4. Net Neutrality & Government Regulations
In the future, we may see some lobbying by WWE against laws that shape what rights internet users have. As noted, "
growth and development of the market for online commerce may lead to more stringent consumer protection laws, which may impose additional burdens" on WWE. The company is especially concerned about the role of the FCC with "net-neutrality" rules. They worry about
"potentially significant political and economic power of local network operators" and
"discriminatory and anti-competitive practices" by local network operators which would "
impede our growth, cause us to incur additional expense or implement usage based pricing, including meaningful bandwidth caps". WWE does not want to have to
start paying the providers "
due to heavy bandwidth use of audio/visual content" so that subscribers can access the Network. As noted, if "
operators create tiers of Internet access service and either charge us or our service providers for, or prohibit us from being available through, these tiers, our business could be negatively impacted." Their risk statement goes even further about how they are worried that network operators "
have an incentive to use their network infrastructure in a manner adverse to our success" and "
provide preferential treatment to their data or otherwise implement discriminatory network management practices". This isn't just a domestic concern as "
in international markets these same incentives apply however, consumer demand, regulatory oversight and competition may not be as strong". Certainly bandwidth caps are going to be a major issue for some customers, especially those currently on low-tier internet plans (will you upgrade just for the WWE Network?) or living in countries where unlimited internet is rare or expensive.