Nick Khan Defends WWE’s Controversial ESPN Move
The WWE President Nick Khan thinks his company made the right decision by taking the US PLE business to ESPN.
It was announced on the morning of August 6th that WWE’s Premium Live Events will have a new home in the United States in early 2026.
Since the five-year deal with NBC’s Peacock streaming service is set to expire in early 2026, WWE has decided to sign a new agreement with ESPN’s streaming service. ESPN will pay WWE $1.6 billion over five years, which is $325 million annually to air WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, and the other annual PLE’s that WWE produces every year.
Following the announcement, some fans have complained because many of them were paying $10 monthly to get Peacock. However, ESPN’s new streaming service, priced at $29.99/month, is significantly higher. However, ESPN’s service offers fans access to other ESPN programming, including live sports broadcasts of the NFL, NBA, NHL, and other shows, in addition to WWE PLEs.
In addition to the new streaming service, cable subscribers can access WWE PLEs by verifying their ESPN cable subscription.
Nick Khan is the WWE President who has a history of working in the sports business world as an agent before he joined the biggest wrestling company in the world.
While speaking on The Varsity podcast with John Ourand, Nick Khan spoke about the price point that could be upsetting to some WWE fans.
“I think, look, the marketplace dictates the price on all things in my opinion. You and I have had several conversations about this both on the record and off the record.”
Nick Khan Believes WWE Partnering With ESPN Is A “Significant Step Up”
As he continued, Nick Khan expressed enthusiasm for WWE’s new deal with the worldwide leader in sports, ESPN.
“The media rights marketplace, I think to any reasonable person looking at it, has sort of become reflective—relatively speaking, of course—of the U.S. 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.”
Fortunately for WWE and our shareholders and our fans, we’re not in the middle. So it’s a significant step up. It’s a great platform for us, and to have WWE—what we consider to be the 1A sports entertainment product in the world—on the most family-friendly apparatus is big for all of us.”
The deal with ESPN won’t affect non-Amercian WWE fans since the PLE rights for those shows belong to Netflix and those started in January 2025, which is the beginning a five year deal.