TKO appoints Dwayne Johnson to board of directors; announces Raw rights sale to Netflix

World Wrestling Entertainment is off to a noteworthy start to 2024.

The company made a series of significant announcements Tuesday, on top of a hot television product and other big rumors about the near future of the sports entertainment brand.

WWE first announced that their show Raw would be moving off traditional television for the first time in its over 30 year history, as the rights to the program were sold to Netflix on a te 10-year deal worth over $5 billion.

Netflix will gain the weekly streaming rights to Raw as well as the rights to stream all of WWE’s content, including Smackdown, premium live events and an extensive archive in select countries worldwide.

Raw is known as the longest running weekly episodic television show in history after airing over 1,500 episodes consecutively, largely on the USA Network.

USA will replace Raw with WWE’s other main show Smackdown starting in October.

Raw will not begin airing on Netflix until January 2025 and there is currently no word on where the show will air between its contract with USA ending in October and the new year.

While Netflix has aired live programs before, this will be their first weekly sustained live show. The program is expected to remain on Mondays and will have commercials shown for certain tier subscribers, with higher-tier members continuing to watch matches during the break time.

TKO Holdings Group, the company formed after WWE merged with UFC’s ownership group Endeavor, also announced sweeping changes to it’s board of directors, appointing Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and WWE legend and Hollywood superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as members.

As part of the appointment Johnson has signed a new merchandising contract with WWE and has been granted ownership to “The Rock” nickname which was previously WWE’s intellectual property.

Johnson also returned to WWE programming on January 1st, teasing a Wrestlemania match against his cousin and current WWE Undisputed Universal Champion Roman Reigns.

The announcements come during WWE’s usual yearly boom period, in the three months prior to Wrestlemania starting with the Royal Rumble premium live event on Saturday.

The high price and innovation of the rights announcement caused TKO stock to jump as much as 23.9% early Tuesday, jumping from $77.41 to a high of $95.42 per share upon the opening of the stock exchange.

WWE has a lot of potential within the product over the next few months, with uncertainty involving the Wrestlemania card peaking viewership.

They are also helped by the return to the company of CM Punk after nearly a decade away as well as the advertised return of Brock Lesnar in the coming weeks.

WWE hall of famer Hulk Hogan also teased a potential return to the ring during the Royal Rumble match on Saturday.

WWE is also floating around the rumor mill for potentially negotiating with the biggest star in Japanese wrestling Kazuchika Okada.

New Japan Pro Wrestling announced earlier this month Okada would be leaving the company after an over a decade run. He is the biggest name to potentially jump from Japan to America during his prime.

WWE signing Okada seemed to be an impossibility as recently as earlier this year and his signing could create international buzz to boost the business even higher.

The company is staging its best early in 2024.

Evan Smith is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email ers5828@psu.edu.