Mark Shapiro Claims WWE Audience Tripled After Netflix Deal

Mark Shapiro isn’t ignoring the criticism surrounding WWE after its merger with TKO Group Holdings — but he’s making one thing clear: the numbers are telling a very different story.

During a Q&A session with students at the University of Alabama, the TKO President addressed growing concerns that WWE’s shift toward big media deals and partnerships may be changing the product too much. Shapiro didn’t entertain the debate — instead, he pointed to what he says is massive growth across the board since the merger.

“WWE has grown in every way. It's growing in financial results, but more importantly, it's grown in audience, it's grown with social, it's growing stars, it's growing clicks, views, short form video. I mean, it's really exploded.”

Shapiro then got specific about where that growth is coming from — and zeroed in on one move that he says changed everything: Monday Night Raw landing on Netflix.

“And the reason for that is it was really just on Peacock in usa. And now since tko, we did a new deal, which put Raw, our big Monday night show, on Netflix, tripled our audience.”

According to Shapiro, that deal is just part of a bigger play. WWE content is now spread across multiple major platforms, which he says is expanding reach in a major way. He pointed to SmackDown airing on USA Network and NXT moving to The CW as key pieces of that strategy.

“We put SmackDown, we renewed, which is our Friday night show, we put that on USA and we put our developmental, which is called NXT on CW and CW has 100 million homes. So it really grew NXT.”

Bottom line from Shapiro — WWE isn’t slowing down to answer critics. The focus is on expanding the audience across TV, streaming, and digital, even if the direction sparks debate. With deals stacking up and distribution growing, WWE’s leadership is clearly betting on scale over everything else.

So where do you stand — is WWE actually getting bigger and better with these moves, or do you think something’s being lost along the way? Let us know.

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