WWE Facing Lawsuit Due To ESPN PLE Deal
It’s only been 10 days into the new year, and WWE has invited another lawsuit.
This time around, the plaintiffs have targeted the company for making false marketing claims in relation to its deal with ESPN.
In August 2025, it was revealed that World Wrestling Entertainment and ESPN had struck a streaming partnership for the United States market, allowing the promotion to air its PLEs on the latter’s streaming platform.
The monumental five-year streaming partnership was valued at $1.6 billion over five years, amounting to $325 million annually.
ESPN’s new streaming service, priced at $29.99/month, offers fans access to other ESPN programming, in addition to WWE PLEs.
While there are multiple conglomerates involved in one of the largest business deals, the lawsuit mentions only the Triple H-led company.
What Have The Plaintiffs Accused WWE Of?
Plaintiffs Michael Diesa of New Jersey and Rebecca Toback of New York have accused WWE and ESPN of pulling a fast one on the subscribers.
They claim that when the wrestling company’s premium live events moved to ESPN, some subscribers got access to ESPN Unlimited, whereas others did not, despite having an existing subscription.
POST Wrestling’s Brandon Thurston wrote:
The complaint takes issue with how some fans who already get ESPN channels through cable or other providers were still required to pay an additional monthly fee to watch WWE events. The plaintiffs allege this contradicts marketing communications from both WWE and ESPN, which they claim suggested all existing ESPN subscribers would have access to the PLEs.
Their proposed class would represent customers who paid for the ESPN Unlimited service between August 6 and September 20 while also being subscribers of services that get traditional ESPN channels. The class would exclude customers of DirecTV, Fubo TV, Hulu + Live TV, Spectrum, or Verizon FIOS — services that did allow their customers to authenticate into the app and watch the PLEs by September 20.
H/T: Fightful