ESPN’s blockbuster five-year agreement to become the exclusive U.S. home for WWE’s Premium Live Events (PLEs) beginning in 2026 has rewritten the media math for pro wrestling — and it has left one of the sport’s most valuable assets, the vast WWE video library, suddenly up for grabs. The ESPN pact (reported at roughly $1.6 billion across five years) secures WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam and other marquee shows for ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer service, but it does not automatically include WWE’s historical archive. That latter prize — thousands of hours of pay-per-views, classic TV, NXT tapes and original documentaries — remains in play and will be shopped separately once existing Peacock rights expire.
On August 6, 2025, ESPN and WWE announced a landmark U.S. rights agreement that will move WWE’s PLEs to ESPN platforms starting in 2026 and make those events a central feature of ESPN’s new $29.99/month direct-to-consumer service. The arrangement covers the biggest live spectacles in modern pro wrestling and positions ESPN to use those events as anchor programming across linear and streaming windows. That announcement immediately raised a follow-on question: what happens to WWE’s back catalog — the “WWE Network” style archive that Peacock has hosted in the U.S. since 2021? Trade reporting makes the timeline clear: Peacock’s licensing arrangement with WWE runs until March 2026, and the library’s U.S. home beyond that date has not been finalized.
Within days of the ESPN PLE announcement, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro addressed media about the deal and explicitly signaled interest in additional WWE content. On The Ringer’s Press Box podcast, Pitaro said ESPN will have archival rights for the events it airs and that the company “certainly would be interested” in bidding for the rest of WWE’s library when those rights come up for sale. That wording is important: it’s an executive expression of strategic interest, not a signed contract for the archive.
Industry reporting indicates WWE and parent company TKO plan to shop the library (and some NXT PLE elements) separately from the ESPN live-events package. Trade outlets name Netflix as an obvious suitor — Netflix already has sweeping international rights for WWE content and the scale to absorb a large catalog — but several bidders could evaluate different slices (U.S. rights vs. global rights vs. curated thematic packages). Peacock/NBCUniversal, which currently holds U.S. archive rights through March 2026, will naturally be part of the negotiation landscape but it’s now competing after losing the PLE deal.
Peacock will continue to host WWE’s U.S. streaming inventory — including the on-demand WWE archive, historic pay-per-views, NXT on-demand content and related documentary programming — until the underlying licensing agreement expires in March 2026. In short: fans can rely on Peacock as the home for WWE’s U.S. vault up to that contractual cutoff, but the library’s future placement after that date is unresolved and subject to bidding and territorial carve-outs. Internet rumors and forum posts have tried to pin an exact removal date; treat those as unverified. The authoritative frame is the licensing-expiration window — March 2026 — not third-party site scraped timestamps.
A deep sports-entertainment archive is pure strategic value for a direct-to-consumer business: it reduces subscriber churn, provides evergreen content for slow calendar periods, fuels retrospective and documentary programming, and creates cross-promotional packages around live events. ESPN has said as much publicly: WWE helps “plug in some holes” and attract younger viewers to the platform. That explains Pitaro’s interest. Netflix’s international footprint and prior WWE deals make it the most-often-named suitor in trade coverage. But buying a library isn’t simple. WWE’s archives include third-party music, footage acquired from other promotions (WCW, ECW, regional tapes), and territory-specific licensing already sold to partners. Any suitor must untangle rights, clear music and promos, and structure a geographically complex contract — work that can reduce the number of rights that move immediately and raise the price of acquisition.
In the short term, the next three to six months should bring trade reporting and company briefings to clarify whether Peacock will extend or the archive will be formally put on the block. Expect exploratory talks with Netflix, ESPN and possibly other streamers. By late 2025 or early 2026, with Peacock’s March 2026 contract expiry looming, any new U.S. destination would have to be finalized. Possible outcomes range from a single U.S. buyer bundling archival rights with PLEs, to splitting the library by territory, to staggered licensing where only selected chunks move initially. Trade coverage currently leans toward staggered or territorial solutions.
ESPN’s PLE agreement is real, transformative and immediate in its effect on where American viewers will watch WrestleMania and other tentpoles in 2026 and beyond. The WWE video library, however, remains the prize that could redraw the long-term streaming map for wrestling — and it’s not yet sold. Peacock will continue to host the library in the U.S. through March 2026 under the current contractual schedule; after that, WWE/TKO will decide whether to roll the archive into ESPN’s ecosystem, sell pieces to Netflix or another buyer, or execute a more complex, territory-by-territory strategy. Fans and rights watchers should expect rolling announcements between now and early 2026 as the bids and negotiations take shape.
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