WWE and YouTube Enter Partnership

The WWE has announced a multi-year partnership with YouTube that will make full episodes of WWE content available on the popular video sharing website.

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. and YouTube announced today a multi-year partnership that will make full episodes of WWE Friday Night SmackDown, WWE NXT, WWE Superstars and ECW available at WWE’s official YouTube channel (YouTube.com/WWE).

 

This marks one of the first times that YouTube will feature complete episodes of primetime television programs on its site.

 

The multi-year deal greatly expands WWE’s YouTube channel offerings, which already has 90,000 subscribers who have viewed more than 100 million WWE videos to date. WWE will also augment the channel by increasing content clips of WWE’s flagship program Monday Night Raw, as well as WWE Classics and short videos.

Payout Perspective:

There’s no word on how soon after the airing of each episode will each appear on the WWE’s YouTube channel. Unlike the UFC with its TUF program, there are fewer re-run opportunities for WWE content due to the frequency of the program broadcasts. I suspect this means we’ll see new content posted weekly (if not a day or two after the original airs).

It’s a great move for the WWE: it expands their reach, especially globally, and places the content online where its core audience is quite prevalent.

We’ve been talking about this convergence of television and internet for a while now, and it seems like some of these properties are really starting to open up to the idea. Not only have the UFC and WWE made significant moves towards the digital territory, but even the major sports leagues like the NHL are making a host of games available online.

Note: the omission of WWE Raw from the list of content that will be uploaded to YouTube. It’s hard to blame them for not wanting to give away their bread and butter (it’s also possible that the WWE couldn’t do Raw on YouTube for contractual reasons).