Peacock’s WWE PLE bid revealed, separate WrestleMania deal was explored
In the wake of Wednesday’s announcement that WWE’s domestic premium live event package is heading to ESPN in April 2026, there is now more information on the efforts made for NBCU/Peacock to retain it.
On Thursday’s Wrestling Observer Live (seen below), our Bryan Alvarez reported that the Peacock bid was “in the neighborhood of $275 million per year.”
It’s unknown if that offer was for five years and the same terms (WWE video library and commitments for both five total documentaries and 250 hours of original programming) Peacock had before that TKO president Mark Shapiro noted ESPN’s package does not include.
As announced, the ESPN deal is for five years at $325 million per year, an increase of $50 million per year without the aforementioned added commitments that can be sold elsewhere which includes NXT PLEs.
Alvarez also noted that WWE was “shopping around WrestleMania as a separate deal” from the PLE package at one point, perhaps with an eye of selling those rights to one partner while the rest of the package went elsewhere.
WWE’s deal with Peacock ends in March 2026 with NBCU’s contract for SmackDown and Saturday Night’s Main Event still current.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.