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In January 2014, World Wrestling Entertainment announced that it was essentially leaving the pay-per-view sector. McMahon led us to believe that this move was the future. Diffusion. PPV was dead. The WWE network would be imitated by everyone for years to come (hyperbole). I remember those days five years ago. Some thought that WWE would eventually transfer all their traditional television programming to the network (judging by $ 2 billion, the answer is no, for now). Everyone would pay $ 9.99, right? In May 2014, just three months after the initial launch, WWE said, "The company's research indicates that based on an overall participation rate of 3% to 5% of WWE homes on these markets (US and international), between 2.5 million and more 3.8 million subscribers could subscribe to the WWE network stably. WWE has never really come close to these numbers. As of December 2018, the number of paying subscribers rose to 1.528 million, or just 2.5 million and not even more than 3.8 million. If you really want a full breakdown, Brandon Thurston on Fightful broke everything down in February.
Remember, on the day of the network announcement, McMahon told us that PPV was dead. It is easy to understand why McMahon told us that the pay-per-view service was dead. Because his PPV activity was declining. I'm going to compare the 2013 WWE pay-per-view service to that of the UFC, which was its biggest competitor. The December 2013 PPV was TLC, which totaled 181,000 purchases worldwide. The UFC in December 2013 sold for 1.02 million euros. Survivor Series 2013 has completed 177,000 purchases worldwide (94,000 nationally). In the same month, UFC made 630,000 purchases. October's October hell had 228,000 purchases and the UFC 330,000. Overall, the year 2013 for the WWE has only slightly decreased compared to 2012. Perhaps McMahon has given the decline of his upcoming business? I could not imagine that the PPV figures were very good if the company was still using the traditional PPV. Just look at the December 2013 TLC to show that 140,000 purchases were made in the country. The average number of RAW viewers (12/09/2013) was 4.15 million. That means that about 3.4% of the audience ordered TLC over PPV. Let's be as equitable as possible and look at December 2018. The PPV 2018 was also a feature film and it was held on 16/12/2018, the RAW Go Home edition was on 12/10/2018 and the show was averaged 2.29 million people. If the same number of 3.4% bought the TLC PPV six days later, the purchases would be 77 860. Although we do not need to make any hypothetical calculations to know that the appeal of Main Street of the WWE is in total decline. I say "Main Street" because the WWE fan on Twitter will indicate that the course of action is at its highest level, as it was a measure of POPULARITY OF PRODUCTS (they also like to point to the likes of social media and views on YouTube). The course of action is NOT an indicator of the actual popularity of the product. Do you know what it is? People who spend money on your product. As Brandon Thurston pointed out in February, the categories of money spent on the WWE are either stagnant or declining. One aspect of WWE that is not talked about enough is the fact that once they no longer need to convince people to buy the monthly VPP, the appetite for the best TV product is dead. .
What has PPV done since McMahon announced us his death? In 2015, two UFC VPPs achieved a total of 2,300,000. Also in 2015, 4,600,000 boxers participated in a fight. In 2016, the UFC on four PPV had purchased 5,317,000 purchases. Another good news: in 2018, UFC did 2,400,000 business for a fight. So when you have a product that people want to pay, people will pay for it.
Back in 2019, the UFC announced Monday afternoon that ESPN + would be the exclusive venue for the UFC's pay-per-view events. Now, unlike WWE Network, this does not mean that UFC will virtually give its monthly events. In fact, it's the opposite. UFC fans will now sign up for ESPN + and then buy PPV events. In reality, UFC will benefit from a greater reduction in its monthly pay-per-view revenues. Which, in the long run, should be more beneficial than the traditional PPV. However, for UFC and ESPN, the test will consist of forcing enough people to buy ESPN + in order to purchase UFC VLPs. There are more people with traditional television than not, so it will be a big test to overcome for UFC and ESPN. Will people who have traditional television always use ESPN + to buy UFC PPVs? The UFC and ESPN are banking on yes.
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