WWE Network shutting down in Australia saves fans $50+ a year
Here's how to keep watching wrestling and save along the way.
As of 23 January 2023, the WWE Network has been discontinued in Australia.
Back in September 2022, WWE announced that Foxtel and BINGE would be the new home of WWE content in Australia.
While at the time there was no mention of the fate of the WWE Network, it was expected to follow what happened in the US.
There, the WWE Network shut down when Peacock became WWE's new streaming home.
It turns out Australia now follows a similar path. WWE Network users have been receiving emails saying their subscription will end and the service will be discontinued.
But even though losing access to the WWE Network will be a blow to wrestling fans, you'll actually be saving money by continuing to watch.
Where can I watch WWE in Australia?
Although the WWE Network has shut down, you're still able to watch new WWE events in Australia via Foxtel, BINGE and Kayo Sports.
WWE content such as premium live events, weekly shows, the classics, original WWE shows and documentaries are available on Foxtel Now and BINGE along with a 24/7 WWE channel.
If you're new to BINGE, you get a 14-day free trial. Foxtel Now offers a 10-day free trial.
Stream BINGE for 14 days FREE and no lock-in contract
Test out BINGE's Basic, Standard or Premium plan and stream 10,000+ hours of shows and movies on demand.
10-day free trial of Foxtel Now
No installation and no lock-in contract. New customers only. Sign up now.
WWE's premium live events, previously only available through pay-per-view at up to $30 each, will now also be available at no additional charge to subscribers.
That means Royal Rumble, Crown Jewel and WrestleMania will now be at no added cost to view on BINGE or Foxtel.
There will still be selected WWE content on Kayo Sports including Raw, Smackdown, NXT, the Premium Live Events and the 24/7 WWE channel.
New customers get a 7-day free trial to Kayo Sports.
Stream Kayo Sports for 7 days FREE and no lock-in contract
Take Kayo Sports for a spin and stream over 50 sports live completely free for 7 days.
However, subscriptions to Kayo start at $25 a month. You'd need to see if you'd get value from watching some of the other over 50 sports on the service before committing.
How much will I now be saving on watching WWE in Australia?
Well, it depends on how you watch WWE events.
If you subscribed to the WWE Network, it was US$9.99 a month.
With the current exchange rate, that works out to be AUD$14.30 a month.
So if you now switch to the cheapest BINGE plan of $10 a month, that's an instant saving of about $50 a year.
What if I only ever watch the premium live events and didn't subscribe to WWE Network?
If you only preferred to watch the premium live events, you're still saving.
Say if you only watched some of last year's events as pay-per-views – for example, Survivor Series, WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, Crown Jewel and Extreme Rules – you would have paid $139.75 to view them via Main Event.
Now if you subscribe to BINGE's Basic tier for a whole year, it will cost you $120.
That means you'd save $19.75 a year or nearly 15%.
You could end up saving even more if you cycle your BINGE subscription in and out to only cover the months that a premium live event is on.
So if you only want to subscribe to BINGE for 5 months to watch the big 5 premium live WWE events – Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Money in the Bank, SummerSlam and Survivor Series – that's only $50 all up to watch.
Last year, the cheapest this would have cost you to watch was $99.85.
That's because Survivor, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania were all $29.95 each. And while Money in the Bank and SummerSlam were free to Foxtel customers via Fox8, the cheapest way to access them was to subscribe to BINGE and watch Fox8 live. That's another $10 as both fell within the same month.
What happens to all the archived WWE Network content?
While BINGE is great for watching WWE moving forward, the only issue is that older WWE content is not yet fully available on the service.
For example, as of 23 January, it only has episodes of RAW and NXT going back to the start of 2021. The Royal Rumble only goes back to 2015.
So a lot of content dating right back to the 70s and 80s isn't on BINGE at the time of writing like it was on the WWE Network.
But BINGE claims to be updating its WWE content every week. Presumably, the archival content will be filled out over time.
This sounds like a similar situation in the US where Peacock became the new streaming home for WWE and the WWE Network was shut down in America.
Not all archival content was there at the start, but things have been added slowly over time.
For those who want quicker access to archival WWE content, you may want to subscribe to Foxtel Now, but this will be more expensive.
It has older WWE content on there that is not available on BINGE, such as WrestleMania.
But to view Foxtel Now, you'd need the Essentials pack, which is $25 a month.
Image: Supplied: Foxtel Group