Paid Members Nick James Posted February 5, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 5, 2020 Killer Kross and Timothy Thatcher have signed with NXT and have reported to the Performance Centre. Kross signing is quite possibly my most anticipated signing of the last few years, the guy has got tremendous upside to him. I haven't seen Thatcher, but I have heard good things and has history with WALTER etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon revealed during today’s Q4 & Full-Year 2019 earnings report & investors call that the company is considering strategic changes to the WWE Network. In regards to Network monetization, Vince said they have a lot of options, which includes selling their rights to “the majors” who are said to be “clamoring” to get WWE’s content. “The majors” presumably being other networks or streaming services. Vince said there’s no better time than right now to exercise the selling of those rights. Vince added that this would be a significant increase in revenue, and the potential changes would be “transformative” for WWE. McMahon noted that the “major players” are very interested in WWE OTT (Over The Top) content, but he did not elaborate on who these potential partners could be. There’s speculation on potential talks with companies such as Netflix or Amazon, but those names have not been confirmed. It’s possible that we see WWE pay-per-view events airing on another platform in the near future.  Went on to say it will happen in the first quarter of this year if it goes ahead. Do we think the PPV’s will be sold elsewhere and no longer be Network exclusives? Maybe on a 30 day delay like the tv rights? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 21 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: Went on to say it will happen in the first quarter of this year if it goes ahead. Do we think the PPV’s will be sold elsewhere and no longer be Network exclusives? Maybe on a 30 day delay like the tv rights? UFC have effectively sold their US PPV rights to ESPN's OTT service and get guaranteed revenue per show. I wouldn't be at all surprised if ESPN+ is where WWE end up too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 1 hour ago, ColinBollocks said: UFC have effectively sold their US PPV rights to ESPN's OTT service and get guaranteed revenue per show. I wouldn't be at all surprised if ESPN+ is where WWEÂ end up too. Well, ESPN are owned by Disney, Disney have been rumoured to be interested in WWE for a while, and I think ESPN+ can be added, in the US, to Disney+ so it does make sense. ESPN here is licences to BT I believe, so doubt it will change things in the UK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam O'Rourke Posted February 6, 2020 Share Posted February 6, 2020 (edited) My gut tells me that's the Barrios/Wilson issue. They were big drivers for the Network, so it may be that they didn't want to outsource the shows thinking it kills the Network, which means less people view the big events than ever, meaning attendance and merch drops even lower, so before long they are a content provider without an audience. Edited February 6, 2020 by Liam O'Rourke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 Disney are concerned with similar. They launched with massive numbers, because it was top loaded with new, well made content like The Mandalorian. Now the new stuff is on hiatus, all they have is the back catalogue so numbers are dropping. If WWE sold the main reason for people subscribing to someone else, the WWE Network would see a massive decline in numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamaras-Tash Posted February 6, 2020 Share Posted February 6, 2020 The Network would be dead in the water if they sold off the PPV's surely? RAW, Smackdown & NXT are all shown on tv now so would be nothing exclusive there apart from the Takeovers. Cant see people keeping subs for long periods of time just to watch reruns of Thunder from 98 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted February 6, 2020 Share Posted February 6, 2020 I dunno, I've seen a lot of comments online along the lines of "wrestling sucks now, I only watch old stuff on the network." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 8 minutes ago, King Pitcos said: I dunno, I've seen a lot of comments online along the lines of "wrestling sucks now, I only watch old stuff on the network." No one is going to keep paying $9.99 for just old content. They will need to reduce the price, and even then they will still lose 100000’s if not more, subscribers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted February 6, 2020 Share Posted February 6, 2020 15 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: No one is going to keep paying $9.99 for just old content.  Well if that's the case, everyone who says they only have the network to rewatch old content is a liar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 4 minutes ago, King Pitcos said: Well if that's the case, everyone who says they only have the network to rewatch old content is a liar! Would you pay $9.99 for just old content? I’d guess those adamant they are not watching any new stuff are 1)Not continuously members but dip in and out or 2) a small percentage of the overall subscribers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Supremo Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 It'll be interesting to see what happens. You have to assume the Network number will plummet if they take the PPVs off, but then perhaps whatever guaranteed price they've been offered will be worth taking the hit. Isn't the Network number slowly dropping anyway? It might make business sense to make the switch now rather than watch subscribers slowly drift off regardless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 27 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: No one is going to keep paying $9.99 for just old content. You're going to have to Baywatch your way out of this one too, I suspect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted February 6, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2020 7 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said: You're going to have to Baywatch your way out of this one too, I suspect. Not literally no-one. But if the only way to watch PPV’s is by paying for another streaming service, then there subscriber numbers will fall off massively. Look at the spikes they get each year at Wrestlemania season. The US market is in a peculiar place. Netflix was a massive hit. Cable bills often cost around $100-200 a month. They are facing a cord cutting evolution where people are ditching cable for streaming services. Now every network seems to have a streaming service. Even HBO and NBC in the next few months are launching their OTT services. So that’s Disney, Amazon, Netflix, CBS, NBC, HBO, ESPN, NBC Sports, WWE Network and Hulu. And that’s just the ones off the top of my head. Soon subscribing to all of those will cost nearly as much as you were paying for Cable. So then people have to choose which ones to keep. And if your $9.99 for new Wrestling PPV’s and back catalogue changes to $9.99 for back catalogue and you have to pay $4.99 for ESPN to get the newest events, people will make a choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam O'Rourke Posted February 6, 2020 Share Posted February 6, 2020 The more I think about it, the more I think this is a really big deal, and kinda scary. He's making all the money he can now, but this company will be so precarious in three years if every other metric goes south the way it is trending now, based on this move and the TV deals... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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