Executives from WWE and Netflix teamed up to reveal their plans for the upcoming debut of Raw with the media on Tuesday as the series prepares to pivot from linear to streaming on January 6 live from Los Angeles.
The excitement at the Netflix headquarters in Los Angeles was palpable from both sides of the room. On stage, the panel participants included the moderator Michael Cole, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria and VP of Nonfiction Series and Sports, Brandon Riegg, and on behalf of WWE, President Nick Khan and Chief Content Officer, Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque.
In January, the entertainment giants revealed they signed a multiyear deal to air Monday Night Raw (in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Latin America) as part of Netflix’s expansion into premium live events (formerly known as pay-per-view). Netflix also nabbed the rights to stream WWE specials—like WrestleMania, Summer Slam, and Royal Rumble—and weekly shows Raw, SmackDown and NXT—outside of the United States. All for the bargain price of $5 billion and a 10-year commitment.
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“There was no doubt in my mind,” Levesque said about changing to the streaming model by going into business with Netflix. “As soon as that conversation happened and the first time [streaming] was brought up, in my mind, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s a game changer for us.’ Not only because of the environment, like the reach and how much that can expand our base, but just look at the shows they do. [Look] at the things that they do and the freedom that they have within that. It’s a game changer for us.”
And while many things will change, others will stay the same, confirms Khan.
“We’re not changing the rating of our programming. So there’s some online chatter about, oh, it’s going to be R-rated, or for us old folks, X-rated. That’s definitely not happening,” he said. “It’s family-friendly, multi-generational, advertiser-friendly programming. It’s going to stay that way. I would look for more global flair, especially as the relationship continues to develop. Countries outside of the United States are as important to us as the United States is. So we have certain targeted countries that are priorities for Netflix. They’re priorities for us. You’re going to see more of that. I think that’s the way you’ll see a bit of a difference.”
Before Raw‘s upcoming early January premiere, Netflix launched two live events nearly a year apart. The Chris Rock comedy special Selective Outrage! streamed last spring and most recently, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson “fight” last month. The latter was marred by complaints of technical issues like excessive buffering and the loss of the signal completely.
Bajaria discussed the issue and what they’re doing to improve.
“Whenever we do live events, we want it to go smoothly for every single one of our members. That’s really important—also, to put it in perspective, it was 65 million concurrent streams, right? It was a very successful night. A lot of people [watched], the scale was very big, which is great. There’s a lot of interest in it,” she said.
She added, “We expected a big number, for sure. It was a big number. But again, you don’t know, and you can’t learn these things until you do them so you take a big swing. Our teams and our engineers are amazing, moved super quickly, and stabilized it, and many of the members had it back up and running pretty quickly. But we learn from those things. And we’ve all obviously done a lot of stuff to learn and get ready for the NFL and Beyonce at halftime and so we’re totally ready and excited for WWE.”
Added Levesque jokingly, “I’ll just say, if it blinks a couple of times and we do 60 million, I’m good with that.”
The ratings have the potential to go even higher for say a WrestleMania special with Netflix making it more accessible globally. WWE carries a massive fanbase outside the U.S. in Latin America, India and Japan, to name a few.
And that’s without mentioning some of the buzz during lunch while chatting with fellow journalists, WWE superstars, and executives. I heard that the long-discussed match-up between Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Roman Reigns is on deck but nobody would confirm on the record. I hope that plays out because it’s one I’d like to see go down once and for all.
Looking towards the future, both Netflix and WWE have had ongoing conversations about potential IP expansion and opportunities for wrestlers and those who love them, specifically their passionate celebrity fans which include Bad Bunny, Travis Scott and Jelly Roll. Levesque shared that there will be more celebrity involvement on Raw, a perfect situation for at least one of the three previously mentioned with major wrestling ambitions.
“I just saw Jelly Roll the other day and he’s still raving about wrestling. Every time I see him he says the same thing, ‘I got another 100 pounds ago, baby, and I’m doing a match with you guys,” Levesque said about the “Son of a Sinner” singer who has already lost 120 lbs.
As John Cena looks toward spending 2025 on his farewell tour and his final appearance on WrestleMania in April following his retirement news, he’s already secured a new film project currently in development at Netflix.
“We are really looking forward to doing documentaries and taking some of [WWE’s] great history and characters and doing that on the unscripted and scripted side,” she said. “Again, we have so many great stars that come from WWE that we’ve had a great relationship with on the TV and movie side. We are about to do a new movie with our very own John Cena. It’s a really great comedy called Little Brother [starring Cena] and Eric Andre together, and we’re super excited about that,” she continued.
WWE’s deal with Peacock is due to end in 2026 and if all things look good, there’s a potential for Netflix to be the official home of everything but SmackDown and NXT (the CW). SmackDown just moved to USA Network in October as part of a 5-year deal following the conclusion of WWE’s Fox deal.
“Peacock is our incumbent partner, and we’re always going to respect our incumbent’s rights in the relationship we have there. So we’ll have those conversations with them in 2025 and we’ll see what shakes up,” said Khan.
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