What WWE’s Deal With Netflix Could Mean For The Streaming Industry?

WWE made worldwide news when it announced that its flagship show, Monday Night Raw, will leave cable TV to air exclusively on Netflix. WWE signed a massive $5 billion deal for the next ten years in 2025, making this one of the most historic moments in WWE history. As one might expect, WWE’s newly adopted deal with Netflix made waves in the mainstream media, as a move like this represents the overwhelming relevance the streaming industry has in today’s culture.

WWE’s Monday Night Raw has been airing on the USA Network channel for most of its tenure since 1993. Although the program has been subjected to heavy criticism in the past decade, especially with it being three hours long, Monday Night Raw has been one of the most successful weekly programming on primetime TV, especially during the height of WWE’s popularity in the late 1990s to early 2000s.

It’s also worth noting that since returning to the channel in 2005, WWE programming, in general, has engrained itself into the network, especially with NXT currently airing on USA Network and SmackDown spending a couple of years on USA Network from 2016 to 2019. And now that SmackDown is expecting to return to USA Network in late 2024 for a massive deal, just because Monday Night Raw is leaving cable TV, WWE’s relationship with USA Network will continue past 2025.

WWE moving Monday Night Raw to Netflix isn’t just a game-changer for the company but also for the streaming industry. Depending on how this move may turn out for Netflix, WWE could influence other sports industries to make more of a transition into streaming services rather than having to rely on cable TV.

Since the inception of the WWE Network in 2014, WWE has garnered massive financial success in its involvement in the streaming industry, especially moving its WWE Network to Peacock in 2021. And with a whopping $5 billion deal that WWE just garnered, other sports industries may be looking to get similar money by utilizing streaming services rather than cable TV.