Welcome to another edition of The Wrestling Post. In this edition, we take a look at Total Divas ratings, a deal for Ring of Honor and WWE halts UK rollout of WWEN.
WWE Network halts UK launch
The WWE Network pulled the plug on its intended November 3rd launch in the United Kingdom because of WWE negotiations with TV operator SKY. According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, the WWE and SKY were still in negotiations on the possibility of having the Network as a TV station as opposed to its “over the top” network offering. At this point, the roll out of the Network is postponed indefinitely.
Payout Take: The delay is an obvious disappointment for those in the UK although it was pointed out that many of the hardcore WWE fans in the UK likely have the network through their own ingenuity. Still, pulling the plug from the launch is bad for short term PR. One must think that the WWE had a deal with SKY which would have been more lucrative in the long term for it to make such a drastic change in schedule.
Triple HHH joins non-profit
Paul Levesque (aka Triple HHH) has joined the board of The Sports Legacy Institute Board of Directors. The Institute is a non-profit dedicated to concussion education and research. The organization was founded by former college football player and WWE wrestler Christopher Nowinski. One might recall Nowinski from the PBS documentary, “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis.” The WWE has donated heavily to the organization as it gave SLI $1.2 milloin to fund research that could lead to potential new treatments for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
Payout Take: The election of Triple H comes after a recent filing by one of its former wrestlers, Billy Jack Haynes, citing that the WWE knew of the dangers of head injuries but did nothing to warn its wrestlers. The WWE has denied the allegations set out by Haynes in the lawsuit. As a publicly traded company, the WWE’s image is much more important and the election of Triple H to this non-profit is similar to those made by the NFL when it was sued by its former players regarding concussions.
Ring of Honor Wrestling (ROH) and Figures Toy Company announced a licensing agreement to develop market and manufacture a line of collectible figures and accessories based on the wrestlers and world of Ring of Honor Wrestling according to an ROH press release. ROH is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
Payout Take: An interesting deal for the company as most, if not all, of its wrestlers is independent contractors (in the real sense and not the WWE-sense) as they take dates from other organizations. Still, it appears that Sinclair believes that it has gained enough traction with the product to roll out action figures in time for the holiday season. These probably will not get wide release and will only be in markets where ROH run shows.
Total Divas Season 3 (mid-season)
Last week’s Total Divas on the E! Network registered the second highest rating for Season 3 with an average viewership of 1,130,000. Despite lower ratings, it will return with the second half of its third season in January 2015.
Through 10 episodes of the third season, it averages just over 1 million viewers.
Total Divas Season 3
Episode 1: 1,200,000
Episode 2: 974,000
Episode 3: 1,180,000
Episode 4: 999,000
Episode 5: 1,050,000
Episode 6: 888,000
Episode 7: 975,000
Episode 8: 826,000
Episode 9: 860,000
Episode10: 1,130,000
Payout Take: Although there has been a decrease in viewership for this season, it has gone without the Kardashian lead-in most of the season. It also has gone up against two WWE PPVs this season. This season seems to have moved toward more storylines which have seeped into WWE programming.
Leave a Reply