Dwayne ”The Rock” Johnson and John Cena in motion during WrestleMania XXVIII at Sun Life Stadium on April 1, 2012 in Miami Gardens, Florida.
Ron Elkman | sports Imagery | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos desires to make one thing clear in regards to the company’s deal to license WWE’s Raw for the subsequent ten years: Skilled wrestling is not sports.
“WWE is sports entertainment,” Sarandos clarified during Netflix’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call. “It’s really as near our core as you’ll be able to get by way of sports storytelling. When it comes to the deal itself, it has options and the protections we seek in our general licensing deals, and with economics that we’re super completely happy with globally. So, I might not take a look at this as a signal of any change to our sports strategy.”
After Netflix and WWE parent company TKO Group announced the deal Tuesday morning, it sparked questions on whether Netflix would try to purchase streaming rights for one in every of the most important sports leagues. But Sarandos repeatedly tried to place those discussions to rest.
Netflix has held some preliminary discussions with the National Basketball Association for possible streaming packages that will arise because the NBA renews its media rights later this yr, CNBC reported in October. Still, given the league’s desire to limit itself to a few media partners, Netflix likely would not play a serious role in negotiations, CNBC reported on the time.
Sarandos’s comments suggest Netflix won’t be a near-term player in those talks or any others regarding traditional live sports rights. Netflix has dived in to “sports adjoining” programming, constructing documentary series around Formula 1 and skilled tennis, golf, cycling and football.
Netflix paid more than $5 billion for 10 years of WWE’s Raw and other international programming. The deal has an out clause for Netflix after five years, and includes an option for Netflix to increase for an extra 10 years.
Sarandos called the WWE Raw deal “the inverse of Formula 1,” as WWE is popular within the U.S. and has a comparatively small international audience.
“We will construct [WWE] like now we have with Formula 1 through our shoulder programming,” Sarandos said. “Now, the events themselves are the storytelling with WWE. So, it is a proven formula for us.”
Still, Netflix executives have developed a repute for changing their mind on key business issues. For years, Netflix stayed away from promoting and cracking down on password sharing. They’ve reversed course on each subjects lately.
The move to pay a large rights deal is a transparent shift for Netflix. Pushing into traditional sports could eventually be a logical step for the corporate — irrespective of what Sarandos said Tuesday.
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