With cable television becoming extinct or at least becoming an endangered species, households are already paying so much for streaming services. The WWE’s recent business ventures demonstrate how it is price gouging its fans.
The WWE launched its WWE Network streaming service in the spring of 2014. The price was $9.99 per month. Fans got to see every single pay-per-view, every classic pay-per-view from the 1980s and 1990s plus other exclusive content.
In 2019 the WWE Network was moved to the Peacock streaming service for just $7.99 per month.
However, WWE has partnered with ESPN to stream the pay-per-view and other major events but the catch is WWE fans have to pay $29.99 for it.
When compared to the other streaming services mentioned above, this is a significant increase.
With a price of $29.99, this is too much for even the most hardcore WWE fan. Since ESPN is owned by Disney, it would be much simpler to put the event on Disney+ with your Disney+ subscription with or without advertisements.
This is how things were structured when WWE was still on Peacock.
At this point, WWE seems to care more about how to make the most profit than its fans.
If this trend continues, fans of the product will chose to boycott or rebel against the product. Maybe ESPN as well.
During the early 2000’s WWE and other forms of professional wrestling were made fun of and heavily criticized by the mainstream media including ESPN.
For example, The Owen Hart tragedy at the Over the Edge pay-per-view in 1999 and the Chris Benoit tragedy in 2007.
Are we just going to ignore these things just because of the money involved with this current deal?
It is becoming very clear that WWE’s target audience is the rich and not the die hard fans anymore. If fans want things to change they should not invest in this new streaming platform, regardless of which event is being featured or which wrestlers are on the card.
Fans should also let there voices be heard on social media. Then things may change.
Regardless on how great the performance in the ring is or how great the story telling aspect of WWE is, $29.99 is way too much to spend to watch WWE or any wrestling product.
WWE has to lower the price or consider displaying its major events on a basic Disney+ subscription with or without the advertisements because with this current platform, is is losing the respect of its fans.
