In turn, WWE argued that its doesn’t have the ability to control prices or exclude competition. That power, it said, lies in the hands on distributors that set the prices for the media rights to professional wrestling.
On top of MLW, WWE’s competitors include All Elite Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, Women of Wrestling, Ring of Honor and the National Wrestling Alliance, among others. While media rights deals for such programming generate roughly $725 million annually, WWE captures the bulk of it, with $670 million, according to the complaint. MLW claimed WWE’s current TV rights agreements, including those with Fox and NBCUniversal valued at a combined $470 million, are valued “well-above competitive levels.
Davila found these actions could “deter entry while permitting” WWE to “earn monopoly returns.” At the dismissal stage, he didn’t determine whether the so-called barriers to entry actually exist but rather that MLW sufficiently argued the possibility of their existence. In the dismissal order, Davila also said that WWE’s exclusivity agreements with Fox and NBC rises to a potential violation of antitrust law because they’re considered the “two cable networks with the largest coverage in the United States.”