The WWE Network came to an end today as WWE officially moved to Netflix outside the United States.
The Network launched in the United States in February 24, 2014, offering a staggering amount of content from the whole WWE video library including pay-per-views for just $9.99 a month.
The worldwide rollout of the Network started in July of that year and took almost two years to finally reach almost every corner of the world. In fact, the Network operated in 186 countries, with the biggest omissions being China and Russia, where the service was deactivated in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine.
But the total number of subscribers was not sustainable, with the service hovering around 1.5 million on average and only spiking during WrestleMania season, topping 2 million for the month when WrestleMania is on.
In January 2021, WWE and NBCUniversal announced a deal to move the WWE Network to Peacock in the United States in a five-year deal worth just over a billion dollars. The service ceased its operations in the U.S. in April 2021 and completely moved to Peacock.
The Network remain unaffected in other parts of the world, although six regions have, or had, local distribution partners such as Rogers Sports in Canada, MBC Group in the Middle East, SonyLIV in India, SuperSport in Africa, Binge in Australia, and Abema in Japan. For the rest of the world, that changed once WWE and Netflix announced their worldwide deal, effectively killing the WWE Network.
The service will operate in a handful of countries where the Netflix deal is not in operation yet due to other TV contractual obligations. Once those contracts are up, WWE will completely turn the switch off as Netflix takes over.
