During a recent episode of the SBJ Sports Media Podcast featuring John Ourand of Puck News and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, WWE’s recent Wrestlepalooza event was mentioned as a positive driver for the new streaming bundle.
The Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp, during the “Who’s Up, Who’s Down” segment, named the bundle featuring the ESPN app and the Fox Sports app as his “Who’s Up.” Karp pointed specifically to the impact of major sports events, including WWE’s premium live event, on driving subscriptions shortly after the bundle’s launch.
Karp stated, “We saw some of the initial numbers since that began… a lot of good reception. They launched it right before football season. You can see the spikes when NFL started, when college football started, and particularly late in September, when ESPN had its first PLE Wrestlepalooza. Really seeing a spike there in sign ups”.
The conversation also touched upon the value of WWE’s monthly premium live events in the broader media landscape during a discussion about upcoming carriage negotiations between YouTube TV and Disney (ESPN’s parent company).
Andrew Marchand noted, “I think there’s a lot of confidence that the… big deal is the wrestling events that, if you’re a YouTube person, you don’t just get the extra wrestling events. WWE, big spectaculars once a month and … I think that will be worked out, from what I understand”.
WWE’s next major PLE on ESPN Unlimited is Survivor Series in San Diego on November 29.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The SBJ Sports Media Podcast with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
