Peacock today shared more details on how it will integrate WWE’s huge range of content later this month when WWE Network becomes part of the NBCUniversal streaming service.
As announced in January, WWE’s new portal on Peacock will launch from March 18th. The standalone WWE Network app will close a few weeks later on April 4 in the United States. This means that current subscribers can use the old app for the upcoming WWE Fast track pay-per-view this month if they want to. But come WrestleMania 37, taking place on April 10 and 11, Peacock will be the only choice. There’s no way to transfer a WWE Network subscription to Peacock, but the company offers an exclusive deal to wrestling fans to facilitate the move.
It will look like Peacock, but it feels familiar to WWE fans
What Peacock intends to showcase WWE programming, you see a new ‘WWE’ page in the browsing section. Once selected, the usual carousels of popular shows and composite events are shown. This is all that Peacock’s user interface has, but the two businesses are constantly in communication about what content they want to highlight.
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Image: Peacock
Peacock said it would eventually be home to just about everything available on the WWE Network today – but the transition is not going to be immediate. There will be noticeable omissions in the early days. For the March 18 launch, Peacock subscribers will have access to the following:
Every PPV event in the past calendar year; current or most recent episodes of the original WWE series Steve Austin’s The Broken Skull Sessions, WWE Chronicle, and WWE Icons; in-ring action with new weekly episodes of NXT the day after the sky, as well as the 2021 iterations of RAW and Consider 30 days to air; groundbreaking documentaries, including Undertaker: The Last Ride, WWE 24, and WWE Untold; reality series, including Total Bellas; as well as collections of well-known series, current moments such as the “Stone Cold” Steve Austin Week, and playlists showcasing the current Superstars.
You’re waiting a few months for all the pay-per-views
This is the bad news: WWE Network’s big vault of WWE, WCW and ECW pay-per-views is not ready for the first day. Instead, Peacock promises to have all that content ‘available in advance’ SummerSlam, ”Which is in August. That means pro wrestling fans can go a few weeks without looking at past events, as the WWE Network app will be a history in the US. (The international version will continue as today.)
The exception to this is WrestleMania; all previous WrestleMania events will be available during the launch on Peacock.
Match markers are no longer there
Another possible disappointment for regular viewers to WWE network is that PPVs and shows on demand will no longer be broken up with ‘markers’ to separate them into different segments that are easy to skip. Instead, each will be just one long stream. (Peacock tells me he’s working on visual scrub bar previews to help viewers find what they want when they’re fast forwarding through WWE videos.)
Search will not be as comprehensive as on WWE Network
And lastly, search on Peacock will not be as robust as on WWE Network. While WWE Network may have you in the search bar for a specific match or WWE superstar, it will not be on Peacock at least initially. This is something fans can expect to improve in the coming months. But even then, it might not quite match what was possible on WWE Network.
Get discounts during WWE’s move to Peacock
Peacock acknowledges that more work needs to be done to satisfy the hearts of the WWE network. To help sweeten the pot, it offers exclusive discounts to WWE fans. They can get four months Peacock Premium for a fixed amount of $ 9.99. It breaks down to $ 2.50 a month. Peacock Premium normally costs $ 4.99 a month, which in itself is still less than the WWE Network’s long-standing subscription of $ 9.99 a month.
There would always be compromises in this Peacock and WWE tag team, and I think I treated the most important ones that fans care about here. Plugging a service specifically tailored to a very specific audience into a more general streaming app poses challenges. Also remember that we are still talking about the launch experience; it is possible that Peacock will go back and add some of this feature if customers are satisfied. I also hope that other features that WWE Network has never really achieved (like offline downloads) will become a reality on Peacock.