CAN WWE PIN THE WORLD?

AS IT MAKES ITS $5 BILLION NETFLIX DEBUT AND PREPARES FOR A GLOBAL AUDIENCE, WWE IS STILL WRESTLING WITH THE TOXIC LEGACY OF ITS COMPLICATED FOUNDER.

- YASMIN GAGNE

ON AN OVERCAST MORNING THIS PAST JANUARY, DWAYNE "THE ROCK" JOHNSON, WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT'S BIGGEST CROSSOVER SUCCESS, STOOD ON THE SECOND-FLOOR BALCONY OVERLOOKING THE FLOOR OF THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE, SPURRING THE CROWD TO THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE.

HE WAS THERE TO CELEBRATE HIS appointment to the board of TKO Holdings, the conglomerate that talent agency Endeavor had created four months earlier by merging two leagues under its umbrella, WWE and the mixed martial arts league UFC. To his left stood Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood agent, CEO of Endeavor and now TKO, too. To Johnson's right was Vince McMahon, board chairman of TKO.

It was a big day for WWE. That morning, the organization had announced that in January 2025, one of its signature shows, Raw, will move from USA Network to Netflix, where it will air worldwide for the first time. It's part of a larger deal that Netflix forged with the league, representing the streamer's first ever with a live-event franchise. Netflix is paying WWE $5 billion over 10 years, dwarfing the $265 million per year NBCUniversal-owned USA paid for the previous five years.

"It's a real boom [time] for sports rights, in general," says Brandon Riegg, Netflix's head of unscripted and sports content. "It's such a hot category right now." As one of the only types of programming that audiences will still endure heavy advertising to watch, live sports commanded nearly 30% of all U.S. national television ad spending in 2023. And Netflix wants in. The streamer launched its first ad-supported subscription tier in 2022. With Netflix now wooing advertisers, live entertainment-particularly sports-could play an important role. In addition to the WWE deal and the Mike TysonJake Paul bout that took place in November, the streamer will broadcast two NFL games on Christmas Day.