50 Ups & 50 Downs For WWE's Decade: The 2010s
3. The WWE Network
Ahead of the game and pro-consumer (even if the service is often the antithesis of "user-friendly), the WWE Network was Vince McMahon's biggest gamble of the decade but already appears to be one of his shrewdest.
The company killed their own pay-per-view revenue stream upon launching the over-the-top streaming service in 2014, suggesting against evidence elsewhere that the method was dying. This was a game of numbers rather than dollars, and with an offering that included every monthly WWE/NXT supercard as well as decades of lovingly restored (and in some cases, previously lost) archive footage, the organisation were able to satisfy the needs of fans young and old alike.
With just under 2,000,000 subscribers at last public count all paying the vaunted $9.99, the company were well on their way to making an expensive undertaking hugely profitable, all whilst completely transforming their widering offering to dedicated and casual fans. In the Network, WWE have created the perfect earner - even when the service is sh*t, the service is still the sh*t.