Nick Khan & Mark Shapiro Weigh In On How WWE’s Partnership With ESPN Has Played Out So Far

WWE/TKO execs weigh in.

WWE’s partnership with ESPN officially kicked off with the Wrestlepalooza Premium Live Event airing on ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer service in September. The app has since aired the Crown Jewel: Perth PLE and will host Survivor Series: WarGames on 11/29.

How the partnership has played out thus far was delved into during the Q3 2025 TKO Earnings call. WWE President Nick Khan and TKO President/C.O.O. Mark Shapiro had the following to say on the matter:

Khan: “So, by the way, we’re thrilled with the start of it. So it’s obviously a new product, it’s a new platform. If you noticed any of the promotion going into our first event with them, Wrestlepalooza, which is a new event for us, which we’re really pleased with, you saw wall-to-wall coverage on all the ESPN platforms. So much so that on College GameDay, the morning of Wrestlepalooza, you had the entire panel, Pat McAfee, Coach (Nick) Sabin, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Rece Davis, all predicting the winner of Brock Lesnar versus John Cena. It was phenomenal. It’s gonna take time for ESPN to grow that platform the way that they wanna grow it. We’re patient. We’ll continue to put on our product the way that we think only we can do, and let’s see where we can end up.”

Shapiro: “ESPN can be one of the best marketing partners in the media space, when they strategize and get behind something. We’ve seen that firsthand with the UFC, and to Nick’s point, Wrestlepalooza was an incredible launch. Great for our brand, great exposure. Out there in some of their most prominent shows with some of their most prominent talent promoting our event. We wanna sustain that, we need to sustain that, and I think, at the same time, it’s extremely important to us, and we’re watching like everybody else, to see that if they renew a lot of their distribution partner deals, that they get the ability to authenticate for free. So, ESPN, D-to-C, if you’re a so-and-so subscriber — I’m not gonna get into who has it and who doesn’t — some of these folks can just authenticate and they get the D-to-C partnership for free. So, you just carry the app, and others are paying $29.99, and it’s their goal of course to redo all their transition deals and get these consents, and we’re anxious to see that happen. YouTube TV is a prime example of that.”

There have yet to be match announcements made for Survivor Series: WarGames. The event is taking place at Petco Park in San Diego, California.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the original source with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.