The CW and ESPN have set Tuesday, August 4 as the launch date for CW Sports on the ESPN App, and WWE NXT is the show that kicks the whole thing off.
The two companies announced the date on Tuesday. NXT leads the rollout with a two-hour live episode at 8 p.m. ET, available inside the ESPN App to anyone on an ESPN Unlimited plan.
Premium live events come with it. NXT Heatwave streams from Texas on Sunday, August 30 at 3 p.m. ET, the first NXT PLE to land on the app under the arrangement.
None of this moves NXT off television. The show still airs Tuesdays on The CW in the United States and on Netflix internationally. The ESPN App is another way in, not a replacement.
The full CW Sports slate runs more than 800 hours of live programming a year, including the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, college football and basketball from the ACC, Pac-12 and Mountain West, PBR bull riding and AVP volleyball. ESPN Unlimited is available through TV and mobile providers or as a standalone subscription.
Where This Fits For WWE Fans
The CW and ESPN first announced the streaming partnership at the end of April without attaching a launch date to it. Going live in the first week of August puts it just after SummerSlam and just before college football season starts.
It also stacks with the ESPN Unlimited access YouTube TV subscribers began getting this week. YouTube subscriptions head Christian Oestlien described the account-linking feature as “just an initial step,” which points to deeper integration still to come.
Before any of that matters for NXT, WWE runs two nights of SummerSlam on Saturday and Sunday, streaming on ESPN Unlimited in the United States.
