The WWE PPV event occurs on Sunday, March 10 at 7 PM Eastern and is eligible WWE Fastlane 2019. You may watch it on the WWE Network as is the case with all live events. Seriously, the WWE Network is worth the price of entry for your NXT programming alone.
As if you had evidence that the pro wrestling company has changed completely in the way it used to be consider this–as I write this we’re one week from bell time of WWE Fastlane 2019 and there are just four games confirmed for your card. There’s every reason to think that over the subsequent 7 days a number of different games will be added to the occasion and it’ll probably wind up with 8 or 9 (give or take a couple ). This could be unthinkable not to only an’old school’ wrestling promoter but even Vince McMahon and the WWE only a few decades back.
For decades the traditional wisdom was straightforward: TV was utilized to set up angles to get people into arena seats and later to get PPV purchases. Any promoter–such as Vince McMahon himself for that matter his dad Vincent J. McMahon–would be apoplectic if there was a week to go before a big series and/or PPV event and the card was half booked. The common practice was to have the card more or less’set in stone’ at least several weeks before a significant event so the TV product could shift focus from setting up feuds and angles to promoting the matches on the card as’must see’.
Pro wrestling now exists in a universe that is different. If you would like to get semantically correct the’pay per view’ series doesn’t exist any more–at least in the USA. Rather than placing $49.95 or whatever in your cable bill for the large WWE cards they’re streamed live on the WWE Network. The metric has gone from purchase rates to community subscriptions. For example, in 2018 the WWE Network included a half million readers throughout the run up to Wrestlemania. Obviously the $64,000 question is how a number of these viewers remained active paying subscribers. The WWE frequently runs’prices’ before they record quarterly earnings to pump up the subscriber amounts. This is no different than the community TV’sweeps week’ or for that matter another publicly held company. All of them do things to portray their company in the most favorable light when reporting earnings.
The pro wrestling firm could be due to a more modifications –at least as it pertains to the WWE. Their financial priority is no more PPVs or even WWE Network subscriptions. Last year, they signed deals with USA and Fox worth a combined $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion over five years from October 2018 to September 2024. This large money was primarily for rights to broadcast Raw and Smackdown. At some stage logic suggests that the WWE would want to put their most significant matches on their main platform –and the one with the maximum financial upside. Not long after they signed the deal I’ve supposed that the concept of the’important pro wrestling show’ (call it a PPV or whatever) could go the way of jobbers in masks and blading around TV:
Will the conventional format of the pro wrestling product change dramatically? Based on the numbers at play it’ll have to. Historically, television was a promotional vehicle to get folks to come to the Atlanta City Auditorium, the Columbia Township Auditorium, Olympic Auditorium, etc. . see the live events. Hence the propensity toward wrestling demonstrates throughout the 1970’s heavy on’squash matches’, promos and angles. During the’Monday Night Wars’ between WCW and WWE throughout the late 1990’s, TV ratings became an important metric–arguably *the* most important metric–but the basic dynamic of the product stayed the same. There were more competitive matches on tv but the promotions were at a constant’build’ toward another PPV event. Over the past almost two decades tv has continued to rise in value and big matches, title changes, etc. have become more commonplace. Even with new platforms such as the WWE Network the same premise continues to date–there might be more* significant things on TV but the focal point stays the’Big 4′ PPV events and in particular Wrestlemania. Now, but this can be as much because of’heritage’ as anything else.
So what is next? I’d like to think that there is still a place for’big events’ with stacked cards but at a certain point this may go by the wayside with the most significant matches only interspersed with the rest of the weekly tv programming. However it plays out, these are interesting times for the work of professional wrestling.
We’re already seeing changes in the way that what we’ll euphemistically call’PPV events’ are reserved and encouraged. Rather than the booking being planned well in advance we’ll see several matches’come together’ on WWE programming this week. These seismic changes are on balance a fantastic thing. I am now able to subscribe right to NJPW World and also most of the other important Japanese promotions and receive a ridiculous amount of live and archived content. When I first started watching Japanese wrestling it was an issue of trading or buying videotapes meaning that the most ardent fan was weeks if not months behind the actual item. From top to base the quality of the pro wrestling product around the globe is probably better than it’s ever been.
For now, we will still call it the WWE’s next’PPV occasion’. Listed below are the betting odds for WWE Fastlane 2019 using the four confirmed games and a couple of other’rumors’ which have been making the rounds:
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