ESPN App Reportedly Reaches 2.1 Million Subscribers for First Month, More Details on Value From WWE PLEs on ESPN

During today’s Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer had an update on ESPN App subscriber numbers for its first month following its launch, which included WWE Wrestlepalooza. Wrestlepalooza marked the first premium live event between WWE and ESPN as part of their new streaming partnership.

According to Meltzer, the ESPN App reached 2.1 million subscribers in its first month. Meltzer also revealed that the weekend of Wrestlepalooza, the ESPN App picked up 175,000 subscribers. The weekend before the event, it’s said the app added 80,000 subscribers, and the weekend after was 50,000 new subscribers.

Meltzer noted that the fourth weekend following the App’s launch had a bigger amount of new subscribers than the third weekend, confirming that the WWE PLE deal made an impact on the ESPN App’s subscriber base. He estimated that the number of people who subscribed to the ESPN App on that weekend specifically for WWE was likely between about 95,000 to about 125,000 people.

Meltzer pointed out that the value is not based on the revenue ESPN gets from the 30 million subscribers to ESPN and the new ESPN App service due to their existing cable or satellite deals, as ESPN would already have that revenue even without the WWE partnership. Meltzer explained, “They to this is that the value of WWE is not based on the 30 million people who get ESPN already and can get this thing for free because they [ESPN] would have all this revenue without WWE.”

Meltzer added, “That’s of no value because those people were already subscribing. The value of the WWE deal, which is $325 million a year, is based on the number of people who subscribe and stay subscribed for a long — a year, specifically because of WWE.”

He also estimated that if the numbers for later months of ESPN App viewership stay consistent with the first month, he estimated it would make the value of the WWE deal worth about $35 million a year. Meltzer stated, “It’s worth $35 million a year. Now, they’re $325 million a year for $35 million a year of revenue coming from having these WWE events, which is a very bad number.”

Meltzer went on to say that companies making big money streaming investments like ESPN with WWE are losing money on them, but ESPN signed the WWE deal in the hopes it can reach as many as 50 million subscribers down the line, paying about $30 a month for the Unlimited tier. He stated, “That’s why these companies are losing lots of money on this type of stuff, with the idea that down the road when we get 50 million subscribers paying 30 bucks, we’ll be able to afford all this.”

Additionally, Meltzer stated that the value of the WWE revenue to the new ESPN App was “not even close” to the value of what ESPN paid to stream WWE premium live events. However, Meltzer did note that WWE PLEs will likely still be of more value than the UFC streaming deal for Paramount+, which is valued at $1.1 billion, and Meltzer predicted it to be a “giant money loser.”

Meltzer concluded that while it’s good for companies like WWE and sports leagues to be in a position to pull off big money deals so streaming services want to launch their services with their content, the streaming content providers “are losing a lot of money doing this business.”

Also, while the ESPN App is the streaming home for WWE PLEs in the US, Netflix airs the events internationally and overseas.

ESPN acquired the rights to air WWE PLEs earlier this year. The five-year deal kicked off earlier than originally planned with Wrestlepalooza. WWE had reportedly fulfilled its agreement with NBCUniversal’s Peacock agreement for premium live events after splitting WrestleMania and SummerSlam into two nights.

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Dave Meltzer with Wrestling Observer Radio, with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.