Fans who were upset with picture-in-picture ad-breaks during NXT’s Great American Bash, the first premium live event on The CW Network, won’t find any relief in its replay.
The Great American Bash became available to stream online and on The CW App on Monday. But the replay also includes the picture-in-picture ad breaks during matches. It’s the same presentation that frustrated viewers watching live on Sunday.
Viewers accustomed to WWE’s PLE format on ESPN likely expected commercials to air between
matches rather than during them. Instead, the presentation mirrored NXT’s regular Tuesday broadcasts on The CW, making Sunday’s show feel more like a standard weekly show than a modern PLE.
What fans saw on Sunday isn’t likely to change, even when CW Sports begins streaming live events, including NXT, on the ESPN App sometime this summer.
In April, The CW Network and ESPN announced that they were teaming up to make the ESPN App the exclusive streaming home for all CW Sports live events for ESPN Unlimited subscribers. A press release from ESPN read:
“Fans with an ESPN Unlimited plan subscription will have the opportunity to watch all CW Sports offerings live on any device with the ESPN App as a complement to The CW’s free over-the-air broadcast model nationwide, while advertisers will extend reach to new audiences across all digital platforms.”
While the announcement doesn’t specify how The CW and ESPN will handle commercials, the emphasis on advertisers reaching a new digital audience suggests Sunday’s presentation may become the norm for NXT PLEs.
Meanwhile, fans who missed the show entirely or want to see one or all of the matches again have an alternative, as The CW uploaded full matches from the Great American Bash to its YouTube channel on Sunday, offering a completely ad-free experience for YouTube Premium customers.
