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ESPN execs talk WWE PLE deal: counterprogramming AEW, Brock Lesnar, more

On a media call today (Sept. 17), ESPN senior vice-president JT Lasker and vice-president of programming & acquisitions Matt Kenny discussed the brand’s new partnership with WWE, which starts this week with Saturday’s Wrestlepalooza premium live event.

Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp asked about the decision to run Wrestlepalooza on the same day as AEW’s All Out PPV, and if that would be a strategy’s something we should expect to see more of in the future.

Using UFC as an example, Kenny said schedule-making is usually a lengthy process that ESPN works on collaboratively with partners. That’s how WWE will be handled long-term, but short-term most of their calendar was set for this year. With Wrestlepalooza, ESPN did want a big September event. But for the sports media giant, scheduling that was more about college football than AEW.

“Really, it had less to do with any particular wrestling competition. In fact, we take a holistic view. We know there is competition everywhere. Certainly in the fall on Saturdays…there’s no shortage of college football competition throughout the day, right?

“We’re in the teeth of the football season now, so we welcome competition. We really take a ‘Hey, game on’ approach, and we’re focused on what we can do, in this particular case, to super-serve WWE and wrestling fans on our platforms.”

Lasker then went on to hype the new ESPN app’s “multi-view” functionality as a way users can watch Wrestlepalooza and college football on the service this weekend, indirectly driving home that AEW wasn’t a major consideration in the scheduling of Saturday’s show — at least on their end.

That generally aligns with what WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque told Pat McAfee last week:

“The whole thing came together very quickly. ESPN asked for the date, they wanted a mega-event, we said yes. We just had to pick a name and go.”

Back to today’s call, Kenny also said they wanted to start the deal this month as they launched their new ESPN app and Unlimited streaming service instead of in January of next year. But they had no role in negotiating WWE’s early exit from Peacock. The early start does mean the deal ended in September of 2030, though:

“Our relationship is with the WWE. We have no interaction, engagement, dialogue with the Peacock folks at all.

”I think what was most important for us was the opportunity to have a launch event this fall, and so we were really excited about that, and then, when it was presented to us that there was an opportunity to begin our five-year relationship early, obviously, we were excited about that as well.”

Jon Alba of SI.com’s The Takedown asked about ESPN requesting certain talent for PLEs. Alba used Brock Lesnar, whose return to WWE has drawn criticism online because Lesnar was named in the ongoing sex trafficking civil suit filed against Vince McMahon & WWE by former McMahon girlfriend & WWE employee Janel Grant, as a specific example.

Kenny took a page from John Cena’s book and said ESPN leaves all those decisions to WWE:

“Our relationship with the WWE is such where they have creative control. I think it’s important to provide some context there: we are distributors of the events. It’s not all that dissimilar to the other rights holder relationships we have, where we have relationships with the league. Obviously, a glove, stick & ball league is a little bit different than the combat sports world, as we could all appreciate.

”But in regard to our relationship with the WWE, they retain creative control — which, by the way, we’re fine with, because they have built an incredible business for a long period of time. For as much as I playfully talked about my WWE fandom at the top of the call, I don’t need to be opining on what a script should be to WWE.

“We’re excited about what they do, how they do it, and can’t wait for Saturday.”

In less hot, but no less interesting topics, when asked about ESPN adding the WWE archives to its offering, Kenny indicated they’re strictly focused on the current PLE product:

“I think for us, the rights that we have are for the Premium Live Events and those will be called bankable VOD [Video on Demand] so as the events take place on our platforms, we’ll be able to offer those events on demand, and so that library, our PLE library will build over time.

“But in terms of the broader library, I would direct your question to the WWE to handle. But, we’re excited to start populating, building, curating a robust digital offering for WWE fans on our platforms.”

We’ll see if they widen their focus if bidding on WWE’s older content heats up.