It’s well known by now that WWE is making some major cutbacks right now and that includes the cancellation of WWE Network programs and no longer doing the pyro at shows.
As to why the sports entertainment company is doing this, Dave Meltzer mentioned on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE “promised everyone” they were going to have bigger profits in 2017 than they had in 2016 and they’re not anywhere close. This is a problem for the publicly traded company.
“So last year’s profits were about $30 million,” said Meltzer on the August 1, 2017, episode of Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t Wrestling Inc). “And this year we’re about halfway through and — I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me – but it’s like five or six million, which means there’s a lot of catching up to do.”
This is the reason that WWE discontinued doing pyro at WWE live events and for shows on WWE’s streaming service being canceled. This is an attempt to lower production costs.
“They’re not in any financial trouble, but the Network subscriber number is a genuine disappointment,” explained Meltzer. “The growth coming out of WrestleMania that would have been expected wasn’t there.”
It’s pretty obvious that one of the things that have not helped the WWE Network grow since the company launched it in 2014 is doing separate Raw and SmackDown PPV (pay-per-view) events. Although, it’s not expected that WWE is going to go back to just one pay-per-view a month.
“The one thing that we have learned is that the two pay-per-views a month, that has not helped,” said Meltzer. “The Network number is not growing the way they expected it to so that’s been a bad situation. But I don’t think they want to drop one of the pay-per-views because I think that would hurt ratings a little bit.”
For those who are wondering why WWE doesn’t do a weekly United Kingdom show, the major cutbacks are the reason. There are more cutbacks expected to take place. Meltzer mentioned that their tournament to crown a WWE United Kingdom Champion earlier this year cost a lot of money and the show will mean spending a lot of money for more tapings every month.
