Lawsuit Filed Against WWE Claiming Fans Were Misled About PLE Access On ESPN

A new class action lawsuit has been filed against WWE, accusing WWE and ESPN of deceptive marketing practices.

Brandon Thurston of POST Wrestling, “The complaint takes issue with how some fans who already get ESPN channels through cable or other providers were still required to pay an additional monthly fee to watch WWE events. The plaintiffs allege this contradicts marketing communications from both WWE and ESPN, which they claim suggested all existing ESPN subscribers would have access to the PLEs.”

The lawsuit names only WWE as a defendant, not ESPN or Disney.

The complaint is brought by plaintiffs Michael Diesa of New Jersey and Rebecca Toback of New York.

The plaintiffs allege WWE and ESPN drew customers into a “bait and switch,” by requiring many existing ESPN subscribers to buy ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer product. When PLEs moved to ESPN, some pay TV subscribers who have ESPN as part of their service got access to ESPN Unlimited and the PLEs, while others did not.

According to Thurston, “Their proposed class would represent customers who paid for the ESPN Unlimited service between August 6 and September 20 while also being subscribers of services that get traditional ESPN channels. The class would exclude customers of DirecTV, Fubo TV, Hulu + Live TV, Spectrum, or Verizon FIOS — services that did allow their customers to authenticate into the app and watch the PLEs by September 20.”

WWE has not yet responded in court. source: fightful.com