Netflix just pinned its streaming rivals

Wanna know what it’s like to get knocked out by an RKO? Every streaming service that isn’t Netflix might know the feeling.

Yesterday, Netflix announced a $5 billion deal with WWE, cementing its position as the winner of the streaming wars. The 10-year agreement will bring WWE’s flagship show, Monday Night Raw, to the platform in the US, UK, Canada, and Latin America in 2025.

This means that Raw, which may or may not continue on Monday nights on Netflix, will not air on linear TV for the first time in its 31-year history.

• Netflix will also stream all WWE shows, like SmackDown and NXT, outside the US.
• Annual live events, including WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Royal Rumble—in addition to documentaries and other WWE projects—will all be on Netflix.

What’s next for the ’flix?

The deal marks Netflix’s largest foray yet into live sports, after years of its executives saying the company wasn’t interested in sports rights. (They said their platform wouldn’t have ads either—look how that turned out.)

If a landmark wrestling deal wasn’t enough for one day, Netflix also posted its Q4 earnings, headlined by 13.1 million new subscribers—its largest Q4 increase ever, blowing past estimates of 8–9 million. Its stock jumped more than 8% in after-hours trading.

In a letter to its shareholders, Netflix basically said “good luck” to other streamers that consider teaming up to take down the king…

• The company said it has no interest in “acquiring linear assets” and that further media consolidation won’t “materially change the competitive environment.”
• Netflix maintained that it’s bullish on investing in new content at a time when other streaming platforms are cutting back. (Though Netflix has done some trimming of its own.)

We’ll do it live: Netflix is hosting the 30th annual SAG Awards show in February, and the Netflix Slam, a tennis match between Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, in March. Hopefully those go better than the Love Is Blind reunion.