WWE’s Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon has commented on the success of WWE’s merger with the Peacock Network.
The link up between WWE and Peacock was announced back in January, and was said to be worth upwards of one billion dollars. The joint venture came into effect on March 18th and saw Peacock host the WWE Network in the United States.
Speaking to Leaders In Sport as part of their ‘Leaders Week’ Stephanie McMahon delved into the positives behind the deal. McMahon explained that WWE always wants to be slightly ahead of the curve, and that the deal means WWE can focus on what they do best.
“WWE always wants to be slightly ahead of the curve. Not so far ahead of the curve that people don’t understand what we’re doing and certainly not behind. We were one of the first to launch our direct-to-consumer property WWE Network over seven years ago and we’re one of the first to now license our content to Peacock, working with best-in-class partners NBCU, who have been our partners for over 30 years. This enables us to also not have to be competitive in the technology streaming environment and allows us to do what we do best which is content production and storytelling,”
However, McMahon also revealed that there has been one notable downside to the venture. Mainly that WWE have access to less data now that Peacock hosts the WWE Network.
“It’s consistent that we’re still getting our data, not as much data, so maybe that is a little bit of a downside, but when you think about the economics, scale, reach, and added value for our fans — our fans were paying $9.99 per month for all of WWE Network. Now, with Peacock, if they want to continue to pay $9.99 they certainly can for the ad-free model, but they also get all the additional content across Peacock. They can also do the $4.99 model, which is ad-supported, or the free model. It’s added value for our fans, economic scale and reach for WWE and reaching more people and bringing them into the fold,”
The deal with Peacock has received a mixed reception from fans online. Some have had difficulties accessing WWE content, while others have taken issue with WWE editing out controversial moments from it’s video library.
H/t to Fightful for the transcription