Latest on WWE-ESPN Relationship, ESPN Price Hike
Only one year into ’s five-year deal to air World Wrestling Entertainment events on its Unlimited app, the network won’t be renewing the contract when it expires.
Multiple sources told SEScoops the deal faced several problems, including the current media market, “culture and synergy” issues between the two companies and the failure of cable providers to pick up the cost of the app for customers.
Take dirtsheet reports with a grain of salt, of course, but if this is true, if ESPN has such massive buyer's remorse that they are already planning to not renew the deal 1 year into a 5-year contract, that is fucking hilarious.
https://www.sescoops.com/article/latest-on-wwe-espn-relationship-espn-price-hikeOpen linkView original on piefed.blahaj.zone
10 replies
It always seemed an odd fit. Sports and sports entertainment may share the word sports, but they're very different products.
AEW airs on a sports network in Canada (TSN), WWE was on a sports network (SportsNet) here before it moved to Netflix, and TNA got a deal with that network after WWE left.
That's a good point! Where is SportsNet at? I'm not familiar with that one.
Sportsnet is Canadian too.
don't blame them for having buyers remorse especially with the current WWE product.
ESPN has denied the report that they're not going renew the deal. Price hike is still going to happen, though.
I mean, I wouldn't have expected them to confirm the story through official channels this early in the contract term. But hey.
Fair enough. Even if they currently don't want to renew the deal, a lot can happen in 4 years.
Imagine if they come crawling back to Peacock.
The gang pull a fast one on ESPN.
I’m pretty sure ESPN hated WWE from day 1. This was a deal made by higher ups.