Netflix has finally struck its first media rights deal for live sports.
WWE’s Raw, the promotion’s flagship weekly show, will begin airing on Netflix in January 2025, the streamer announced Tuesday. The 10-year deal is valued at more than $5 billion, according to a regulatory filing by the WWE’s parent company, TKO Holdings.
It’s a big move for Netflix, which has staged failed attempts to win bids for tennis, surfing, and Formula One, per the Wall Street Journal. As live sports remains one of the only ways for media companies to ensure they’ll get eyeballs, Netflix gains a dedicated following from Raw, which averages about 1.5 million viewers per episode and is the No. 1 show on the USA Network.
Until now, Netflix’s sports content has largely not included live offerings, though it’s seen massive success with documentary-style sports shows like Quarterback, Untold, and Beckham.
The streamer hosted its first live sports event in November: an in-house golf tournament called The Netflix Cup that pitted athletes from the popular Formula 1 and professional golf series Drive to Survive and Full Swing against one another. The Netflix Slam between tennis superstars Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz is scheduled for March, and a live boxing match has also been considered, according to the Journal.
After the WWE finishes its current US-based deal for Raw with NBCUniversal, the show will head to Netflix for viewers in the US, Canada, UK, Latin America, and other territories, with more areas to be added in time. Netflix can extend the deal for another ten years and opt-out after five years, per the TKO filing.
Outside of the US, Netflix is also picking up, starting in 2025, the rest of the WWE’s shows and live events, including SmackDown, NXT, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Royal Rumble, plus other non-live offerings like documentaries and original series.
