Some of us grew up as professional wrestling fans, which is one of those things that is kind of inescapable. You kind of end up a fan for life, even if that means you don’t watch for a year, two years or even ten years. That being said, when you think about the UFC’s business model and who a real competitor would be, I’d have to say the WWE. The UFC and the WWE both utilize the PPV model which most of their income and big shows comes through PPV buys.
If you aren’t a wrestling fan and were somehow never a wrestling fan there is a good chance that the WWE Network has zero appeal to you and you’ll be wondering what this is doing on a site dedicated to MMA coverage, but the reality is, both the UFC and the WWE have launched similar online networks and it’s safe to say that WWE’s blows the UFC’s out of the water when it comes to pure content. How so?
Tonight the WWE announced the WWE Network, which will be $10 a month and give you access to their back catalog (which, by the way, the raw library stands at over 100,000 hours of content) as well as every PPV. Yes, every single PPV that the company promotes, which is monthly. That includes the bigger PPVs like Wrestlemania, as well, while previously it was rumored that WWE Network would only include the “lesser” PPVs. In comparison to one extremely minor UFC event a month (maybe), this is starting to look like if you are a fan of both and have a choice, one gives you better value while the other is just there.
WWE Network has also promised original content, such as a reality show called “Legends House” featuring some of their most beloved WWE legends, as well as other original content like a daily “Sports Center”-like show, a documentary series and a lot more. There will also be live pre- and post-shows for Raw, Smackdown and PPVs.
WWE Network launches on 2/24 at 9am Eastern and will offer a free week trial. It seems like they’ll require a six month promise at first, though. This will launch first on WWE.com as well as an app on Roku, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and more.