ESPN Already Losing HUGE Money On WWE PLEs (WWE News)
New details on the WWE and ESPN relationship.
Just over a month since WWE debuted on ESPN with Wrestlepalooza, and there's some new financial information on how things are going so far for this relationship.
Of course, it was announced back in August that WWE had agreed a deal with ESPN that would see the pro wrestling market leader's Premium Live Events be exclusive to ESPN for the next five years, earning WWE approximately $325 million per year during that time.
Per the Antenna analytics firm, ESPN Unlimited saw 2.1 million new sign-ups between 21 August and 30 September, with all of those new subscribers either paying $29.99 per month or an annual fee of $299.99. That number does not include cable bundle subscribers who signed in to the app.
Speaking on the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said the biggest weekend for new subscriber sign-ups was the weekend of Wrestlepalooza - a PLE that took place on 21 September - and that somewhere in the region of 100,000 to 125,000 of those new ESPN Unlimited subs came directly from Wrestlepalooza.
Meltzer suggested that, should every month follow the same pattern as Wrestlepalooza, this arrangement is worth $35 million per year for ESPN, up against a layout of $325 million per annum. The Observer founder added that ESPN is expected to lose a lot of money in the short term, but that they may be in far better shape in the future - i.e., the hope is that ESPN Unlimited gets to a point where there are 50 million subscribers all paying out $30 per month.
As a comparison, the FOX One direct-to-consumer app also recently launched, bringing in 1.1 million subscribers during that same 21 August to 30 September period, compared to ESPN Unlimited's 2.1 million.
Get over 70% off and three months for free when you sign up to NordVPN here: https://go.nordvpn.net/aff_c?offer_id=704&aff_id=3013&source=WCWREweb