Netflix and WWE Preview Monday Night Raw Streaming Move

“If it flashes a few times and we get to 60 million (viewers), I’m okay with that.”

That’s the opinion of Paul “Triple H” Levesque, WWE’s chief content officer (and retired wrestling icon), as he touts his sports entertainment giant’s new relationship with Netflix. He’s referring, of course, to the recent blockbuster performance of the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul spectacle – an event that attracted 65 million concurrent streams (and 108 million live viewers, according to Netflix), while there were fewer for some users due to reports of glitches attracted desired attention. But buffering be damned. Levesque is used to the WWE Monday Night RAW It brings 1.5 million viewers to the US, a cable network that was recently spun off from its parent company. Therefore, the benefits of moving its weekly live broadcast to Netflix appear to outweigh any foreseeable costs.

“Whenever we host a live event, we want it to be seamless for each and every one of our members,” said Bela Bejaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, who accompanied Levesque to a small press event at Netflix’s Hollywood headquarters on Tuesday shortly thereafter, previous livestream issues were addressed. “But you can’t learn these things until you take a big step. We learned and did a lot to prepare for the NFL and Beyoncé at halftime. We are absolutely ready and excited for WWE.”

Netflix is ​​actually doubling its live programming offerings. There was the Chris Rock special Love is blind Reunion debacle, John Mulaney’s invigorating talk show appearance, the Boffo fight between Tyson and Paul and, riskiest of all, the upcoming two NFL games on Christmas. But this 10-year deal between Netflix and WWE is reportedly worth $5 billion, is airing RAW Live, every Monday, is something completely different. The streamer, whose top executives once claimed they had no interest in live programming, will air a live broadcast on Monday, January 6 – and, if all goes according to plan, every Monday for a decade. It certainly won’t start with 65 million simultaneous streams, but WWE is committed to growth.

This growth will take place in all of the streamer’s territories, ideally for both parties. What’s most likely, however, is that it will have repercussions overseas, which is why WWE apparently started getting their ducks in a row long before the deal was struck. WWE President Nick Khan, who was also at the event, suggested that the gamble stems from a conversation with Netflix’s Brandon Riegg, in which the streamer’s nonfiction series and sports vice president urged Khan to take over his company’s international broadcast rights in to bring order.

“He told me, ‘If we ever live, ‘WWE in Tunisia’ won’t really be what Netflix or the WWE want,'” Khan said. “Then, boom, a year ago we sat down and within a month we had the deal done.”

Many countries were mentioned during the presentation. Many numbers have been deleted, such as the number of viewers for the youngest Wrestlmania increased by 41 percent and WWE is the second largest sport in India behind cricket. But what Levesque, Bajaria, Khan and Riegg seemed to emphasize more than anything else was the potential to scale the WWE brand while capitalizing on the dominant streamer’s broad subscriber base.

“We’re excited to make documentaries where we take this great story and these characters and (use) them on both the unscripted and scripted sides,” Bajaria said via WWE IP. “There are so many great stars from WWE that we (already) have a great relationship with.”

“My complaint is that having been in the entertainment industry for over 20 years, I feel like Hollywood is selling itself,” added Khan, who was an agent at CAA before joining WWE. “At Netflix, when you look at the broad appeal of the programming, there’s something for everyone.”

The WWE currently has contracts with Peacock, The CW and, despite the RAW Departure, USA. (The latter is now home to Friday’s Smack down (aired after he left Fox.) And while Khan wanted to emphasize that WWE will “always respect the rights of established players” in future contract negotiations, the event’s take on linear television was adequately summed up by Levesque.

“There was a timeline up there of various deals that were done over the years,” he said, pointing to a PowerPoint slide that had already been clicked away. “The WWE was on UPN and then Nashville Network, which became TNN, which became Spike, which is now Paramount, which is now completely irrelevant. For us, being here with Netflix is ​​just a start.”