Full Transcript From WWE–ESPN Media Call: What Fans Need to Know About Wrestlepalooza, Streaming Plans, and More
With Wrestlepalooza set for this Saturday, September 20, ESPN executives Matt Kenny and John Lasker held a media call to break down the network’s ambitious coverage plans. The call offered insight into how ESPN will present WWE’s Premium Live Events (PLEs) under their new $1.625 billion partnership, what will (and won’t) air on linear TV, and how fans can access the ESPN app’s new direct-to-consumer streaming model.
From SportsCenter’s on-site presence to the rollout of ESPN’s multiview feature, to the clarification that the WWE library is not part of the deal (for now), executives made it clear this is more than just another broadcast agreement—it’s a strategic effort to merge sports entertainment with ESPN’s mainstream sports coverage.
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Full Press Release From ESPN's Pressroom:
ESPN programming executives Matt Kenny and John Lasker answered questions on Wednesday discussing the launch of ESPN’s partnership with WWE, as well as ESPN’s robust coverage plans leading into the first WRESTLEPALOOZA® Premium Live Event on Saturday, September 20, at 7 p.m. ET.
WWE WRESTLEPALOOZA® will be exclusively available in the U.S. via ESPN’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service on the ESPN App. ESPN will distribute more information on its comprehensive coverage plans for WRESTLEPALOOZA® this week:
KENNY: Hey, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here today. A few of us were hanging out on the Zoom before the line opened up, and we started to go down a little bit of the rabbit hole of some favorite wrestling moments, favorite WrestleMania moments.
I remember — I am definitely aging myself, and I’m looking around, I think others may remember this too. I remember the first WrestleMania and the excitement for Hulk Hogan and Mr. T versus Rowdy Roddy Piper and Mr. Wonderful, Paul Orndorff, and you go to WrestleMania II, and they have the three different events.
So, when I was brought in to work on this acquisition, it was pretty hard not to get a bit nostalgic of just how special WWE is, how much it means to people, how much it’s part of the fabric of culture and has really stood the test of time.
Putting aside my personal experiences and fandom for WWE over all these years, it really is a special time for our company. ESPN couldn’t be more excited to warmly welcome WWE to the ESPN family.
[Lasker] will get into this in just a bit. There have been so many people here in our company that have played such a critical role in the launch of our Direct-to-Consumer service. [Lasker] and his team were at the front of the line on so much of it. To have this acquisition, to be on the doorstep of our very first WWE premium live event, Wrestlepalooza, this Saturday, it will be the first event in our five-year deal where we will be the exclusive home for WWE’s premium live events.
We couldn’t be happier to really super serve WWE fans in a manner in which they candidly have never been served before. We as a company, we’re storytellers at heart, and there’s no shortage of compelling story lines that play out across the WWE universe. We’re really thrilled with where we are, what we have in store this week, and how we’re going to walk hand in hand with WWE as we move forward and usher in this new era for the WWE.
One of the things that I think was very attractive to the WWE is the reach and relevance that ESPN has and can deliver to WWE. So, this week alone, I imagine if you’ve watched some of our studio shows you’ve seen WWE superstars show up on shows at scale.
Bron Breakker was on Get Up! this morning. AJ Lee and CM Punk will be on shows later today. Really, it’s hard not to say that without smiling. I’m looking at myself in the Zoom and I’m smiling talking about it, but as proud stewards of WWE, it’s awesome to see how we are really bringing the WWE superstars to the ESPN audience.
As we lead up to Wrestlepalooza, we are utilizing our megaphone to create as much buzz and awareness as possible so that folks realize, hey, this is a massive event this Saturday night.
A couple of things to shout out. On Friday we have a Wrestlepalooza Special, and the cool part about this is it’s hosted not only by Peter Rosenberg, who I love, but now we’re starting to see — tap into a lot of the sports crossover, and we couldn’t be happier to have Tyrese Haliburton. As a Knicks fan, I never thought I’d say excited to welcome Tyrese Haliburton anywhere, but all kidding aside, putting my NBA hat to the side, love that he’s going to be part of our coverage here.
On Friday, Elle Duncan and SportsCenter are going to be onsite. Just if we think about that for a moment, SportsCenter, flagship program for ESPN for so long, is going to be front and center as part of our Wrestlepalooza coverage leading into this Saturday. It’s just awesome to think about.
We also have an ESPN radio show on Friday night with Booker T and Brad Gilmore that we’re really excited about.
Then on Saturday — Ben, are we going to flip to Saturday? Here we go. All of this just rolls into Saturday, where we have a two-hour Road to Wrestlepalooza show that ESPN is producing onsite. It will lead into WWE’s produced two-hour preshow, and then we get to Wrestlepalooza at 7:00 Eastern, and then immediately after we roll right into the post-show. Wall-to-wall coverage for Wrestlepalooza on our platforms.
I think it’s really important to acknowledge a lot of the great work by so many here at our shop to quickly onboard a property. For those that aren’t as close to it, just because you acquire the rights doesn’t mean it magically, like you flip a switch and things are brought to life on platform. It requires a ton of work. I do want to give credit to my colleague, Glenn Jacobs, who has been doing an incredible job within the ESPN Content Division.
So, a lot of what you see here, a lot of what I just walked through, a lot of the superstar appearances, that is a result of Glenn and his team’s incredible work and stewardship. We have the card here as well, with John Cena and Brock Lesnar at the top, loaded with WWE superstars. I am not going to dare walk through this card with this audience. I think we all know what we’re in for this Saturday night. We are really thrilled with what the WWE has in store for us on Saturday.
Then lastly, we walk through a couple of points before about how ESPN is supporting WWE, where superstars are going to show up. I thought this slide was just a beautiful representation of some really powerful samples throughout the week. Whether it’s Triple H on the McAfee Show, and then even starting the week with Jey Uso throwing out the first pitch on Sunday Night Baseball prior to the Yankees-Red Sox game, that’s incredible. It’s the type of thing that ESPN can deliver unlike anybody else.
Drew McIntyre on Good Guy and the Bad Guy, where you leverage some of the UFC crossover. And then from Seth Rollins to Paul Heyman, to the Usos, Bron Breakker, I mentioned AJ and CM Punk, and it just goes on and on. We’re really proud of what we’re doing here. We’re really just getting started, and we’re excited for this journey.
LASKER: When I think about WWE and Wrestlepalooza and all the PLEs coming forward and all the sort of coverage we just represented and Matt just walked through, that is a monumental effort that’s happened in a very short period of time.
It’s also that we aren’t starting from zero here. ESPN has been fans of the WWE for a very long time. We’ve been covering it for a very long time. Some of these athletes have been on our shows. We do have a section on ESPN.com. So, we’ve recognized the power of WWE and in particular the crossover in fandom that exists from the folks that are focused and fans of WWE that are also sports fans.
What I’m most excited about from a Direct-to-Consumer perspective is the combination of which that we’ve presented to the marketplace here starting this past August 21st of the full complement of ESPN content combined with Disney+ and Hulu at this incredible $30 price point. That sort of crosses over all sport and entertainment segments, and we think the WWE fits perfectly into that, not just from a sports perspective, but from a general and entertainment and general audience perspective. So, we’re very, very excited about that.
I’ll just go back here just to make sure for folks that aren’t familiar with what we’re up to on the Direct-to-Consumer side. As I mentioned to you on August 21st of this year, we did two primary things. We made ESPN’s suite of networks and services available direct-to-consumer. That’s important because for the first time ever you can get ESPN’s premium networks and content and SportsCenter and Monday Night Football and college football and all these things directly from ESPN. It no longer is the only way you can get ESPN is through a cable provider. So that was number one.
Number two is we made some major enhancements to the ESPN app, which is really sort of a bedrock and foundation for us as we move forward to continue to try to serve sports fans the best way that we possibly can, and introduced a suite of enhancements and features as we call them to effectively make the experience of watching sports and watching ESPN content on our platforms, whether that be the website, the connected television, the app, or all of them at the same time. We’re really excited about that and excited about what’s to come over the next five years in bringing WWE into the fold and being able to sort of expand how fans would normally consume WWE.
So, we’re very excited about what we just did on August 21st. Super excited about WWE now being part of that immense complement of content, not just sports, but across the general entertainment with Hulu and Disney+.
I mentioned, just to sort of be clear, as to how people can get the events this weekend, two very simple ways. Number one is you can subscribe through ESPN or through Disney+ or through Hulu’s touch points for the ESPN Unlimited plan, which is our entire suite of ESPN networks, including events like Wrestlepalooza and the PLEs to come.
Or you can authenticate your ESPN subscription on any of those platforms and let us know that you’re an existing ESPN subscriber and that you can get — that you then now are eligible to get not only our linear network feeds but then also Wrestlepalooza.
I’ll note that that second piece is available to a set of existing MVPD subscribers that we’re in the process of rolling that accessibility out. We’re not a hundred percent there today, but over the next couple of months, the vast majority of folks that subscribed to ESPN through an MVPD will have access to our ESPN Unlimited plan and therefore will have access to all the PLEs to come.
Q. Just wondering in terms of the Direct-to-Consumer product and everything, how much was WWE at the forefront when you guys were thinking of flagship and everything as far as adding it?
LASKER: That’s a great question. We’re always looking for ways to serve sports fans, number one, and then number two, enhance the overall sort of value proposition of being a fan of, a subscriber of ESPN.
As Matt sort of referenced and I mentioned at the top, we’ve always been fans of WWE. We recognize the power and the fandom of that audience, so when the power came to us to consider WWE coming into the fold, we sort of enthusiastically put pen to paper here and tried to figure it out, and I’m really happy that we did.
Q. In terms of the authenticating and everything, will it be through all the cable subscribers, or is it still only a couple so far?
LASKER: Today it’s Spectrum, DIRECTV, Fubo TV, Hulu Live TV, and Verizon Fios. All subscribers of those services today can validate their ESPN subscription through those services and get access.
As I mentioned a little bit before, we’re working through our MVPD agreements and arrangements. Hopefully here over the next couple of months, we’ll have pretty much ubiquitous accessibility for those fans. But that won’t be the case for this week.
Q. We’ve seen in the past WWE’s counter programs or competition quite a bit. How did that weigh into the decision to run Wrestlepalooza this weekend or did it? Do you foresee that happening more in the future, or do you kind of want an uninterrupted wrestling market and audience to appeal to?
KENNY: I’ll take a stab at that one. For us, we work collaboratively with the WWE on the schedule. In this particular case, many of their events had already been scheduled. Normally in these types of arrangements — so my team will work on the NBA. We also handle UFC. There’s a lengthy process where you work with the partner to identify specific dates, you build out your schedule, so you align in that regard. On some level, WWE’s schedule throughout the rest of 2025, there had been a number of dates already on the calendar.
In this particular case, we were just laser focused on launching WWE. We knew we wanted to have a marquee WWE event in September to support the launch of ESPN’s Direct-to-Consumer offering, as [Lasker] mentioned before, so it really had less to do with any particular wrestling competition.
In fact, we take a holistic view. We know there’s competition everywhere, and certainly in the fall on Saturdays, I don’t need to explain to this group, there’s no shortage of college football competition throughout the day. We’re in the teeth of the football season now. So, we welcome competition. We do take a, hey, game on approach, and we’re focused on what we can do in this particular case to super serve WWE and wrestling fans on our platforms.
LASKER: Matt, if I can, I’ll just add to this. Everything that Matt said, I 1,000 percent agree with. In addition, we’ve got an incredible digital ecosystem here and a great product that we just launched on August 21st, which effectively allows us to do what we need to do sort of in — even with or without competition. This Saturday night, just on our own networks, there’s a lot of really great college football games going on, and we get really excited about — I mentioned the features and functionality we talked about, and one of those is multiview.
So, fans are going to be sitting there on Saturday night and watching Wrestlepalooza and Miami-Florida at the same time and can sort of super in and super out as they see fit or as they wish. Our hope there is it’s just going to drive more interest and engagement in the WWE and vice versa, that hopefully WWE fans that are coming to us get to sort of experience and become fans of a lot of the other sort of sports content that we’ll be able to present to them.
There’s growth and opportunity and sort of excitement in terms of how we serve sports fans irrespective of the sort of competitive set. The more sports fans that are on our platform Saturday night watching various things is good for all of us.
Q. Thanks for having me. Should be a fun Saturday here. Matt, you mentioned too how you were a big wrestling fan growing up and everything like that, something that a lot of the ardent fans have been really passionate about has been the WWE vault and what they kind of have, like a history and a library of everything, all the programming from ECW, WCW, et cetera. Is there an interest from the ESPN side of things in acquiring that kind of library and presenting it? In a more fine-tuned fashion than, say, what Peacock has done in the past.
KENNY: I think for us the rights that we have are for the Premium Live Events. Those are bankable VOD. As the events take place on our platforms, we’ll be able to offer those events on demand. So that library, our PLE library, will build over time.
In terms of the broader library, I would direct your question to the WWE to handle. We’re excited to start populating, building, curating a robust digital offering for WWE fans on our platforms.
Q. As a quick follow-up, obviously you have NFL Live and Baseball Tonight. Would there be interest in having a program on ESPN that features a WWE talk show, debate program in a way?
KENNY: That’s a great question. This is where I need to respectfully stay in my lane. [Lasker]’s going to smile about that. There we go.
The cool thing about ESPN is there’s no shortage of talented folks and different teams within the company that all work together in the interest of serving fans.
I look at this weekend as we’re getting Wrestlepalooza and the Road to Wrestlepalooza and the shows that we are doing, we’re excited for those, and innovation is at the heart of what we do. I can’t speak to anything specifically going forward, but if you look at what we’ve done in a really short period of time, I think it shows a lot of what’s great about ESPN, where we’re literally just building it as we go all in the spirit of creating awesome content for fans and to do it with our own twist.
I do think the point, guys, of SportsCenter being onsite is a really big deal, particularly on a College Football Saturday. I think it’s easy when we start ripping through slides and stuff and we start talking about all the coverage, we’re talking SportsCenter is going to be onsite at WWE Wrestlepalooza. That’s pretty special.
LASKER: And I’ll just add to Matt’s point here. This is a five-year arrangement. We haven’t had event one yet. We will this week. It will be amazing. The coverage that we’ve sort of stepped up with and Matt walked through is pretty amazing, like we’re not going dark for the next event. WWE is now sort of infused in the bloodstream here.
Just like we cover other sports, you should expect that we’ll have regular coverage of WWE sort of throughout, and that is the opportunity. What evolves from there over five years, like who knows? I’m excited to see what that becomes. Is that a studio show? Is that something else? We don’t know, but there’s not one launching tomorrow.
All the things that Matt described, I’m equally excited about.
Q. My question is I was wondering if you’d give us some guidance if you can on the fact that this deal was originally supposed to start in 2026, and WWE’s PLEs are starting now. When did you realize you could pivot and start with Wrestlepalooza, and what was it like navigating WWE and Peacock and WWE extricating the PLEs from the Peacock streaming service? What sort of guidance and timeline can you give us in terms of those discussions and negotiations?
KENNY: I can grab this one. Our relationship is with the WWE. We had no interaction, engagement, dialogue with the Peacock folks at all. I think what was most important for us was the opportunity to have a launch event this fall. So, we were really excited about that. Then when it was presented to us that there was an opportunity to begin our five-year relationship early, obviously we were excited about that as well.
Q. Since the five-year relationship is starting earlier, would the endpoint on the contract end earlier as well?
KENNY: It’s just a five-year term, correct.
Q. Congratulations on all this early launch here. I wanted to ask about the amount of jurisdiction that ESPN has in requesting specific talent for any of these events. In the past a lot of WWE’s partners have had that. Brock Lesnar is a major part of this event, and while not specifically accused, he is a part of this ongoing Vince McMahon sexual misconduct lawsuit. So, what degree of involvement does ESPN have when it comes to talent and specifically, in this case, Brock Lesnar?
KENNY: For us, our relationship with the WWE is such where they have creative control. I think it’s important to provide some context there where we are distributors of the events. It’s not all that dissimilar to all the other rights holder relationships that we have, where we have relationships with the league. Obviously, a glove, stick, and ball league is a little bit different than the combat sports world, as we could all appreciate.
But in regard to our relationship with the WWE, they retain creative control. Which by the way, we’re fine with because they have built an incredible business for a long period of time. For as much as I playfully talked about my WWE fandom at the top of the call, I don’t need to be opining on what a script should be to WWE. We’re excited about what they do, how they do it, and can’t wait for Saturday.
So that includes, in the case of specific talent requests, that all goes through WWE with no jurisdiction from ESPN?
KENNY: WWE handles all of that.
Q. Just wanted to ask, beyond ESPN studio program and appearances this week, like you guys mentioned, how is ESPN really helping to drive awareness among WWE fans that they not only need the new ESPN app but the ESPN Unlimited plan in order to get this PLE?
LASKER: Hopefully, if you guys are watching or navigating social media, et cetera, that not only all the great things that Matt had showed in terms of having certain talent and coverage on our studio shows and in platforms, which is all sort of buttressed by messaging that lets people know where to get this and how to get this, we have a pretty aggressive and robust marketing campaign that reaches well beyond ESPN’s platforms doing exactly that.
As I mentioned with the folks that can validate their ESPN subscription through Charter, Verizon, et cetera, we’re also working with those distributors, those MVPDs to communicate to their subscribers that not only do they have access to this event and the overall sort of offering from ESPN and then how to actually activate it.
Q. I kind of want to follow up on Dre’s question here a bit. Obviously, there’s going to be a significant number of people that don’t subscribe to MVPDs that currently have access to ESPN Unlimited. Does ESPN plan to offer any limited access for those kind of pay TV subs to prevent them from essentially having to double pay to get this event?
LASKER: We don’t have that option. Like I mentioned before, the only two ways to get this is to subscribe to that, to the ESPN Unlimited or ESPN Unlimited bundle with Disney+ and Hulu.
Like I mentioned, this is call it a short-term issue that we’re planning to have solved in the next couple of months.
Q. Specifically, what are you doing to communicate to those types of pay TV subscribers that they won’t have access? I’m thinking of maybe Comcast and YouTube TV as probably the two biggest MVPDs that won’t have access. That’s a lot of subscribers. Is there anything ESPN’s doing to communicate that with those people?
LASKER: We’re not singling out any — the folks we are singling out and talking directly to is through the distributors that we have a relationship with that offers ESPN Unlimited to their subscribers. We’re not singling out like Comcast or another distributor to give them any specific messaging. We’re looking at that as sort of the universe of folks that can’t get ESPN Unlimited today, and they’re communicating with them on how to get — how to subscribe to ESPN Unlimited.
KENNY: Drew, just piggy-backing on [Lasker]’s comments there, I think, one, totally understand the point about someone having to subscribe. We’re all consumers here. We all vote with our wallets in some way, shape or form, and the bundle that [Lasker] touched on, I think is a really important one to focus on here.
So, when we look at the $29.99 offer, it’s not just for ESPN, which by the way, it’s an incredible value prop in and of itself, given the sheer volume of live events and where we are in the sports calendar. I will avoid getting on the pulpit to just talk ESPN, but when you think about the bundle which includes Disney+ and Hulu and ESPN, that is an insane amount of value, which I’m really proud of. So, we want to compete with a robust value proposition.
We know fans vote with their wallets, they vote with their time, they vote with their attention. For that reason, we’re really focused on super serving, over delivering, and absolutely doing the best we can to leverage our platforms to serve this audience, and we’re just getting started.
Q. In the past Triple H, Paul Levesque, has posted that WWE is a turnkey operation. That’s part of the appeal for guys like you. But are there any production changes that WWE has come to you and asked to collaborate with in anticipation of Wrestlepalooza or moving forward?
KENNY: It’s a great question. I think I mentioned Glenn Jacobs earlier. It’s probably a question best for him. Everything is moving very, very quickly as we push towards Saturday night. So, I think [Lasker]’s comments about how we would potentially think about enhancements down the road on the studio, going back to the studio show question, there are threads of that that I think would apply here.
I can share that the collaboration with the WWE is fantastic. They handle all of the production. So, as you’ve described it is accurate. I think that, for those of you that are familiar with our UFC relationship over the years, it’s very similar where the UFC handles their event production, we take it, and then there are production — there are studio programming, shoulder programming that we contribute to it on the back end.
Q. If I may, as a quick follow-up, obviously Wrestlepalooza is a new event for WWE on their calendar. Are you looking at adding any new PLEs to the event calendar, maybe in like a month like December where there’s only the Saturday Night Live broadcast on Peacock but there’s no PLE right now?
KENNY: I think anything along those lines will bear itself out in just more forward-looking scheduling conversations that we’ll get into with the WWE over time.
I think, just to put a fine point on that answer, we knew what we were signing up for when we acquired the PLEs. The PLEs are incredibly valuable, and we understand the importance of those shows to help fuel our Direct-to-Consumer business. We’re excited about the schedule of events that the WWE puts forth for the PLEs. If there are conversations to be had about evolving that, then we’re certainly game to do that.
Q. My question was in regards to metrics. What are you guys looking for in terms of numbers or goals that would deem ESPN saying that this partnership with WWE was a success? Thank you so much.
LASKER: Without saying any numbers, Denise, what we’re trying to do is grow ESPN’s overall audience, and for folks that might not be subscribed to ESPN in some other way, that having the WWE as part of the ESPN Unlimited plan will help us actually grow.
On the flip side, we’re trying to create more value for those existing ESPN subscribers and want as many of those folks to watch, not just the WWE, but other ESPN content within the ESPN app. So, you activate their subscriptions.
Those are the two sorts of core metrics that we’re looking at. Unfortunately, I can’t share what those target numbers would be.
Q. In terms of the decisions to simulcast direct portions of PLEs on linear television, how are you going to go about that process of determining which events go there and kind of measuring success across both platforms?
KENNY: That’s a great question. I mentioned the collaboration between us and WWE, so I think the first step is we work with our content strategy team to figure out what opportunities exist. This may be a little bit inside the ropes a bit, but I think it’s good context.
So, it starts with us figuring out where we are. If you can appreciate, given our portfolio of rights, we have a lot of commitments. Then it’s, once we get a sense of what we could do, it’s working with the WWE on what that looks like. We will get into that with them.
Q. Are there any provisions that you guys have to broadcast a certain number, or is it at the discretion of WWE and ESPN?
KENNY: There is a minimum threshold that we have to hit, and at the same time, we understand that, look, maybe doing it more would be beneficial, maybe not. We’re still so early in all this that I think the most important aspect of the simulcast piece is how do we use our megaphone? If you think about ESPN as a funnel, how do we get as many people into the funnel as possible?
Ultimately, that accrues benefit to the diehard WWE fan and then also expanding the audience and exposing more and more people to the WWE, which we want to do. Audience expansion — audience expansion is a big priority for our company. We want to get younger. We want to get more diverse. We want better gender diversity on our platforms. All of these things, we want to do. So, we believe WWE is a big part of that solution as we move forward here in our new Direct-to-Consumer world.
Q. I know there are a lot of wrestling fans at the network, but WWE is also not traditional ESPN content. Is there any color you can add to the reaction of the news that WWE was airing on ESPN?
KENNY: Justin, I love that question. I’ve lived it for the last seven years with the UFC, where when we onboarded the UFC, there were a lot of traditional glove, stick, and ball people in Bristol, which is great. How do you expose this property and build advocates and champions across the enterprise?
I could share a story from yesterday, where we had the Usos — Ben, you could probably share more context. We had the Usos stop by Bristol yesterday for a 45-minute photo-op with ESPN employees. Usually, we promote these things broadly. This happened so quickly, I think the extent of the promotion might have been a sign when folks showed up to work and they had to badge in and get through the security gate, where we let people know they’d be at the cafeteria from 1:00 to 1:45. I think there were north of 250 employees that showed up. The line had to be cut short.
The Usos couldn’t have been better, and it just goes to show that like everybody’s fandom is a bit different. Everyone’s got different interests. That’s what makes this place so special. But it’s hard not to have the WWE fandom rub off on someone who might not be a hard-core fan when you see that type of enthusiasm for a couple superstars rolling into Bristol to spend an hour with us.
I think it’s great. It will be a lot of fun. We really look forward to continuing to build that advocacy and awareness amongst folks that might not be as close to it.
LASKER: I’ll just add two quick points. I mentioned this before, the WWE is not new in our ecosystem. We’ve been covering it for a very long time, like that note that we have a section on ESPN.com dedicated to WWE coverage and have for, I think I can say, for decades, or at least a decade.
Then the other point, Matt mentioned this before, I mentioned it earlier, is if you think about this through the lens of it’s sport and entertainment and this sort of universe of fans that we’re looking to serve and customers that we’re looking to serve across our ecosystem, including Disney+ and Hulu, it breeds incremental excitement beyond just the fan component that absolutely does exist, and it’s sort of come in droves here in Bristol.
Q. I know recently WWE’s announced that they’re going to be doing the Royal Rumble inside of Saudi Arabia in 2026. Was there any consideration given to any potential interruption for currently scheduled programming before ESPN and WWE announced the deal? Is there any issue with any advertisers because of that as well?
KENNY: Could you just clarify that question?
Q. Sure. Is there any impact on ESPN’s end regarding any potential programming that’s scheduled in advance, any major sporting events that were scheduled in advance of the Royal Rumble before bringing WWE into the fold on their programming?
KENNY: No.
Q. When it comes to the MVPDs that don’t currently have access to this event on Saturday, I was wondering if you could give us any details on what the timing is. I understand these deals will eventually be renewed and you’re trying to work access to these events into new deals. Is there any detail you can give us on when, say people who are subscribers on Comcast or YouTube TV, can expect to happen? A window for when that’s going to be renewed?
LASKER: I think the best way to answer that is, without specifically calling out any MVPD here, by the return of this calendar year, we are expecting the vast majority of our ESPN subscriber base to have access to ESPN Unlimited. We’re working hard to make that not be vast majority, but all, and we’re doing that as soon as we possibly can.
Q. If I could squeeze in one follow-up, with the increase of this partnership between WWE and ESPN, is there reassurance you can provide to us that reporters who report on WWE for ESPN will still have full independence in how they cover WWE or WWE’s competitors for that matter?
LASKER: I think the answer to that is an emphatic yes.
KENNY: Unequivocal yes. That’s separation of church and state. I know we have some PR folks on here that could probably underscore that, but yes.
All of ESPN. All in One Place.
ESPN offers its full suite of networks and services directly to fans within the ESPN App. Designed to give fans more choice, flexibility and access to all of ESPN, the ESPN App provides a unique viewing experience that includes integrated game stats, multiview options, a synchronized two-screen feature, a vertical video feature called Verts and a personalized SportsCenter For You, as well as ESPN BET information, ESPN Fantasy sports, commerce, and more. These new features are available to all fans who watch on the ESPN App on mobile and connected TV devices, whether they subscribe directly or through a traditional pay TV package. Bundling options available for fans include a limited time offer for the ESPN DTC Unlimited plan with Disney+ and Hulu for $29.99/month for the first 12 months. For more visit stream.espn.com.
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ESPN media contact: ben.cafardo@espn.com.
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🎙️ Wrestling.news | Backstage Take
For fans, the ESPN call signals a new era: WWE is officially being framed as part of the broader sports conversation, not just entertainment. Having SportsCenter broadcast live from Wrestlepalooza is a game-changer in how the mainstream perceives pro wrestling.
But the lack of the full WWE library on ESPN is a notable gap. Fans who grew used to binge-watching classics on Peacock will have to wait and see if that becomes part of the package. For now, the spotlight is on the live events—and ESPN is betting that WWE’s global fanbase, combined with features like multiview and the ESPN/Disney+/Hulu bundle, will help grow its younger, more diverse audience.
The real test begins this Saturday. ESPN is treating Wrestlepalooza like a statement event—wall-to-wall coverage, top-tier talent appearances, and a push to show WWE belongs right alongside the NFL, NBA, and UFC in the sports mainstream.
