7 Reasons WWE Is Failing To Engage (And 3 Ways To Solve It)
Less replays. More cowbell.
No show anywhere is a consistent series of upward peaks, breaking ceilings and defying expectations. WWE programming is no different, and for those of us who have watched since the 80’s, we know that it’s a love affair with peaks and valleys—some longer than others. Everyone has their favorite era, but I doubt anyone has watched Raw live, religiously, every single Monday since 1993. At least tell me you DVR’ed some of them.
Hardcore fans will probably never completely tune out the WWE, but there’s a good chance they fade. There’s a high probability of watching all content on the DVR, fast forwarding not just through the commercials, but some of the sleep-inducing segments or myriad promo videos that they show 5 times a night.
It is interestin in this peak-WWE era where we have more content than ever before—and perhaps ever again—so much of it simply fails to engage. It's all too easy to give up on watching Raw or Smackdown on anything but the DVR.
WWE is in a bit of a valley right now. A surplus of content doesn’t necessarily mean a treasure chest of engaging material...
10. Too Much Content
Raw is three hours. Smackdown is two. NXT an hour. Pay per views are three hours. So say you’re an avid WWE fan, and you watch all of these programs religiously. You’re committing nine hours a week during PPV weeks. None of this mentions lesser shows like Superstars, or WWE Network programming, such as the before and after Raw shows, or Talking Smack, or 205 Live, or…you get the point. Staying informed and up-to-date with the content is to enter part-time job territory. You’d be close to getting benefits.
There are two major problems aside from the time commitment. One, WWE does a good job of pulling people in quickly, and bringing them up to speed. But for people who watch all their programming, that means an inordinate amount of time wasted on stuff you as a fan already know or have seen—sometimes stuff that happened earlier in the show, and multiple viewings at that. It is difficult to maintain a happy balance that gets new/casual fans up to speed, and doesn’t waste the time of more hardcore ones.