Ari Emanuel Says WWE Originally Considered Taking NXT Brand to Netflix

In an interview with the Pat McAfee Show (via Fightful, TKO executive Ari Emanuel said that WWE originally had talks with Netflix about bringing NXT to the streaming service. In the end, NXT went to the CW while Netflix acquired Monday Night RAW.

Emauneul said: “I had a breakfast with Bella. She runs all of content programming underneath [Netflix CEO] Ted Sarandos at Netflix. We did a presentation to her, and all of a sudden, we first started talking about NXT, and it immediately moved to Raw. Over Christmas a year and a half ago, we’re on Zoom, it’s all approved, we have to have a conversation with Ted Sarandos, he’s in London seeing Stranger Things play. We get on Zoom, [Mark] Shapiro and I, he’s with his CFO, it all gets done, we hang up the phone, we do a jig.”