Under a deal announced Wednesday, ESPN and CW Sport have struck a deal that will see CW Sports, which includes NXT and the brands PLE’s stream on ESPN Unlimited for its US subscribers. Everything is scheduled to begin later this summer with no exact date given.
“Instead of standing up our own DTC product, we have a built-in audience” at ESPN, said Brad Schwartz, President of The CW, during an interview with Variety and The Wrap. He also spoke about the ongoing consumer frustration with audiences having to watch their sports on multiple streaming services. “The last thing the world needs” is another stand-alone streaming outlet. People don’t want to subscribe to another platform.”
CW Sports also includes college football and basketball, NASCAR and more. With the new deal, ESPN will broadcast over 800 hours of sports programming. Per both reports, CW is set to oversee the ads that will air with their programming on the Unlimited app.
Its was also noted by The Wrap, that new episodes of CW’s scripted and unscripted will be available to stream on Roku the day after their premiere starting this fall.
CW has been making sports programming available on their own app. As to whether this continues. The CW will continue to be seen on linear TV in in over 120 million homes.
WWE and the CW announced on Tuesday, the broadcast network will now be the home to NXT PLE’s in a new multi-year deal. The current five-year partnership with WWE and CW began in October 2024.