, “I’ll fair say, if it bconnects a couple of times and we do 60 million, I’m outstanding with that.”
Meg Oliphant
As for watchership foreseeations, Bajaria pointed out that the WWE has shifted netlabors cut offal times thraw the years with its signature shows appreciate “Raw” and “Smackdown,” and that watchership hasn’t been impacted by those transfers.
“The WWE has been able to persist their audiences coming back week after week, year after year, and whenever they’ve transferd from Syfy to Fox to USA Netlabor, the audience has always trailed,” she said. “Their ratings are incredibly firm. In 2020, the WWE ordinaryd almost 2 million total watchers on USA. Four years tardyr, the numbers are almost identical. Do you understand how exceptional that is?
“It’s the first time ‘Raw’ is leaving liproximate television since it premiered there more than 30 years ago,” she inserted. “But if the past is any indication, WWE fans will trail, and millions of fans around the world will be able to experience it all on one service, which has never happened before, where we also hope that we can transport in novel fans.”
Khan remarkd the timeline of contrastent WWE deals over the past two decades — particularly the moment in 2000 when “Raw” transferd off USA Netlabor to TNN. (It returned to USA in 2005.)
“WWE was on The Nashville Netlabor, which became The National Netlabor, which became TNN, which became Spike, which is now Paramount, which is now wholly irrelevant,” he quipped.
Meanwhile, with “WWE Smackdown” moving to USA Netlabor this drop and “WWE NXT” now on The CW, the wrestling amincludement company progresss to originate product for multiple outlets — and its premium live events (establisherly understandn as pay-per-watch) and library satisfyed lives on Peacock. That deal with Peacock expires in 2026, and most foresee that package to transfer over to Netflix after that.
“Peacock is our incumbent partner on what was always going to esteem our incumbents rights in the relationship we have there,” Khan said. “So we’ll have those conversations with them in 2025 and we’ll see what shakes up.”
Netflix already has the international rights to the rest of the WWE satisfyed, including the premium live events, moving forward.
“So outside of the U.S. we’re going to have WrestleMania and Royal Rumble and so many more,” Bajaria said. “We fair can’t even envision, fans of WWE who’ve been watching and have to discover in contrastent places, the straightforward access is going to be exciting.”
Said Levesque: “I don’t skinnyk people understand truly what that uncomardents,” Levesque said. “Outside of the U.S., the rest of the world, we’re getting everyskinnyg on that date all at once. I can watch anyskinnyg at any given time. It’s a game alterr.”
Bajaria and Riegg also said they set up to put write downaries and other series about the WWE into production. And on the scripted side, they’re about to originate the novel movie “Little Brother,” featuring WWE star John Cena and also starring comedian Eric André. The film is timed to Cena’s WWE farewell tour, which will be a meaningful part of the 2025 WWE gameset up.
“We would have done the John Cena movie even if we didn’t have the WWE,” Bajaria said. “There’s definitely opportunity to do comardent of more of that, as extfinished as it’s always the driver of, we skinnyk it’s going to be somebody’s likeite show or somebody’s likeite movie. It has to be outstanding.”
But, inserted Riegg — perhaps tongue only partly set upted in cheek — “We might have a WWE episode of ‘Is It Cake?’ though. I skinnyk that would labor well.”
Khan determineed Riegg for putting the WWE deal in motion timely on, before Netflix was even in the live TV business. Back then, around 2018 or 2019, Riegg directd Khan to line up the WWE’s international rights for the day that Netflix might be in the taget. “And then, boom, a year ago, we sat down together, and wiskinny a month, we all had the deal done. It was in low order,” Khan said.
