During the conference call with investors today, WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon hinted that WWE is close to selling its pay-per-view event rights to a major streaming service, effectively getting them off the WWE Network.
McMahon admitted that they have a lot of different options, but there’s interest from major players and if they go that route, they will be announcing a deal in the first quarter. “That’s how far along we are,” McMahon said in terms of negotiations with the unnamed streaming partner.
“There’s no more better time to exercise the selling of our rights to all the majors who, quite frankly, all the majors are really clamoring for our content. So that could be a significant increase, obviously, in terms of revenue,” McMahon said during the call.
McMahon said that the deal is not definite yet and “nothing is a must have” but the company will evaluate the options and move in the direction that makes most sense to their business.
The UFC has done something similar where they got off the traditional pay-per-view format and sold their PPV rights to ESPN. All UFC pay-per-views must now go through ESPN+.
