OTTs pick live sport to expand subscribers

GRADUALLY ALL LIVE SPORTS WILL MOVE TO STREAMING. THE SHIFT IS PART OF A GLOBAL DEAL BETWEEN WWE AND NETFLIX

- Shuchi Bansal

In a virtual press meet last week, Netflix announced the launch of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programming on its platform in India. The shift is part of a global deal between WWE and Netflix which started streaming WWE content in the US, UK and Canada from January. In India, WWE moved to Netflix from Sony's sports TV channels from April 1. Sony was home to WWE's marquee events 'WrestleMania', 'SummerSlam' and its popular weekly shows like 'Raw' for the last 10 years.

Broadcast Audience Research Council did not share WWE's latest TV ratings but a 'Scroll' report in 2019 said India has 335 million unique TV viewers for WWE annually with 34% of the audience between ages 15 and 30. WWE fan base comes from India's tier 2 and tier 3 cities in states like Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.

On why Netflix picked WWE, Brandon Riegg, vice president, non-fiction series & sports, at Netflix, said, "WWE are best-in-class story-tellers and sports entertainers. Their audiences have been incredibly consistent for decades...WWE made a lot of sense for us."