During a recent appearance on the “Under the Ring” podcast, NWA President Billy Corgan commented on adapting to streaming services, the future of pro wrestling shows airing on television, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On a change in the way people will produce and watch wrestling: “As far as the long-term, there’s two equations to that. On one hand, there’s classic modality, and I was in it when I was at TNA, I call it ‘50-weeks-a-year.’ Because most wrestling companies when they get to around Christmas, they tend to kind of shut down a little bit, even if they’re still producing content. So, let’s call it a, ‘50-week-a-year model,’ where weekly you’re putting on. Impact does it, we do it, obviously, WWE and AEW does it, I can’t speak for everybody else in the market. But we are all there. I am not totally convinced that the future of professional wrestling will be a 50-week-a-year model. It might be daily, it might be more like how people are watching Yellowstone. They’re going to want to binge-watch a season. I can see where you would drop a wrestling season on the public, and they will watch six hours of wrestling in a row to get to the finish, and then they’ve got to wait a couple of weeks to get to the PPV. So, I think those things need to be looked at with an open mind.”
On how wrestling will be different in the future: “I can’t speak for everybody, I am 55-years-old. So, I grew up in a different era of television where we only had four channels. Wrestling, of course, was on the UHF channels. We all get into that rhythm, I certainly see it around me. Once you get used to watching stuff on demand, it’s kind of hard to go back. I know we are still in that modality Monday Night Raw. But the point is that for most of us, particularly if you have kids, or a busy job, or two businesses. A lot of people working two jobs, that one hour you have between something, something, something, that’s when you’re going to consume. So, I really do think a digitally-minded future, and I don’t want to go on about it. But keep an open mind that the wrestling of the future will be far different than what we are used to.”
