UK TV Wrestling - All Elite Wrestling to ITV and WWE to BT sport

UK TV Wrestling - All Elite Wrestling to ITV and WWE to BT Sport

All Elite Wrestling to ITV

Wow, just wow, In what has been the most game changing weeks in professional wrestling in the last 20 years. All elite wrestling announced that they had secured a TV deal with itv in the UK. This deal with UK biggest to rights broadcaster gives ITV rights For itv box office to air AEW pay per view events and for itv network to air AEW new weekly to show. 

ITV used to show WCW back in the early 90s and then stopped showing wrestling until world of sport wrestling returned in 2018, ITV dipped their toe back in the water and I think they got a feeling that they would like to add wrestling on a more full time basis , sadly however for WOS it wasn't to be the UK promotion and ITV decided to take a chance with the all new AEW.

A few days later at TV upfront in Madison square garden AEW and Time Warner announced that AEW would be debuting a new weekly to show on TNT in USA, the first time a wrestling show has been back on time Warner network since 2001. 

For All Elite Wrestling, a wrestling company who has not even had one show yet this is an incredible series of deals and is unprecedented in the modern era of pro wrestling, never has a company who has never had a show been able to make such an impact (no pun intended) on the TV landscape. 

All Elite Wrestling has now put itself in the strongest position possible to succeed and thrive, they have the talent, they have the momentum and the have the passion to deliver something new and different and to change the world of professional wrestling. 

AEW have said that they are not in competition with WWE but in all honesty from a UK Fan and UK TV perspective AEW have already given  WWE a huge boot to the ass in the UK. AEW network reach with ITV will be huge, and after the news of this week from WWE………………...

WWE leave Sky and move to BT Sport 

In the same week as AEW TV deals WWE announce a deal with BT Sport in the UK. BT Sport is a pay channel for customers of BT who purchase BT broadband or BT services, but can also be accessed via Sky itself (for a fee) or via BT mobile app. 

 The issue with BT Sport is it is not available to everyone like ITV free to air commercial channels that All elite wrestling will be airing on. 

BT Sport has a much smaller reach and in the UK a smaller take Up than previous broadcaster Sky. 

WWE and Sky had been partners for over 30 years and their relationship seemed good, I wonder what went wrong? 

Did Sky get frustrated that WWE took away their Sky box office model for Pay per view events, with WWE network undercutting Sky so much in the UK? 

WWE effectively killed Sky revenue in the UK for PPV and I believe this could of been a major reason why Sky choose not to renew their deal. 

In addition Sky have not been the superpower they used to be losing rights for football Uefa champions league, Uefa Europa cup, FA premier league and Spanish la liga games to a host of other broadcasters, however despite losing all these rights sky keep raising their prices despite having less content which is a huge frustration to many existing sky customers, Sky own traditional model is starting to fall apart. 

My concern for WWE is with new Competition with AEW on the horizon and with WWE in the UK now having a much smaller reach and a smaller viewing audience with BT Sport that WWE could very well find themselves playing catch up to AEW within the next year and AEW could build a solid base in the UK and AEW capitalise more in the UK than WWE have. 

WWE need to be very careful, the less visible you are the less people care, and as Impact wrestling showed when it as on free TV in The UK, Impact regularly drew more viewers than WWE on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

TNA Viewing Figures in UK 1st Week May 2011 from 

https://tnauk.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/tna-uk-tv-ratings-–-week-ending-1st-may-2011/

Weekly Ratings Summary

TNA iMPACT! (Challenge, Tuesday, 2203) – 200,000
WWE LATE NIGHT SMACKDOWN (Sky Sports 4, Friday, 2102) – 135,000
WWE LATE NIGHT RAW – LIVE (Sky Sports 3, Monday, 2600) – 128,000
TNA iMPACT! Replay (Challenge, Saturday, 2101) – 121,000
WWE EXPERIENCE (Sky Sports 4, Sunday, 1601) – 44,000
WWE LATE NIGHT AFTERBURN (Sky Sports 3, Monday, 2300) – 34,000

WWE SPECIAL (Sky Sports 4, Friday, 2401) – 31,000

 The difference now is that AEW have the money, the ability and the power of UK biggest broadcaster to take advantage of that. 

WWE could do something to keep their presence in a Different way but they seem to have reluctance to do so. 

WWE have WWE NXT UK which would be ideal to air on a UK free to air channel but instead WWE choose to air it on WWE Network, sure WWE have a lot of UK Subscribers but if your reach in the UK is going to be effected at least try and use WWE NXT UK to bring viewers in to what you are doing in the UK and to keep fans engaged in your product. 

If fans want to see WWE Raw or WWE Smackdown you could encourage them with adverts for Raw and Smackdown on WWE NXT UK and try and help build BT sport Subscriber count by using WWE UK as the ideal foil.

One thing is for sure this is the most exciting time to be a wrestling fan, there are options again, their are choices and you can choose to watch whatever you want and you can watch one or both, both promotions are going to push each other to be better and that means better wrestling, better storylines, better competition and better television. 

Thanks for Reading

@Jon422002

Jonathan Orchard