Interesting Feasibility Study about the WWE Network

[Matt]

You remember the WWE Network? It's still supposedly a thing, except for the lack of any logistical planning or things like that.

But I found this story through PWInsider that says WWE has done its research, and the numbers are...interesting, to say the least.

Are people getting enough pro wrestling on television these days? World Wrestling Entertainment doesn’t think so, and at the very least entertains dreams of launching its own channel.

According to an SNL Kagan report, WWE has done its homework, and thinks it has the potential to be of interest to fully half of America’s TV households. That is about 57 million homes for those of you keeping score at home.

WWE says that about 20% of that group, 12 million or so, are hard core fans who know the wrestlers, are on top of what’s going on and watch regularly on the channels that show it – prominently including USA, ION and SyFy, among others.

40% are casual fans – they’ll watch on occasion, but are not heavily invested in the programming.

The other 40% are what WWE thinks of as lapsed fans – they used to watch some wrestling but have not done so for a period of time, and perhaps could be coaxed back.

Other sports have had to answer questions about whether or not there is an audience for around-the-clock programming dedicated entirely to their product, and the answer, they believe, is yes there is.

The theory is that the availability of content builds the appetite for even more – and WWE cites the NFL’s dedicated channel as an example.

In addition to the steady production of new material, the company says it has 100,000 hours worth of material in its archives, ready to be polished up and put out there for new usage.

The dream to get a 24-hour channel together most likely will not be fulfilled by creation of another basic service. According to SNL, MVPDs are not anxious to add any more consent fees to their overhead. So if the WWE dream is to come true, expect some form of pay service as the vehicle of choice.

A couple things here.

1. WWE thinks it appeals to half the households in America. Oh boy, we're off to one hell of a start here.

2. WWE thinks their product has 12 million households with "hardcore fans" that regularly watch their programming. Let's assume for a second that every person who watches WWE programming watches one show per week. (i.e. Nobody watches both Raw and Smackdown). I'm pretty sure if you added together their best week of ratings this year, it still doesn't add up to that. Actually, looking back, pretty sure Raw 1000 was the highest rated Raw of the year. Even that week, Raw and Smackdown combined only had about 9 million people. Maybe if you add in all of the ancillary shows, they get to 11. Maybe. And that's their best week of the year.

3. WWE has 24 million households with casual fans that watch every so often. It's a shame none of those people seem to have Nielsen boxes.

4. WWE is using the NFL Network as the inspiration for this. Holy shit, is that a bad sign. First off, the NFL is the absolute biggest thing going. It's like me saying "Hey, Walmart's pretty successful, I'm going to open my own department store!" The reason the NFL Network is successful is because people can not get enough NFL coverage.

Having said all this, I believe the WWE Network can be a moderate success. But if this is what WWE expects out of the Network ratings wise, then, one, they're doing an awful job preparing for it, and two, they are going to be very disappointed.

(Also, for those of you wondering, SNL Kagan is a media and communications firm that specializes in this type of market research.)

[The Hypeman]

NFL Network only got big because they put regular season games on the network to leverage deals with all the cable/satellite providers. It is an absolutely abysmal and pointless network otherwise thanks to the internet.

A WWE Network is even more pointless to me. Just use the internet to host your content you're selling, people.

[Matt]

NFL Network only got big because they put regular season games on the network to leverage deals with all the cable/satellite providers. It is an absolutely abysmal and pointless network otherwise thanks to the internet.

A WWE Network is even more pointless to me. Just use the internet to host your content you're selling, people.

I'm not a big fan of the content of the NFL Network, except their NFL films stuff, which is excellent, though far more limited than it should be. I feel like as a model, WWE Network would be the same way, 75% abysmal filler content (like the Big Show cooking hour), and then 25% awesome documentary and old school stuff, which would be worth the price of the network.

The NFL Network worked even before the Thursday package though. Putting the games on forced a lot of larger carriers that were playing hardball to meet the NFL's demands, but in terms of the model of building one network singularly devoted to the league, it was a home run from the start, in that it didn't fail. It was the inspiration to the rest of the leagues, who fell all over themselves launching their own networks immediately after.

The television model is not dead yet. While it's easy for us to say "Just throw everything on the internet" because we're all very tech savvy, there is still a huge market for television content.

[The Industry]

It's simple Matt, they have always been brilliant at showing their books to Networks. They have a keen ability to make money from a whole lot of revenues and present it like it comes solely from the wrestling product and seeing as the Networks don't really care to check this out and only see that a silly wrestling company is able to make hundreds of millions of dollars for cheap programming, they jump on the WWE deal and pay them outrageous money far as wrestling goes, not knowing they're being worked and think they have cheated WWE.

[Matt]

It's simple Matt, they have always been brilliant at showing their books to Networks. They have a keen ability to make money from a whole lot of revenues and present it like it comes solely from the wrestling product and seeing as the Networks don't really care to check this out and only see that a silly wrestling company is able to make hundreds of millions of dollars for cheap programming, they jump on the WWE deal and pay them outrageous money far as wrestling goes, not knowing they're being worked and think they have cheated WWE.

I think you're underestimating networks. They do plenty of independent research of their own. Plus, cable companies aren't beating down WWE's door to commit to WWE Network. WWE is in bed with Comcast and they can't even get them to commit to it.

It doesn't take much for a cable company to go "Really, you have 12 million hardcore fans? Then why do only 3 million watch your biggest show every week?"

Local operators can be kind of dense when it comes to that kind of stuff, but Comcast ain't falling for it.

[The Champ]

According to an SNL Kagan report, WWE has done its homework, and thinks it has the potential to be of interest to fully half of America’s TV households.

[The Industry]

I think you're underestimating networks. They do plenty of independent research of their own. Plus, cable companies aren't beating down WWE's door to commit to WWE Network. WWE is in bed with Comcast and they can't even get them to commit to it.

It doesn't take much for a cable company to go "Really, you have 12 million hardcore fans? Then why do only 3 million watch your biggest show every week?"

Local operators can be kind of dense when it comes to that kind of stuff, but Comcast ain't falling for it.

Well, they must be doing it right, Matt. USA wanted 3 hours of RAW not WWE.

[Matt]

Well, they must be doing it right, Matt. USA wanted 3 hours of RAW not WWE.

Raw does bring a consistent audience. Better than NCIS re-runs and cheaper than what they'd pay to develop another show. It's still one of the higher-rated shows on cable, even in freefall.

[Codebreaker]

So WWE's research splits 20/40/40%. So weird it evens out like that. So weird I don't believe it.