Nick Khan Confirms WWE Premium Live Events on ESPN Will Have No Extra Fee

WWE is gearing up for a massive streaming shift, but fans can breathe a sigh of relief — they won’t have to pay extra to watch WrestleMania, SummerSlam, or any other Premium Live Event on ESPN’s new platform starting in 2026.

During a conversation with John Ourand on The Varsity podcast, WWE President Nick Khan confirmed that ESPN’s upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service will include all 10 major WWE Premium Live Events each year at no additional cost. Once fans subscribe to ESPN’s platform, they’ll have full access to events like Royal Rumble and Survivor Series without paying a separate pay-per-view fee.

“In 2014, WWE—this is far before I joined—went off traditional pay-per-view and onto its own OTT service, the WWE Network, which was $9.99 a month. There was no upcharge for pay-per-views like WrestleMania anymore. When we did the Peacock deal in 2020, same thing—no upcharge for what were pay-per-views. Same thing here with what has been referred to as ESPN Flagship. You subscribe to that product, you get WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, all of our other premium live events with no upcharge.”

This confirmation comes as ESPN prepares to take over the U.S. streaming rights for WWE Premium Live Events, a major pivot from Peacock’s current deal. For fans, this means a single subscription will cover all the biggest WWE events each year — something Khan believes keeps the experience accessible while still pushing WWE to new audiences through ESPN’s platform.

“Here we are now today with Disney. It’s a whole new frontier for us. We’re excited about it. Obviously between Mark Shapiro, Ari Emanuel, myself, Triple H, we have extensive history with Disney—we think extremely positive history with Disney—and the opportunity to take WWE there, we think, will broaden the horizons and broaden the viewership with all of our fans and new fans coming in.”

With the move to ESPN, WWE is betting big on combining its global fanbase with Disney’s powerhouse streaming presence — but without passing on any extra costs for the events fans love most.

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