From “Positioned To Capitalize” (June 2023): “If you share my view that live sports will ultimately play a prominent role in the content slate for a few of the leading DTC services / streamers, you can start to appreciate why the WWE and the UFC are attractive properties - particularly given the flexibility of their format / scheduling, the size and demographics of their audience, and the price tag of their rights relative to other sports. As overall content budgets at major media companies are being thoroughly scrutinized, my view is that sports rights are one area where spending will continue to rise (the latest example is Peacock’s ~$110 million deal for a single NFL playoff game).

As it relates to the leading player in streaming, Netflix, I’d note that they have had significant success with sports docuseries like ‘Drive To Survive’ and ‘Full Swing’… I think the introduction of the ad-supported / AVOD tier will eventually lead Netflix to conclude that they should be in live sports.”

On January 23rd, the global leader in DTC video streaming took a major step forward in their distribution of “live sports entertainment”: Netflix announced a 10-year, ~$5.2 billion deal for “Raw”, WWE’s flagship weekly program. I won’t rehash the ground covered in the most recent Netflix update (“Reaping The Rewards”), other than to reiterate that I think this is a good fit for Netflix given the flexibility of WWE’s format / scheduling, the size and demographics of its audience, and the structure / price for “Raw” relative to other (global) sports.

I also think this is an intelligent deal for the WWE / TKO. As a reminder, here’s what Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said after the deal was announced: “We believe that the WWE has historically been under-distributed outside of North America, and this is a global deal. We can help them and they can help us to build that fandom around the world.” TKO CEO Ari Emanuel shared a similar conclusion: “This strengthens the WWE brand on a global basis.”