Step outside of our bubble and talk pro wrestling with a few random people, and you’ll quickly be reminded that for most folks, WWE is pro wrestling — and they probably don’t even know much about the biggest company the business has ever known*.
That was part of what Sirius XM was banking on when they turned their dedicated pro wrestling channel into “WWE Radio” a few months ago. The satellite radio company’s CEO Jennifer Witz touted the growth of the channel since July, which still features Busted
Open Radio as its flagship (albeit with less talk of non-WWE or WWE partner promotions). That show is now joined by WWE-produced podcasts and even audio simulcasts of streaming and televised show.
On a stockholder call today (Oct. 29) to discuss Sirius’ latest earnings report, Witz says WWE Radio has already significantly increased the channel’s audience:
“Sports is another powerful driver of fandom, uniting passionate communities around live programming and hometown teams. Listening to WWE Radio has grown nearly 20 percent since its July launch and rebrand, while monthly active sports listeners increased four percent year-over-year across our connected car and streaming platforms.”
Personally, I remain convinced that monopolization and homogenization of pro wrestling is bad. It’s almost always bad for any product or market. Based on how it went in wrestling while WWE was the only major game in town for most of the 21st century, in wrestling it can create a sanitized, stagnant product that gradually loses fans.
We’re not to the point yet where WWE is actually the only game in town. But most of their strategic moves of late — such as the co-opting of what was a relatively unbiased media outlet like Sirius’s pro wrestling channel — indicate they’d like to be. And even if Sirius loves that now, there’s a chance it could bite them later if people choose to stop following wrestling all together rather than seek out alternatives to WWE.
In the comments below, we’d love to hear your reactions to how WWE Radio’s paid off for Sirius XM in the early going.
* Psychologist and commentator Alex Williams’ 2002 national Google survey on the subject has come on Wrestling Twitter lately, so we’ll use that to back up this claim. Williams asked people to name a pro wrestler. Roman Reigns tied for the most commonly named active talent, which meant that 4 out of 503 respondents named him. But we can give Reigns the win, because the other person with 4 votes isn’t a wrestler. He has worked a program or two though… it was Mike Tyson.
