Yesterday (Aug. 25), SEScoops ran a report about the ESPN/WWE relationship. It claimed multiple sources at those companies told writer BJ Bethel that, just one year into a five year contract, Disney-owned ESPN has already determined they won’t be renewing their billion-dollar+ contract with WWE for U.S. premium live event streaming rights.
Within hours, the story spread around the internet — including via a blog post I wrote about it for Cageside Seats. It also drew a strong denial from ESPN, which
included that Bethel had never reached out to the network/brand for official comment.
Bethel posted on social media that he stood by his story, but admitted he only tried contacting ESPN via publicly posted support lines and forms, and “forgot” about the direct contact person he’d interacted with just months ago.
As GM05 first shared with us in The Feed this afternoon, SEScoops fully retracted the report. It also announced it was parting ways with Bethel.
Statement on our WWE–ESPN report
Yesterday we published a report from BJ Bethel on WWE’s relationship with ESPN. We are retracting that story in its entirety.
Before a story like this runs, the subject deserves a direct chance to respond, and that step wasn’t taken to the appropriate standard. Since publication, it’s come to light that this effort fell way short. We ran it and the buck stops with us.
We’ve parted ways with Mr. Bethel, have had our verification procedures reviewed by an outside partner, and updated our process as a result.
Regarding our/my coverage of Bethel’s report, I don’t regret writing about it, and giving our community a place to discuss, debate, and dissect it. But I should have done a better job of expressing my doubts somewhere other than the comment section.
Some of that was my lust for comments in the same shifting media world ESPN and WWE are trying to figure out. Some was confirmation bias, as I’ve seen some of the same indicators Bethel’s alleged or real sources did and been “predicting” the ESPN would end up like the FOX deal before it did.
Either way, I and everyone on the Cageside team will strive to do a better job of presenting the talk of the wrestle web to you.
Let me, or SEScoops, or BJ Bethel have it in the comments. Hopefully you won’t do too much of that though (not sure my fragile ego can take it), and instead spend more time letting us all know how this all changes your view of the WWE/ESPN deal, if it does at all.
