WWE premium live events (PLEs) could begin airing on ESPN much sooner than expected.
When ESPN announced the deal earlier this month, it said that WrestleMania 42 in April 2026 would be the first WWE event to air on its upcoming direct-to-consumer app. However, Wrestling Observer Radio's Bryan Alvarez has heard the plans may have changed.
"We’ll find out here soon enough, but I’m hearing that we may have ESPN going forward," Alvarez said on his podcast Monday.
"I don’t know this 100%, but I was kind of given the impression that the way it worked with Peacock was that they were contracted to X number of events, and they’ve added events because there’s now like a second night of WrestleMania, there’s a second night of SummerSlam, they added the Evolution show. And so they may have met the quota. We’ll see what happens, but that was the impression that I was given."
For clarity, the next WWE PLE, Clash in Paris, will air exclusively on Peacock regardless. The PLE Alvarez's references is rumored for Sept. 20, an event WWE appeared to book last minute to compete head-to-head with AEW's All Out pay-per-view.
PWInsider.com’s Mike Johnson first reported over the weekend that the September PLE would likely take place in Indianapolis on ESPN, featuring John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar.
Still, there's confusion about who exactly will have access to WWE PLEs on ESPN DTC. ESPN says existing cable and satellite subscribers will have access to the service at no extra cost. But, according to several reports, that only includes subscribers of DirecTV, Hulu Live, Charter, FuboTV and Verizon Fios.
If so, that means YouTube TV, Dish Network, and Comcast subscribers would have to pay $29.99 extra a month for WWE content on ESPN. For context, that is more than triple the monthly price for Peacock, which has hosted WWE PLEs since 2021.
"So @espn announced a WWE product today with almost zero explanation of the details and customers now may or may not get it with ESPN. I have Comcast. Somehow I wouldn’t get WWE events. Neither would YouTube customers. But some of you might. No way this holds up. Total mess," Clay Travis said earlier this month.
The new agreement between WWE and ESPN is worth $1.6 billion over five years. ESPN's direct-to-consumer app debuts on August 21.
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