Update on Free vs. Paid Availability for WWE Wrestlepalooza on ESPN App

As noted before, WWE’s Wrestlepalooza event on September 20th in Indianapolis, Indiana will be the official debut of WWE PLEs on ESPN’s new streaming service in the United States. While WWE PLEs on ESPN’s new streaming service was initially believed to be free for all of those who get ESPN from their cable and streaming TV providers, this was later revealed to not be the case for certain providers including YouTube TV, Comcast, and DISH Network for the time being.

Awful Announcing reported that a lot of people may end up being unhappy this Saturday thinking they can watch Wrestlepalooza for free due to ESPN has not done a good enough job of telling those who have ESPN that they will still need to spend another $29.99 for a subscription to be able to watch the show due to cable provider issues.

It was reported that Comcast and YouTube TV subscribers will be the largest groups impacted with Comcast having around 12 million and YouTube TV having around 9 million pay TV customers. It was also reported that unless Disney is able to strike new distribution deals with Comcast and Google in the next five days, those subscribers would need to pay to be able to watch Wrestlepalooza.

Besides Comcast and YouTube TV, other notable groups impacted reportedly includes DISH Network, Sling TV, and Cox Cable subscribers.

It was reported that the key issue is ESPN’s failure to clarify their “All of ESPN. All in one place” marketing for their new streaming service and not being able to deliver on that promise to tens of millions of current pay TV subscribers that should be able to authenticate into ESPN’s app.

In regards to Google, it was reported that their current distribution deal with Disney expires next month.

It was reported that ESPN currently appears to be willing to use WWE’s Wrestlepalooza event as a sacrificial lamb to maximize its leverage with pay TV distributors for favorable terms for new deals for their streaming service app.