As WWE takes its Premium Live Events to ESPN earlier than expected, Peacock won’t be left empty-handed.
In a release on Wednesday, WWE announced that it has reached a “multi-year” partnership for the NBC streaming service to be the exclusive home of Saturday Night’s Main Event. While it’s unclear how many years the new deal is for, the first two Peacock-exclusive editions of SNME will take place on Nov. 1 and Dec. 13, with the latter featuring John Cena’s highly anticipated retirement match.
In addition to Peacock becoming the exclusive home of Saturday Night’s Main Event shows, which were previously broadcast on NBC, WWE announced that the streaming service will be keeping its archives library through the end of 2025 and continue airing NXT Premium Live Events through 2026. Peacock will also retain WWE SmackDown‘s encore rights, with the weekly show currently airing on USA Network in the United States.
“We’re excited to bring Saturday Night’s Main Event exclusively to Peacock beginning this fall,” WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque said in a statement. “NBCU have been terrific longtime partners, and we look forward to continuing to work with them for years to come.”
News of Peacock retaining at least a portion of its WWE programming was first reported by Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp and comes just hours after the pro wrestling giant announced that it will begin its deal for ESPN to air its monthly PLEs earlier than expected. While it was previously believed that the WWE-ESPN partnership would begin with next year’s WrestleMania 42 in April, the TKO-owned company revealed on Wednesday that the deal will start with a newly announced show, Wrestlepalooza, which will air on ESPN’s direct-to-consumer streaming service on Sept. 20.
As for why WWE is able to leave for ESPN so soon, it appears that its soon-to-be-expired deal to air PLEs on Peacock was based on a predetermined number of shows as opposed to a specific length of time. This year has seen WWE extend its PLE calendar by expanding its annual SummerSlam event to two nights and the addition of July’s all-women’s show, Evolution, with its final PLE on Peacock scheduled to take place on Aug. 31 with the Clash in Paris show.
A new home. A new PLE. A new era.
An historic partnership, a major step towards the future!!!@WWE Wrestlepalooza from Indianapolis on September 20 will air LIVE on @espn. pic.twitter.com/jNOAN5Lfoc— Triple H (@TripleH) August 20, 2025
In heading to the Worldwide Leader in Sports, WWE figures to not only receive an annual rights fee of $325 million over the course of the next five years, but also increased exposure from the network’s marketing machine. Meanwhile, monthly WWE PLEs will be one of the core offerings of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer streaming service, which is conveniently set to launch on Thursday.
The post Peacock gets John Cena retirement match, exclusive ‘Saturday Night’s Main Event’ shows as WWE PLEs exit for ESPN appeared first on Awful Announcing.
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