As reported by PWMania.com, a class-action lawsuit was filed against WWE in January, claiming deceptive marketing regarding the transition of Premium Live Events (PLEs) to ESPN.
The lawsuit argues that WWE’s statement, implying that “subscribers” would receive PLEs at no additional charge, led many to believe that all ESPN subscribers would benefit from the offer. In reality, access to PLEs is limited to ESPN+ subscribers, who must pay an extra fee.
Brandon Thurston from POST Wrestling and WrestleNomics notes that the plaintiffs are requesting that the discovery process not be paused. They assert that WWE cannot be trusted to preserve evidence, citing past sanctions against WWE President Nick Khan in relation to a shareholder lawsuit over the TKO merger as the basis for their concerns.
Both Khan and former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon were sanctioned in that lawsuit. The judge ruled that they “acted recklessly” by using the Signal app and adjusting settings to automatically delete messages after a certain period, ultimately resulting in the destruction of evidence.
WWE is seeking to halt discovery in the ESPN PLE lawsuit and compel arbitration under the arbitration clause in the ESPN streaming user agreement.
