MUMBAI: If this does come true, it would be good news for wrestling fans. There have been rumours in the market that it’s quite possible that the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programmes might shift to Netflix in India come next year. Timelines are not clear but sports rights watchers are guesstimating that this could happen sometime beginning next fiscal, that is from April 2025.
Netflix had in January 2024 agreed to pay $500 million per year ($5 billion for 10 years with an option to renew for another 10 or to exit after five years) to TKO Holdings the parent of WWE, for the rights to air the show Raw in the US, the UK, Canada and Latin America with other territories being added in the future. In every other market, Netflix has the rights to air Raw and the other two weekly shows, SmackDown and NXT, plus all of its major showcases, including WrestleMania and SummerSlam.
This includes India. However, the India rights have been with Ten Sports which has been under the Sony Pictures Network India (SPNI) umbrella for nearly 10 years and the two together have had the rights for around two decades. WWE shows have been the top rated programmes on Ten Sports channels and have been their staple programming ever since.
In the, US the current deal gets activated in 2025 and Netflix will air the first episode of Raw on n 6 January 2025. The Intuit Dome in California will be the location for the hosting of the debut episode. The rights vested with Comcast’s USA Network until October 2024, but the WWE gave it a short extension till the end of the year. It is one of USA Network’s top shows, drawing an audience of 17.5 million over the course of a year. Then, 82 per cent of Americans say they’ve heard of WWE. As of June 2024, WWE had 90 million fans in the US, according to market research firm SSRS/Luker. To top this all, Raw which made its debut in 1993 has a back catalogue of 1,600 plus episodes.
Ditto is its popularity in India, though the number of fans may be in a much higher zone. Estimates are that the WWE and its fighters have a large fanbase – the largest fan base outside of the US - in India it has ballooned to in excess of 100 million. As they say in India everything happens at scale, ditto with TV shows too. In fact, it is highly popular amongst young kids and the youth, Around five years ago, the WWE had estimated that its shows get about 335 million unique viewers annually in India with almost 40 per cent of them being women. This is what encourage SPNI’s acquisition team to acquire its rights from TKO Holdings from 2020 to 2025. It turned out to be a good decision as the WWE programming block is one of the top earning properties on Ten Sports and draws loyal audiences. And of course advertisers.
With the rights deal with SPNI coming to an end in India in 2025, and Netflix acquiring the programming rights for the world for the next 10 years, it’s quite logical to assume that SPNI may find it difficult to re-negotiate its renewal of rights with TKO Holdings for the Indian market. For Netflix is sure to use the WWE as a subscription driver and one major way it can do that is by keeping the matches exclusive on its streaming service and keep out SPNI from showing them on television.
“WWE is sports entertainment. So it's as close to our core as you can get in terms of sports storytelling," Netflix’s Ted Sarandos had said during one of the investors calls. “We are in the sports business, but we’re in the part that we bring the most value to, which is the drama of sport.”
In all probability, Netflix will also develop shoulder programming which could be documentaries or dramatised series around professional wrestling.
The coming months will tell us which way the cookie will tumble – Sony Pictures Networks or Netflix in India. Until then we can get back to our TV screens, if you are a WWE hardcore fan, and watch the coming matches on satellite and cable TV.
