WWE set up for huge "hotly contested" deal soon, according to executive

WWE has been in the middle of securing several deals in recent months, and it appears that TKO is already planning for what's next as well.

TKO President and CEO Mark Shapiro spoke at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media and Telecom Conference, where he mentioned that the company was set up for its next big deal soon. It appears that they have detected the next big deal that the company can make to earn a great deal.

Recently, WWE secured a deal with the USA Network to broadcast SmackDown once the current agreement ends. They also announced a deal that would see The CW broadcasting regular NXT programming, and Netflix secured the broadcasting rights for WWE RAW. The last one, in particular, saw the red brand valued at $5 billion over 10 years.

Mark Shapiro said the company's current agreement with NBCU to air their Premium Live Events on Peacock was underpriced. He added that neither WWE nor NBCU were to blame as the market had caught up to the deal. However, the monthly events were performing at an excellent level for NBCU and higher than the expectations they had initially had when the agreement was signed.

He added that there was an "insatiable demand" for the rights when they finally came up in 2026. They would be looking to renew with NBCU as they had been great partners. The deal was initially signed in January 2021. Shapiro also said that it would be a "hotly-contested property" when the time came to negotiate for a new contract.

All of this has been happening on the business side, while Triple H has mainly focused on the company's creative aspect, resulting in the boom in WWE's popularity. He completely took over the creative side last year after the Endeavor merger. The Game was also involved in the discussion for RAW rights.

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Mark Shapiro on WWE's future deal

The TKO CEO said that with Netflix having international rights from January 2025, the question of a domestic deal would come up when the PLE agreement was up.

He added that they wanted to walk with Netflix before they ran, indicating that the company still wants to see how RAW does with the streaming platform, and they are hoping for a strong start.

He also said they would talk to other companies about PLE rights if NBCU didn't renew.