In a story published on Sportico, it was revealed that Peacock had their eyes set on the WWE Network after their streaming service launched in mid-2020.
It was Peacock Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer Rick Cordella who made the first move, sending the newly-appointed WWE President and CRO Nick Khan a congratulatory text message and an additional, yet important, message that started it all: “We need to talk.”
Cordella said that they can really expand WWE’s audience as the company will have its marketing machine behind the launch as it gets closer to go-time in March.
“NBC is the best fit for us,” Khan said. “They understand our product and our audience and have the SVOD platform to support it and drive eyeballs that way.”
Executives at NBC Universal and WWE were eager to get this deal ironed out before WrestleMania, an event which will surely drive up a few hundreds of thousands of subscribers who will subscribe for the show and hopefully stick around for more.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the WWE deal with Peacock is worth more than $1 billion over five years.
