The Biggest Problem With US TV Wrestling

The title of this post is pretty declarative, so let me state up front that I am far from an expert on this or, for that matter, any topic. This is just the way I see things, sitting on the sidelines, not actually watching US wrestling at all. With that out of the way, let me get to the thesis statement. If you ask me, the biggest problem with US TV wrestling can be summed up with a single sentence, and it's this:

The fans are not the primary customers.

Let's take WWE as the major example. They are currently operating under a deal with Netflix wherein they make $500 million a year just for broadcasting on that service. Let me write that out: $500,000,000. To put that into perspective, the currently overpriced tickets where someone paid $2,000 to sit front row? It would take 250,000 of those to equal the amount of money they are getting from Netflix in one year. That person who spent $900 to sit in nosebleed and watch the show on giant screens? 555,556 of them to equal the Netflix deal. So, as an individual fan, your opinion does not matter, however much they say it does. How could it? AEW has a similar thing with their Warner Bros. deal, but AEW is still Tony Khan's playground, so appealing to him has a chance of working.

"If the fans aren't the customers, then what are they?" That's a great question, and the answer is that the fans are the product. Netflix paid a bunch of money to get a different market looking at their site, seeing ads because Netflix is now ad supported, and buying subscriptions. This is true of any business where you are not paying for something but they are making money anyway. It's a universal truth. If you aren't the customer, you're the product. It's true with Google, it's true with Facebook, it's true with Twitter, and it's true with WWE and AEW. Your PLE (Premium Live Event, modern terminology for pay-per-view) money, your ticket... ultimately it means very little. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

But it's not all bleak. The one power you have is to make yourself unavailable as the product. If you think the show sucks, don't watch it! There's a ton of wrestling content in the world to watch equally free to you but without supporting the show you don't like. Hate watching is a losing battle, because you're still being used as the product. If you want to spend your money to support individual wrestlers, buy their merch. Go to shows if you can. Watch a streaming site where you are the customer! All of these things are better than giving your time to a show that doesn't respect it, and you'll feel better about yourself too.

On that note, this blog is not ad supported, so if you read this, you are not the product. And I don't want your money, so you aren't the customer. This is just a place where I can get the thoughts out of my head and then broadcast them to the world and anyone who wants to read them can. I hope you enjoy reading these ravings and they give you something to think about.