No, WWE’s new ESPN deal won’t cost you $29.99 for PLEs — at least for most ESPN customers

In all likelihood, WWE’s deal to license its Premium Live Events to ESPN won’t actually triple your cost to access the shows.

In fact, there’s a good chance that the recently announced agreement will save you money.

As news broke on Wednesday morning that ESPN’s upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service will become the home of WWE’s PLEs in the U.S. beginning in 2026, there was considerable angst among pro wrestling fans about what the deal means for their budgets. After all, WWE PLEs currently stream on Peacock, which costs between $10.99 and $16.99 per month depending on your tier plan, while the ESPN streaming service is set to cost subscribers $29.99 per month.

But while the price difference is certainly striking, many who are concerned about the PLE cost doubling or even tripling are seemingly unaware that if you already subscribe to ESPN through most Pay TV providers, then you’ll also be able to access the DTC streaming service and its features via authentication at no additional cost. This was stated in both the press release announcing the WWE-ESPN deal, as well as the announcement of the streaming service’s August 21 launch date and is explicitly laid out in an ESPN fact sheet regarding the DTC offering that was published in May.

According to a source with knowledge of the deal, in addition to ESPN DTC unlimited subscribers, customers who subscribe to ESPN via direcTV, Hulu Live, Charter, FuboTV and Verizon Fios will have access to the WWE PLEs via the streaming service. That, however, leaves at least two notable exceptions, with the source confirming that YouTube TV and Xfinity subscribers won’t have access to the WWE PLEs via the authentication process at this time. News of the authentication restrictions was first noted by the Getting Over: Wrestling Podcast.

Meanwhile, WWE president Nick Khan confirmed to Puck’s John Ourand that the PLEs will be available on the WWE streaming service at no additional pay-per-view cost.

So if you’re a YouTube TV customer or don’t subscribe to ESPN via one of the aforementioned services — which is certainly possible in the cord-cutting era — then yes, you will need to pay $29.99 per month to access the streaming service and WWE’s PLEs. But considering that pro wrestling fans have traditionally been some of cable’s most consistent subscribers, it seems plausible that the vast majority of viewers will now be able to drop their Peacock subscriptions (if they so choose) in favor of a streaming service they may already have access to.

Admittedly, the confusion is understandable, as neither ESPN nor WWE have gone out of their way to actively advertise this key aspect of the deal and there will certainly be a sizable portion of fans upset by YouTube TV and Xfinity’s exclusion. Nevertheless, all indications are that the five-year agreement will actually be a positive for most viewers budget-wise — at least the ones who already have access to ESPN through direcTV, Hulu Live, Charter, FuboTV and Verizon Fios.