Will the WWE Network die out?

[Racing Guy]

We know the numbers are way down compared to what they expected. Will they keep plugging away or just do away with it and go back to regular PPV's if the numbers don't get any better?

[Messiah]

There's too much money invested into it now for them to ever just do away with it. They would lose a tremendous amount of money, more than they have already lost.

[Str8Shooter]

Yeah I think they're past the point of no return on it. They seemingly vastly overestimated the amount of people who would be interested in watching the back catalog of shows. It seems like a lot of people are mainly in it for the monthly PPV's.

I don't see how they can go back to the way it was even if they wanted to. The PPV providers are probably still pissed at them, and I can't imagine anyone paying 60 bucks for a PPV after having paid 10 a month to get them all. They just have to work through it and try and come up with new and fresh ways to use the Network that would make people want to get it and keep it.

[Messiah]

According to a former WWE creative team member (or an executive of some sort) on reddit, the only person who thought the WWE Network was a good idea was Vince McMahon.

[The Legend]

For the record, I think they simply set their sights too high too early, but I think they will manage to be fine. I mean they have two-thirds of the subscriptions they wanted at the end of the year the last time I checked which is a decent place to be. Now, what they underestimated was people constantly adding the Network. You have to wait for certain things that will spike interest, like WM. I think big adds like former Nitro shows is a good place to start as well.

[Westcoastvibes]

The work is done, from its launch the amount of money it takes to maintain the network is minuscule compared to the cost of creation. The subscription numbers wwe had hoped for was to break even after the creation, by not hitting those number it does not mean they can't afford to keep it running it just means it will take them longer to start turning Profit.
In all honesty I thing they have a decent thing going with it, they just need to tweak some things like the user interface, options and how they promote it.

It would be nice to have a more detailed search option like searching for individual wrestlers and being able to sort the outcomes by various options like match rating, date, opponent or ppv

[Str8Shooter]

According to a former WWE creative team member (or an executive of some sort) on reddit, the only person who thought the WWE Network was a good idea was Vince McMahon.

I'm not sure I believe that only one person thought it was a good idea, it is a good idea if they figure out how to make it work. Their expectations were too high with their projections and now everyone thinks it's a failure when if they had lowered their projections to something more realistic it wouldn't look nearly as bad.

Personally I think putting all the PPV's on there was their biggest mistake. They should have kept those on normal PPV to keep that revenue stream, then just had the on demand content and original programming on the Network. They would have had less subscribers for sure, but they wouldn't have expected as many.

[PorkChop]

Is it that bad? I don't have it, though all I've heard about it is how it's flopped and was a bad idea. It sounded like a great deal when it came out, and was praised by basically everybody. It also sounded fairly cheap when you consider you're getting unlimited wrestling, including PPV's.

Some of the shows on the Network look quite bad though. I'd rather peel off my eyelids than watch Legends House and I remember they were going to launch a show which is basically an inside look into Big Show's family life. I'm not sure if that ever took off, but it looked terrible.

I think what WWE need to do with their Network (as well as their weekly show) is just understand what their viewers want to see.

[Str8Shooter]

@PorkChop

I don't have it either, but the impression I get is that the actual Network itself isn't the main problem, it's getting people to buy the Network that's become the big issue. The actual archive of shows is good and from what I've seen of Countdown and Monday Night War they seem alright. It's just getting people to feel like they need to to throw down their money to get it.

[Messiah]

The WWE Network is good.

For people like us, that is (and even then, I don't use it all that much unless I have a lot of time on my hands, which isn't often). The issue is there is absolutely no reason for the casual fan to buy it.

[Str8Shooter]

The WWE Network is good.

For people like us, that is (and even then, I don't use it all that much unless I have a lot of time on my hands, which isn't often). The issue is there is absolutely no reason for the casual fan to buy it.

Right, outside of being able to watch all the PPV's. They need to market it more towards old fans really. They should be hyping all the Attitude Era and nWo Era stuff outside of their own programming, during NFL and stuff. That's the old stuff that might lure back some old fans who might want to relive their younger days watching it.