According to analyst Laura Martin, Amazon could be looking to jump in the wrestling ring, by buying World Wrestling Entertainment’s streaming rights which would give them an incredible partner within the growing streaming world, according to CNBC.
Amazon already owns Twitch, and with the millions of Twitch channels already generating monumental profits, the industry giant could be looking to do a bit more to push back from competitors such as YouTube, and Mixer, who has had their own monumental year by bringing big names to their mixer channels platform.
Martin says that while Amazon could just buy the streaming rights, they also could buy the entire WWE someday.
“We believe that such a licensing deal would put AMZN in the best spot to purchase all of WWE, whenever the family is ready to exit,” Martin said. “Vince McMahon is currently 74 years old, going on 50.”
There is no denying the WWE’s staying power, or their global popularity. The WWE Network’s streaming platform could be a big boon to a company such as Amazon, who are pouring more resources into their own programming.
“WWE’s live programming is highly differentiated and its Raw, Smackdown and NXT brands are worth more than being any one of 500 series that have no builtin audience or brand,” Martin said.
WWE has seen a significant dip in their stock, more than 30%, and with McMahon focusing on his relaunch of the XFL football league, WWE could be looking to team up with a larger entity to build a massive future.
For Amazon, diversifying Twitch content has been at the forefront. Not only does the streaming platform cater to more than just content creators who play video games and stream, but there is a growing number of ASMR streams, IRL streams, and even a rise of fitness streams to demonstrate just how diverse the content is becoming. Furthermore, their TwitchCon event is quickly becoming a “must” convention for streamers.
Adding professional wrestling, along with their diehard audience, could be the recipe for a major power shift in the streaming landscape.