With Its WWE Deal, the Netflix Pivot Is Full

A couple of years in the past, Netflix fine-tuned its formula for success: authentic content material, no reside TV, no adverts, and an unequalled library of films and sequence that it will possibly air across the globe. As not too long ago as final 12 months, it largely caught to that plan. However because the streaming wars have advanced, the corporate has more and more welcomed different peoples’ motion pictures and reveals onto its platform. And after dabbling in livestreaming with a Chris Rock special, a brand new cope with WWE to stream Monday Evening Uncooked for the following 10 years reveals simply how totally Netflix has rewritten its personal rulebook.

Right this moment, Netflix announced it is going to be the brand new dwelling of Uncooked starting in 2025. The deal will reportedly cost Netflix $5 billion over its lifetime. Coupled with a recent increase within the variety of reveals its licensing from sometimes-competitors, and its current introduction of ad-supported tiers, the transfer demonstrates that Netflix’s new recipe appears extra like: authentic content material, outdated episodes of Fits, and even sports activities—or a minimum of, the “sports activities leisure” that WWE makes a speciality of.

Netflix’s play right here could be very on pattern. For months now streaming companies have been vying to stock up on reside sports activities choices. Amazon wager huge—like $1 billion per year for 11 years huge—on the NFL’s Thursday Evening Soccer video games. Apple TV+ is all in on Main League Soccer. Hulu, as a result of it shares a guardian with ESPN, has been providing sports activities by way of Hulu + Reside TV. Final fall, Max introduced a partnership with Bleacher Report to supply a sports activities add-on that enables customers to look at the video games Warner Bros. Discovery gives by way of its TBS and TNT community (learn: NBA and NHL video games). This 12 months’s Tremendous Bowl can be streamed on Paramount+. The checklist is lengthy.

Sports activities, nonetheless, are simply a part of the about-face Netflix is pulling—and it’s not the one one. Within the early years of streaming, Netflix grew its subscriber numbers with assist from content material it licensed from different studios: The Workplace, Mates. In response to these studios forming their very own streaming companies—and to get round international licensing points—Netflix went full-throttle on originals.

Final 12 months, that tide turned again. Warner Bros. Discovery licensed HBO reveals like Insecure and Six Ft Underneath to Netflix. Disney licensed some shows to the streamer too. And Netflix wanted them. Netflix spends roughly $17 billion on content, each authentic and licensed, per 12 months, however quite a lot of the hours spent watching are nonetheless spent on licensed properties. Netflix originals have gained floor in recent times, comprising 53 p.c of complete sequence viewing time on the platform in 2022, up from 22 p.c in 2017. However authentic content material is extra of a big gamble than a identified amount like Fits, and Netflix-produced motion pictures specifically have had a combined report of success.

Going into 2024, it appears as if licensing is “in vogue again,” as Warner Bros. Discovery content material gross sales head David Decker advised The New York Occasions. Studios received cash for his or her reveals, Netflix received these reveals in entrance of viewers. John Mass, president of funding fund Content material Companions, told The Los Angeles Times in December that the streaming wars had been over, “and Netflix has come out on prime.”