Nick Khan Details Recent WWE-ESPN Deal

Nick Khan has discussed WWE's newest deal with ESPN and how it came about.

As part of the deal, WWE will air PLEs domestically on ESPN, and Khan stated in his appearance on "The Varsity" podcast that the move from Peacock to ESPN is a big step up for them. 

"You know, the media rights marketplace, I think, to any reasonable person looking at it has sort of become reflective, relatively speaking, of course, of the US economy, where the upper-tier products continue to go up, the premium content continues to get premium pricing. And the lower-tier content continues to sort of make its way. It's the middle that got squeezed a bit. And fortunately for WWE and our shareholders and our fans, we're not in the middle," said Khan. "So it's a significant step up. It's a great platform for us. And to have WWE, what we consider to be the number one sports entertainment product in the world on the most family-friendly apparatus [ESPN] is big for all of us."

The WWE President revealed that several streaming services were keen to partner with WWE, particularly after witnessing how WWE operated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was one of the few live programs airing weekly.

"It was real [interest from other streamers], and we happen to be in a good position. Timing always matters on these things. And think about this, the Peacock deal, we struck at the height of pre-vaccine COVID. So, a couple of factors, we always think you need a little bit of luck in these deals. The luck there certainly, you know, COVID was a disaster for everybody. But the luck there was that the Olympic Games had been postponed for a year, and Peacock needed content."

Khan added that fans who follow WWE also sampled other offerings on Peacock, which he feels will also be the case when they move to ESPN. He believes that streaming services and DirecTV can coexist in parallel, as he feels that older people still use DirecTV, while the younger audience has shifted to streaming services.