Ari Emmanuel Sees RAW Move to Netflix as a Pivotal Step Ahead

WWE has made huge headlines in the past few hours with a blockbuster announcement, surrounding their flagship, Monday Night RAW. Now, TKO Group Holdings CEO Ari Emmanuel has given his statement regarding the big move.

As announced, the content streaming giant, Netflix will be the new home for the longest-running weekly episodic television show in history, RAW starting in 2025. This would see WWE’s long-time partnership with previous broadcaster, USA Network coming to an end after nearly 20 years.

The announcement garnered significant reactions from stars and fans alike. Moreover, Ari Emmanuel himself called a huge move forward for WWE to partner up with the global leader in content streaming. He spoke about the same during an appearance on CNBC.

“All I can say is that we are in line with the market expectations and where our step up would be. The only other thing I would say is it’s Netflix. They’re the global leader. They’re the best company with regard to sports entertainment whether they’ve done it with Formula One or Tour De France, this is the next iteration as they go to live and moving into live. This is an important step for them in their SVOD and subscription service and live is important for them. The word Netflix is important for this. Ten year deal, with Raw, it’s a big deal.”

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The TKO CEO pointed out how 27 million people watched football on Peacock and mentioned that while he doesn’t think cable TV is going away, he believes there is a push to streaming services.

“We just saw, two weekends ago on Peacock, how big football played. 27 million people. I don’t think linear is going away, I don’t think cable is going away, but there is a push to streaming. On this deal, we did that early on with the UFC on ESPN and ESPN Plus. From our perspective, this is the next iteration of where this goes. We have a linear play with SmackDown and NXT. This is the streaming play. For us, it was the next step. It’s a great deal for Netflix, in our opinion. They get 150 hours of programming over $5 billion dollars. It’s like two and a half movies for 150. For us, it’s the global player in streaming. It’s a great deal.”

WWE has reportedly secured a ten-year-long deal, worth a whooping $5 Billion or $500 Million per year. Moreover, the stock prices for all the parties involved in the deal have seen significant growth as well.

With the global juggernaut ready to usher in a new era with Netflix, we will have to wait and see how this new partnership unfolds next year.

What are your thoughts on WWE RAW moving to Netflix? Sound off in the comments!

Thanks, Fightful for the above quote.