It’s a big day for WWE as the company announced that their premium live events will be heading to ESPN’s new streaming service in 2026. The deal is massive for WWE as it’s been reported that ESPN will paying $325 million dollars a year for the streaming rights to WWE PLEs in the United States.
After the announcement was made Pat McAfee took to social media to congratulate WWE and ESPN, and he also took aim at ESPN executives when he posted the following:
“Congrats to the @WWE and @espn on getting a historic PLE deal done.
Great to see 2 powerhouses of sports and entertainment come together.
I assume all the mid level, powerless, bum a** suits at ESPN will attempt to muddy this somehow (out of context leaks/ignorant anonymous opinions/etc.) but, in the end.. this agreement will outlive the dinosaurs currently guarding desks in Bristol and this deal will be great for ESPN.
Cheers to the future”
Earlier this year Pat McAfee returned to the WWE announce table alongside Michael Cole when Raw premiered on Netflix. However, McAfee took a step away from his duties with WWE following Money in the Bank. Last month Pat McAfee addressed his status with WWE when he noted that he had to take a break due to exhaustion.
“I got really tired. I hit [a wall]. I’ve been going since Dublin. They started Raw early, and I’m like an energy guy. I don’t need a lot of sleep. I just got to Money in the Bank in LA and I was on the East Coast for TST, then I went down to Paris Island, then I went to LA for Money in the Bank, and I could just feel it. ‘Oh my God, my brain is not operating right now.’
“I talked to others that maybe experienced mental exhaustion before whenever they had it. I talked to them and been like, ‘I’m staring down what you went through. I knew this moment was going to happen at some point.’ It happens to people. I talked to people about it happening and what they went through when it happened.”