The CW has picked up the exclusive broadcast rights to all WWE NXT Premium Live Events, with the multi-year agreement covering 20 shows and kicking off with this summer’s Great American Bash. WWE and the network confirmed the deal in a joint announcement Tuesday morning out of Burbank.
It’s a first. NXT’s premium live events, the developmental brand’s marquee shows, have never aired on broadcast television before. Stand and Deliver, Deadline, and Vengeance Day are all part of the package.
The new arrangement extends a relationship that started in October 2024, when The CW signed a five-year deal to carry the weekly NXT broadcast on Tuesday nights from 8 to 10 p.m. ET. With PLEs now folded in, every piece of NXT programming sits on the same network for the first time.
Brad Schwartz, president of The CW, framed the addition as a logical next step. “WWE NXT has energized our Tuesday nights by consistently delivering a loyal and passionate fanbase to The CW every week,” he said in the announcement. “Adding WWE NXT Premium Live Events to our schedule is a natural fit, providing one broadcast destination for audiences to watch all their favorite Superstars, storylines and championship matches.”
WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels, who runs NXT creative as senior vice president of talent development, called the broadcast jump a milestone for the brand. “The CW has played an integral role in raising the profile of our up-and-coming Superstars, and we are excited to bring NXT Premium Live Events to broadcast television for the first time ever,” he said.
The route NXT’s PLEs have taken to get here is unusual. They lived on Peacock for years behind a paywall, then shifted to YouTube last month, and now they’re heading to free over-the-air television. That means anyone with an antenna can watch a Tony D’Angelo title defense or see whether Lola Vice keeps the NXT Women’s Championship.
NXT performs unusually well for The CW. According to the network, the show’s October 2024 broadcast debut pulled the program’s largest audience since October 2023, and ranked as The CW’s number one telecast of the year among adults 25-54 and 18-49.
The deal also fits the network’s broader live-sports push under Schwartz. The CW already carries the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, ACC, Pac-12 and Mountain West college football and basketball, AVP beach volleyball, the PBR Team Series, and PBA bowling. Front Office Sports reported the network is on track for nearly 690 hours of sports programming in 2026.
The talent pipeline argument tracks with WWE’s pitch. NXT, launched in 2012 by current chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, fed several names into this month’s WrestleMania 42 card, including Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Charlotte Flair, and Becky Lynch. Recent NXT graduates featured on the broadcast wing include Oba Femi, Trick Williams, Tiffany Stratton, Roxanne Perez, Je’Von Evans, and Sol Ruca.
WWE will keep producing all 20 PLEs in-house. No specific date for The Great American Bash has been announced yet, but it’s the first show under the new contract and will air live on both coasts.
