Just a few days before a WWE Premium Live Event (PLE) airs on ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer streaming service for the first time ever with Wrestlepalooza, executives from the sports company fielded questions from the wrestling media.
The 40-minute discussion was wide-ranging, with ESPN’s Matt Kenny and John Lasker discussing Brock Lesnar, the multi-year deal’s early start, and many other topics. A full recording of the call can be listened to, thanks to Fightful:
Early in the call, the ESPN executives were asked whether Wrestlepalooza was intentionally booked on the same day as AEW’s All Out pay-per-view takes place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. WWE has aired events on the same day as AEW PPVs in recent months, with Wrestlepalooza being the latest in the trend.
Kenny said that the event’s date and timing were unrelated to specific wrestling competition.
“In this particular case, we were just laser-focused on launching WWE,” Kenny said. “We knew we wanted to have a marquee WWE event in September to support the launch of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer offering, as J.T. mentioned before. So, really, it had less to do with any particular wrestling competition. In fact, we take a holistic view. We know there’s competition everywhere, and certainly in the fall in Saturdays, I don’t need to explain to this group, there’s no shortage of college football competition throughout the day. And we’re in the teeth of the football season now. So, we welcome competition. We really take a ‘game-on’ approach, and we’re focused on what we can do in this particular case to super-serve WWE and wrestling fans on our platform.”
How will you be able to watch Wrestlepalooza?
A big question heading into this weekend’s show was how fans would be able to obtain access to ESPN’s new DTC service. The new ESPN Unlimited platform is meant to bridge the gap between cord-cutters and current cable subscribers, giving them all access to the same ESPN content for the first time.
ESPN plans that, eventually, anyone who pays for ESPN programming through their cable provider will be able to access ESPN Unlimited without an extra charge. However, with only select cable services onboard currently, that’s not how things are fully set up.
Lasker outlined the ways to access it today: Subscribe to ESPN Unlimited independent of a cable plan, or “authenticate” your ESPN subscription using credentials from your TV provider. Lasker clarified that, for the latter of those two options, ESPN is “in the process of rolling that accessibility out,” and not every service is currently available to be used to access ESPN Unlimited.
“Spectrum, DirecTV, Fubo TV, Hulu Live TV, and Verizon Fios, all subscribers of those services today can validate their ESPN subscription through those services and get access,” Lasker explained.
For others, like Youtube TV subscribers, they said the aim is to allow those subscribers to access the product in the next couple of months.
Brock Lesnar’s appearance, early start to deal and more
During the scrum, ESPN executives were asked if the network has any influence over who WWE specifically decides to use on their PLEs. This question was specifically raised considering Brock Lesnar’s involvement in a singles match against John Cena this Saturday, his first in-ring appearance since being named in a sex trafficking lawsuit filed against Vince McMahon and WWE.
“For us, our relationship with the WWE is such where they have creative control … We are distributors of the events, it’s not all that dissimilar to all the other rightsholder relationships we have,” Kenny explained.
ESPN’s deal with WWE was initially expected for 2026, and only recently was confirmed to start in September, ending WWE’s PLE deal with NBCUniversal months earlier than first planned.
Kenny explained that they had no “interaction, engagement, dialogue” with Peacock regarding such a move, but were excited once told by WWE about the possible early start.
“When it was presented to us that there was an opportunity to begin our five-year relationship early, obviously we were excited about that.”
Kenny clarified that the early start to the deal did not affect the length of the agreement. It is still a five-year term, he explained.
Late in the call, the executives were asked if ESPN reporters would be given independence to how they report on WWE. “Unequivocal yes,” Kenny said. “That’s separation of church and state.”
