GREEN BAY, WI – JUNE 22: Vince McMahon attends a press conference about the WWE at the Austin Straubel International Airport on June 22, 2009 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by Mark A. Wallenfang/Getty Images)

Hey, WWE – congratulations! WWE Network is one year old, and not only is the service still in business, it’s crossed one million subscribers!

But as today marks the one year anniversary of the network’s launch, the first year of WWE Network wasn’t without it’s rough patches. There were plenty of growing pains along the way for WWE, which was essentially abandoning its core pay-per-view model to take a massive gamble on the network. A year later, what have we learned?

-There’s no good way to bill customers. When WWE Network launched, it was with a six month guarantee at $9.99 a month. What that essentially meant is that fans would be on the hook for $60, but would only pay in $10 installments over six months. That led to fans committing to six months of the network, and canceling their credit card (or removing funds from the card) after one month, leaving WWE in a rough spot. Then, WWE dropped the six month commitment, allowing fans to buy one month at a time. WWE also had several free trial months for new users, and even gave away free items (such as a Roku 3 over the holidays). The $9.99/no commitment deal seems to be here to stay, but that also encourages people to simply sign up for just one or two months a year, possibly leading to even fewer PPV buys for the major events.

-Technical issues are inevitable, but can be managed. As soon as WWE Network was open for signups, the servers crashed. It was impossible to create an account and give WWE your money, let alone watch the WWE Network content. There were also plenty of issues with the quality of the streams during the first few live events. But since then, there hasn’t been much of a peep about any videos buffering or any servers crashing. What started off as a disastrous issue eventually faded away as more time elapsed and WWE (and their partners at MLBAM) was able to correct those errors.

-Archived content is great, but can fans ever be satisfied? When WWE Network launched, it promised that every PPV from WWE, WCW, and ECW would be in the vault for viewing. Having all of those shows available in one place is certainly one of the biggest draws of the network. WWE then progressed into uploading episodes of Raw, Nitro, and ECW Hardcore TV. Yet, that wasn’t enough. Fans don’t just want PPVs and the Monday night TV shows – they want WWE to truly dip into their massive vault and break out obscure regional shows from the 1970s and 1980s. They want the B and C-list TV shows, like SmackDown! and WCW Saturday Night. In short, no matter how loaded WWE’s vault may be, fans will want more. And eventually, if WWE does start uploading those more obscure events, the fanbase will find something else to desire.

-Original content is important to sustain growth. What’s been one of the biggest draws on WWE Network so far? A Stone Cold Steve Austin podcast with Vince McMahon. What’s the most acclaimed and generally well-liked show WWE puts on? NXT. Both are native to WWE Network. While the main selling point might be the live PPVs and archived content, don’t discount the importance of shows like this to keep the momentum heading in the right direction for WWE Network.

-The current product can affect subscriptions. Remember after the Royal Rumble, when pissed off WWE fans started up the #CancelWWENetwork movement? While WWE Network didn’t really lose all that many subscribers from its base, the movement did remind all of us that WWE is different from sports leagues that run streaming services or networks. When a sports team you don’t like wins the championship, you don’t throw up your hands and stop watching the sport. It’s almost like stopping watching a show after one of your favorite characters is killed off… but instead of just not watching anymore, you downgrade your cable tier so you don’t get the channel anymore. WWE needs to be careful not to piss their fans off too much with the direction of current storylines and the quality of the product, because they risk losing them as subscribers forever.

-The success or failure of WWE Network won’t be determined overnight. We’re one year into this. That year was certainly a roller coaster with the issues outlined above. It can’t be overstated how much of a risk WWE took by being the first major sports or entertainment brand to take almost their entire product and stream it over the top directly to fans. And while there were struggles along the way and the company’s stock price took a major hit, at this point WWE looks like they’ve somewhat steadied the ship. However, year two will be key to determining whether or not WWE has truly reinvented their revenue model for the foreseeable future and can maintain long-term success and growth through the network. If the subscriber base stalls out, it’ll be interesting to see what direction WWE might turn next for the current product and for the network.

But after one year, we can make one definitive statement about WWE Network – it’s more of a success than the XFL.

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.

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