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WWE will move its streaming service to Peacock in the US
WWE Network, the standalone video service from World Wrestling Entertainment, won’t be going it alone for much longer — at least in the United States. Today, WWE and NBCUniversal announced that the service, which offers live streams of pay-per-view events, a large roster of original shows, and a massive vault of past WWE programming, will be integrated into Peacock starting in March. The US version of the WWE Network app will be shut down as part of the deal, which The Wall Street Journal is putting at over $1 billion.
The new tag team results in positives on both sides: WWE will find itself with a wider streaming audience after seemingly hitting a ceiling on WWE Network growth, and Peacock gets a differentiator in the direct-to-consumer streaming wars. For people that currently have both services, well, this move will be a rare case where streaming gets less complicated.
Peacock will launch WWE Network on March 18th — in time for both Fastlane later that month and a two-day WrestleMania 37 in April — and is promising to bring over all of the content to which current WWE Network subscribers have access. That’s no small migration, since we’re talking about decades’ worth of pay-per-views, weekly shows like Monday Night Raw and SmackDown, and original efforts like Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions.
