Roman Reigns Talks WWE's Evolution, More After $1.6B ESPN Contract to Air PLEs

WWE star Roman Reigns appeared on ESPN's First Take on Wednesday and gave his thoughts on the new premium live event partnership between WWE and ESPN.

After being asked about potential changes in WWE that could be influenced by the ESPN partnership (beginning at the 4:10 mark of the video), Reigns suggested that everyone in WWE will be up to the task of raising their game:

"We're just continually trying to get better," Reigns said. "We don't think we're in our final form at all. And it's entertainment, so it's just always evolving, it's ever-changing. But that's the type of pressure we like to put on ourselves. To be able to team up with an ESPN, we know we have to get better, we know we have to get bigger, we know we're gonna be reaching a bigger audience. So I think that's just, without being said, we're gonna make it bigger."

Reigns also discussed how far he and WWE have come in the time since he first signed a developmental deal with the company in 2010 (beginning at the 3:40 mark).

"I'm a journeyman," Reigns said. "This used to be a blue-collar form of entertainment. Running the roads, rental cars, hotels, the whole nine, 300 days on the road. To be able to push it to where we're at, just sitting there knocking on the mainstream, almost there, pushing to get better ... Maybe we are there, but that's what I continue to tell myself to push myself."

Over the past several years, Reigns has developed into one of the biggest stars in WWE history, and his success has undoubtedly played a role in the continued growth of WWE.

The company just put on the first-ever two-night SummerSlam this past weekend, and it has billions of dollars in broadcasting and streaming rights deals with multiple platforms.

The newest among them is ESPN, as the two sides announced Wednesday that ESPN's upcoming streaming service will be the exclusive home for WWE premium live events in the United States starting in 2026.

Per CNBC's Alex Sherman, the agreement with ESPN is for five years, and it will pay WWE $325 million annually.

It puts WWE underneath the Disney umbrella and alongside another sports/entertainment giant in the NFL, as ESPN announced its acquisition of NFL Network and RedZone from the NFL on Tuesday.

WWE has long been a hugely popular entity and the standard bearer in the world of professional wrestling, but it is also now garnering more mainstream attention than ever before.

ESPN is known as the worldwide leader in sports, and working with ESPN gives WWE the type of legitimacy and cachet that it has arguably never had before in the world of sports and entertainment.