What Does 667,287 Subscribers Mean For WWE Network?

When the WWE Network first launched, we tracked 134,000 subscribers between 9 AM and 4 PM. We estimated about 330,000 subscribers (and free trials) through the first 24 hours. This would suggest that almost half of the announced number of subscribers jumped in immediately. To be fair, these were impressive numbers that astounded partner MLAM (€œexceeded anything the company had seen in its 14-year e-commerce history€). However, over the next month, that suggests WWE was only averaging less than ten thousand new subscribers per day. In reality, we expect that the bulk of new signups for the WWE Network came during the lead-up to Wrestlemania once it was established that the WWE Network was working on all the platforms as advertised. But what€™s the hook going forward? And this point, it seems that WWE has pretty much reached most of the core households that are interested in checking out the WWE Network. They may get another 50,000 signups this week from the holdouts who didn€™t think the WWE Network could handle the Wrestlemania demand. What this number tells me is that WWE is going to have to work very hard to find the last quarter million subscribers. As has been pointed out before, there are some barriers to entry when it comes to the WWE Network. When over half of their weekly television viewers (58%) are older than the age of 34, selling an over-the-top network (not a premium cable channel) can be tough. WWE needs to do a better job educating their fans about how they can watch the WWE Network on their television sets. Some fans are just content to pirate the stream and not going to pay. WWE has 268 days to figure out how to lure about 1,500 new subscribers/day if they want to hit one million fans by the year€™s end. There€™s still barriers to entry including rural customers that don€™t have high-speed internet. Also, keep in mind that while the one-million subscriber break-even number is often bandied about, Wrestling Observer Editor Dave Meltzer noted that some industry experts think the real break-even point is well-above 1.2 million steady state subscribers. WWE was very concerned about this WWE Network number announcement. Anecdotal evidence suggested they had even begun offering some angry customers free months and extended free trials to keep those accounts active in their system. Still, even with those pushes, the 667k number can, at best, be considered a lukewarm showing. It will be interesting to evaluate how the WWE Network will evolve in the coming months (more third-party advertising, perhaps?).