World Wrestling Entertainment, the Stamford-based standard bearer for rock ”™em-sock ”™em spectacles, has taken a series of moves in recent months to reach new audiences and expand its brand.
In April, WWE announced that “Smackdown,” one of the company”™s two weekly flagship television programs, would be moving to the USA Network in the first quarter of 2016. “Smackdown,” which is currently shown on the SyFy channel, will join the brand”™s other flagship program, “Monday Night Raw,” and its reality television series, “WWE Tough Enough,” which debuts in June on USA Network.
- WWE wrestler John Cena performing at a recent show.
WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon said the move is expected to increase the reach of “Smackdown,” which has over 800 original episodes, making it the second-longest-tenured weekly episodic program on television behind “Monday Night Raw.” The company did not disclose the terms of the deal. Year-to-date averages place “Smackdown” at 2.86 million total viewers per week.
“WWE is proud to have “SmackDown” join “Raw” as part of our expanded partnership with USA Network,” McMahon said in a prepared statement. “The combination of the No. 1 cable network and two ratings juggernauts provides a destination for our viewers and an extraordinary platform for our partners.”
In March, publicly traded WWE, which employs 800 people at its East Main Street headquarters in Stamford, unveiled the “For The Hero In All of US” brand campaign airing across NBCUniversal”™s networks in addition to all of WWE”™s platforms.
“Our new campaign illustrates all that is great about the WWE brand from our charismatic and athletic superstars to our multigenerational and multicultural audience and our commitment to giving back,” said Michelle Wilson, WWE chief revenue and marketing officer. “In our partnership with NBCUniversal, we now have unprecedented opportunities for advertisers to engage our fans and superstars while leveraging all of our platforms, including television, live events, digital and social media.”
Brock Lesnar, a former WWE wrestler then competing for the mixed martial arts company Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) announced in March on ESPN that he would be returning to the WWE. Bristol-based ESPN also showed highlights from “Wrestlemania,” WWE”™s annual flagship pay-per-view event in March.
Despite the noticeable uptick in coverage, a WWE Spokesman said the company has not forged a partnership with ESPN, but did say its coverage brings welcomed exposure and the ability to introduce its product to a potentially new fan base.
ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz confirmed the two companies do not have a standing partnership, and said its coverage of WWE has been “one-off,” or nonrecurring. He said it will continue to remain that way going forward.
“We will make decisions on an ongoing basis as events approach to see if anything else like these make sense for us,” Krulewitz said. “The bridge here was news value. But this isn”™t a situation where there is a larger effort to actively inject more content.”
In February 2014, WWEÂ introduced WWE Network, an online programming and pay-per-view subscription-based streaming service. A spokesman said that as of April, it had 1.3 million subscribers in more than 175 countries after an initial struggle to gain subscribers in its first year.
