WWE's New Philosophy For TV And PPV

For as long as I can remember, the WWE’s philosophy for pay-per-view buyrates and TV ratings has been the same: You use the weekly Raw and SmackDown episodes to build up feuds and rivalries that will culminate at pay-per-views. It’s really an age-old concept, and a simple one that makes sense. Wrestling fans are much more likely to tune into “free” TV shows than PPVs, so TV is where you try to sell them on shelling out 50 bucks to purchase a three-hour PPV that should be of higher quality than what we see on TV.

Apparently, though, the WWE’s new philosophy is flipping the script and doing the exact opposite of what the company has traditionally done in the past. WWE’s new primary goal is TV ratings and their various TV products. The change in direction has been in the making for some time now and comes straight from Vince McMahon. In the past, pay-per-view has been WWE’s #1 goal but that’s no longer the case. One of the main ideas now is to use pay-per-view events to bring in viewers to WWE’s weekly TV shows.

It’s hard to criticize this philosophy because Vince McMahon is a millionaire and master businessman, and I’m not. But it can’t just be me who thinks this is a philosophy that doesn’t make much sense, right? While I have no problem with Vince wanting to increase TV ratings (he should always want to do that), I don’t see why you would try to use something that fans pay $50 for to promote a weekly TV show that they’re already paying for anyway.

Pay-per-views should feature the climax or culmination of angles that are built up on TV. Not the other way around. Raw and SmackDown should features matches, promos and angles that slowly evolve over time and make us fans want to buy the upcoming pay-per-view to see what all that TV buildup is going to result in.
 
I remember back in the late 1990s and early 2000s when we got pay-per-view quality shows on Raw and that’s something I don’t mind seeing Vince try to imitate. But at least in my view, putting on a great Raw every week (those are rare these days) shouldn’t come at the expense of the PPV market, which plays a huge role in increasing the WWE’s profit each year.

While it could be fun to see more bigger matches and angles on TV, the possibly detrimental effect this could have on PPV buys means that Vince is taking a big financial risk here. But like I said, he’s the millionaire and I’m not, so let’s see how this plays out before we completely dismiss it.