Netflix Makes Huge Deal Leaning Into Live Sports Programming

Netflix made a huge move when the streaming service and WWE agreed to a 10-year, $5 billion deal to stream WWE Raw. The deal will begin in January 2025, and it will be the first time in its 30-plus-year history that Raw will not air on a linear television network. The move likely solidifies Netflix's push into live sports programming.

Raw won't be the first time Netflix will stream live sports. In November, The Netflix Cup premiered, and it's a golf tournament that featured stars from the Netflix docuseries Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Full Swing. The final numbers for the event have not been revealed, but sports programming has been a huge draw for Netflix. Along with Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Full Swing, Netflix has the NFL docuseries Quarterback, which became the streamer's No. 1 show over the summer. The show featured Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cosuins and Marcus Mariotta going through their daily lives during the 2022 NFL season. 

The interesting thing about all this is Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has said it won't make a big push into live sports despite the WWE deal. During Netflix's fourth-quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Sarandos said that WWE is "sports entertainment" and that kind of programming "is right in our sweet spot, which is about the drama of sport," per The Hollywood Reporter. 

"It's really as close to our core as you can get in terms of sports storytelling," Sarandos said, per CNBC. "In terms of the deal itself, it has options and the protections we seek in our general licensing deals, and with economics that we're super happy with globally. So, I would not look at this as a signal of any change to our sports strategy."  

Earlier this month, Gabe Spitzer, a Netflix executive, spoke to The Wrap about having more live sports programming down the road. "Ted Sarandos has been pretty specific. We're not anti-sports, we're pro-profits. It's not something that we plan to change in the near future, as far as I know," Spitzer said.

"We're focused on where we can add the most value — through storytelling, the drama of the sport. We have found a lot of success in what we call "sports shoulder programming," which digs deeper into these intimate stories of who these athletes are and how they deal with successes and setbacks."