The rumored April 1, 2012 launch date of the WWE Network just happens to fall on the same date as a little event known as WrestleMania.
That alignment has prompted various media sources to speculate that the company will kick the network off with a free, live airing of its WrestleMania 28 event, featuring The Rock vs. John Cena. A Sports Business Daily report, which looks at carriage and staffing plans for the network, references the rumor.
Most within the industry, however, remain unconvinced WWE will actually give away its flagship pay-per-view for free. While those behind the rumors say the WrestleMania offering will be used as an enticement to get more more cable companies on board with carriage, it is unclear that the marginal revenue of offering the single pay-per-view event for free would compensate for all that is lost by not running WrestleMania as a pay-per-view.
That being said, it does appear WWE is looking to run some of its major cards on the new network. One survey to fans inquired about interest in seeing them major pay-per-views as free specials on the network. A fairly-unintuitive proposition, it was later reversed for market research–big events like ‘Mania, Royal Rumble and Summerslam would still be PPV exclusives, but the smaller shows would switch to the free model.
Notes from the SBD article:
— WWE hopes to reach 40 million homes for the launch, which would put it on par with networks like Fuel and FOX Soccer. Achieving such a rollout would require WWE to ink deals with more than just the In Demand consortium of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox and Bright House Networks.
— The programming reach will likely go beyond wrestling. Some have speculated that WWE would look to air professional team sports, although it presently unclear what league licenses it would be able/willing to acquire.
— Comcast is taking the lead on the negotiations, at least partially out of the desire to keep the weekly Monday Night RAW on its USA Network once the current contract expires in 2014.
— WWE has leased production space near its Connecticut headquarters. It is actively recruiting 200 positions for the network.
— It appears locked that WWE will debut some sort of “Sports Center” newsmagazine format.
