Stephanie McMahon Talks Future of Mixed Match Challenge

World Wrestling Entertainment is a company now valued at over $5 billion. The rise in company profile is largely due to recently announced television contracts with the USA and Fox Networks.

What allowed WWE more leverage during this round of television contract negotiations was the presence of new suitors at the table. Streaming services, such as Amazon and Facebook Live, entered the market in a big way recently. WWE did business with Facebook Live early this year with the Mixed Match Challenge.

Stephanie spoke with the media outlet, the Drum, about the success of WWE’s Mixed Match Challenge tournament. “It had over 100 million views and it was considered a success by Facebook,” she said. “We’re now in conversations to see where we go from here, but we’re nimble and flexible.”

While WWE ended up going with traditional cable networks for this round of television contracts, there is nothing that says they could not end up on a streaming service next time around.

Stephanie also spoke recently about the possibility of WWE products ending up on Amazon, Facebook Live, Netflix, or a similar service.

“I don’t think we’re there yet…Linear is still incredibly important and reaches a huge audience and delivers, but absolutely, I see content moving everywhere that’s why WWE is everywhere because we want to be ready when that time is right.”

Stephanie didn’t go into great detail about whether there will be a season 2 of Mixed Match Challenge on Facebook Live. She did stress that Facebook considered the experiment a success, however.

Miz and Asuka were the eventual victors of the tournament. They defeated the “Robe Warriors” team of Charlotte Flair and Bobby Roode in the finals.