Netflix’s deal five billion dollar deal with WWE to exclusively stream episodes of “WWE RAW” created a huge buzz this week. WWE RAW will be debuting on the streaming platform from 2025. The announcement of this lucrative deal took center stage in the industry discussions. However, Eric Bischoff believes the deal has major potential.
On the latest edition of Strictly Business, Bischoff discussed the strategic importance of this deal. He noted that WWE executive Nick Khan had been working towards this groundbreaking deal for the past year. Bischoff anticipates that WWE’s collaboration with Netflix will pave the way for international expansion, citing the streaming platform’s vast reach of 240 million subscribers across 190 different countries.
“What does that mean with Netflix? How about 240 million subscribers in 190 different countries? That’s a big opportunity to grow your international live events, your PLEs, and just grow your international footprint beyond UK and Europe.”
Bischoff further stated that the deal presents a huge opportunity for WWE to enhance it’s global presence and reach beyond the traditional markets of US and UK. Moving on in the discussion, Bischoff also reflected on his past challenges to distributing wrestling content internationally. He shed light on the strict restrictions against violent television in various European countries.
However it’s to be noted that Bischoff anticipates that WWE will overcome these hurdles through the recent Netflix deal and will be successful in making their content easily accessible in regions like the UK, France, and Germany. Notably, the UK stands out as a significant market for Netflix, generating a revenue of 1.5 billion dollars.
“Their content is going to be as easily accessed in the UK and in France and in Germany. If you look at UK, it’s a 1.5 billion dollar revenue, it’s the second largest just behind the US for Netflix. There will probably be more people with access to the product. It’s going to be fascinating to watch.”
Bischoff also said that this deal will likely result in a broader audience gaining access to WWE’s product. He estimated that the number of viewers who have cable and Netflix will likely overlap and he further stated that the wrestling company did it’s due diligence researching on the numbers before signing the deal with Netflix. Meanwhile, you can check out the whole episode of Strictly Business right below.
Are you excited to catch WWE RAW on Netflix from next year? Let us know in the comments!