WWE has always been at the forefront of finding new ways to not only make money but to deliver value for the product to an ever growing audience. In the beginning we saw the Rock and Roll connection which led to the first Wrestlemania to record breaking attendance and some of the largest venues. All others in the industry said that it wouldn't work, couldn't be done, and time and again Vince's vision and strategy paid off and proved everyone wrong. The production that they have has set the standard for almost all live events and broadcasting for all to follow. They have been at the helm of social media integration as well as live interaction.
After acquiring essentially all back library of wrestling archives the last piece was in place to launch their own channel. That proved to be the toughest thing that Vince has ever tried. With the mainstream not believing in the product and still believing in the stigmata that "wrasslin" was still a low brow commodity regardless of the numbers that were brought to their attention. After almost a decade of the WWE trying to get it's own channel and proving again and again that they can do it WWE had enough. Time to embark on the most ambitious endevour since the first Wreslemania; the WWE Network.
Being around this type of media for a long time I personally knew that what they were doing would be difficult at the least but to see it actually happen was something else. Febuary 24 approching and I had still not been able to add my subscription or purchase network access and on top of that it was still unclear exactly how it would appear to the public. All anyone knew was that the entire library would be availible at the consumers fingertips. Details were availible but it really was a yes and no type thing, for example, would the network be availible via cable, no, would I be able to view it on my iPad, yes, could i view it on my Apple TV? yes, as well as Roku, Google, and Xbox. Ok, How? (nothing). The day came, I went to the WWE website, and put it my credentials to sign up for the service. Suprisingly easy at 1pm, and I now had access to a very well laid out section of their site with easy navigation to all their library of videos and search. But the question still loomed as to how I was going to view this when I got home this evening.
As I drove home I began to get phone calls from friends that I never expected to help them set up viewing of the WWE Network for tonight. As the night progressed I started to notice the typical thing that happens with this type of event, that is everyone waits until the last minute to get everything authorized and set up. But unlike PPV events and sporting events I began to see the genius that the WWE had set up. At first I thought that giving consumers the small window of half a day to sign up for the network would give they're website so much traffic that it would surely crash but it never did. Didn't even stumble! There were some slow times in buffering the more popular items but never a "could not load". WWE and they're staff had done it on they're end.
Then I saw something that I never thought I would see in my lifetime. Xbox had crashed. And I don't mean "cannot access" I mean CRASHED. At about 5:30pm as I got to my last stop, my friend Mike was already on the phone with Xbox because the WWE app was loading but would not allow him to sign in. After several minutes of "longer than usual call waiting" he got a live person that had told him that it seems to be an internal issue with Xbox live not the WWE. Just then I witnessed Xbox live crash. Microsoft can say what they want but in 10+ years I've been playing on Live, (from the very first xbox day one) with Halo launches, Skyrim, CoD, and everything inbetween I had NEVER saw Xbox live shut off, and not allow you back on. Not ever. THAT is the power of the WWE universe.
Showtime started on the USA Network as it always does (a 3 hour slot no less) and I fired up my iPad. the WWE app opened and I was greeted with a nice big button that said "Live second screen". Now I was watchibng the live event with my iPad streaming Q&A's, facts and highlights. On the right was a live twitter feed, and a nice feature, "compeditors" which pulled up stats on Whatever superstar was on the screen at that time. Impressive. That wasn't it though, once the USA Network went to commercial the WWE App immediatly cut to a full screen live video of either that match continuing or a behind the scene interview. As soon as the broadcast was coming back on the App switched right over to information and such as I mentioned before. No a hiccup, not a one. Flawless intergration, beautiffull production and a standard that was second to none.
In conclusion I would like to take my hat off to Vince for his vision, to the WWE for caring for their fans and to the production staff at the WWE for setting a new standard in broadcasting. This is a game changer as to how we consume our media not unlike the day that Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone and changed the landscape of cellular, the WWE has just changed broadcasting overnight.
