WWE ready to begin Netflix era with 'Monday Night Raw' moving to the streaming platform

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Nick Khan’s prediction becomes a reality on Monday night

LOS ANGELES — Nick Khan's prediction becomes a reality on Monday night.

The World Wrestling Entertainment executive said during earning calls in the past that he saw a day when Netflix would continue to evolve and enter into live programming, much to the consternation of Netflix officials.

However, Khan saw the hires that Netflix was making along with the streaming service's offerings that could appeal to all family members.

Now, one of those offerings is the WWE.

The 1,650th episode of “Monday Night Raw” from the Intuit Dome outside of Los Angeles officially kicks off WWE's 10-year partnership with Netflix. The agreement, reached last January, is worth in excess of $5 billion with an option for Netflix to extend for an additional 10 years or opt out after five.

“We try to appeal the WWE to all 50 states and to countries globally. We think Netflix does the same thing," said Khan, who is WWE’s president.

Netflix — which has 282.3 million subscribers in more than 190 countries — becomes the exclusive home of “Raw” in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Latin America, with additional countries to be added over time. The bigger component for Netflix though, is that the streaming platform will carry all of the company’s shows overseas — including “Smackdown” and “NXT” — as well as premium live events like WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Royal Rumble.

In the U.S., “Smackdown” moved to USA Network from Fox and “NXT” from USA to the CW three months ago. Peacock has a contract to carry WWE's premium live events through March 2026.

“Raw” began airing on Jan. 11, 1993, and is the longest running weekly episodic series on television. Most of that time had been on USA