WWE PLEs could reportedly begin airing on ESPN as early as September

When WWE first announced its new deal for ESPN to become the home of its Premium Live Events, it was presented as if the partnership wouldn’t take effect until next spring.

But as it turns out, that may not be the case, with new reports indicating that WWE PLEs could air on ESPN as early as next month.

The first indication came from PWInsider.com’s Mike Johnson, who published a report on Sunday stating that industry rumors have suggested that a yet-to-be-announced WWE PLE in September could air on ESPN platforms. Bryan Alvarez followed up on the report during Monday’s episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, revealing that he’s heard the show could effectively mark the start of the WWE-ESPN partnership, with PLEs airing on the Worldwide Leader in Sports moving forward.

While it was previously believed that WWE’s preexisting deal to air PLEs on Peacock was set to run until next year’s WrestleMania, Alvarez says he’s been told that the agreement may have already reached its total number of required dates. If that’s the case and there isn’t a timing aspect to the Peacock agreement, then WWE would presumably be free to take its PLEs to ESPN airwaves sooner than expected.

“We’ll find out here soon enough, but I’m hearing that we may have ESPN going forward,” Alvarez said. “I don’t know this 100 percent, but I was kind of given the impression that the way it worked with Peacock was that they were contracted to X number of events and they’ve added events because there’s now like a second night of WrestleMania, there’s a second night of SummerSlam, they added the Evolution show. And so they may have met the quota. We’ll see what happens, but that was the impression that I was given.”

Awful Announcing reached out to WWE regarding the matter but has yet to hear back.

Although the aforementioned PLE — which is expected to take place on Sept. 20, going head-to-head against AEW’s All Out pay-per-view — has yet to officially be announced, all indications are that it will be soon. And when it is, one would expect that it will include information regarding the show’s broadcast, including whether or not it will air on ESPN, which specific platform it will be on and what it means for the status of WWE’s Peacock deal.

The prospect of WWE programming winding up on ESPN sooner than expected would mark a significant development in what already promised to be a transformative deal for the pro wrestling giant. And for ESPN, it could mean another notable offering for its direct-to-consumer streaming service, which will debut on Thursday.