WWE In Talks To Sell PPV Rights To Another Major Streaming Service?
Well...there goes the WWE Network as we know it.
WWE are in talks to sell their PPV rights to another 'major' streaming service, according to The Wrap.
Vince McMahon announced the news to investors in the Q4 earnings call earlier on Thursday, saying there was "No better time to exercise the selling of our rights".
When asked whether WWE was looking to sell the rights to their PPVs outside of the WWE Network, Vince McMahon responded; “Well, we have a lot of options. We could continue on as we are now, with a … free tier and a more enhanced paid tier".
"Right now there’s no more better time to exercise the selling of our rights to all the majors who, quite frankly, all the majors are really clamoring for our content. So that could be a significant increase, obviously, in terms of revenue.”
Vince hinted that if a deal to sell WWE's PPV rights were to happen it would likely be announced soon.
Earlier in the call it was announced that WWE would be evaluating 'strategic alternatives for the Company’s direct-to-consumer service, WWE Network' and the company's growth in 2019 had been 'partially offset' by a 'decline in WWE Network subscription revenue.'
The 1.42 million network subscribers, down 10% from last year, doesn't make for pretty reading and McMahon looks to be changing things up in order to profit in spite of the dying concept.
So, it looks as though the company may be set to sell off one of the biggest drawing factors of the WWE Network in the form of the company's PPV's and this comes off the back of NXT being sold off to the USA Network earlier this year.