As some of you may know by now, NJPW cut a deal with ROKU and will be producing a weekly one-hour television series starting on February 11th. The WON is stating that NJPW did also negotiate with ESPN and VICE prior to making this deal with ROKU for their weekly show. One of the issues that occurred when NJPW was on AXS TV was the lack of viewership. Having seen this, talks fell through between NJPW and AXS to re-negotiate a new television deal before Impact Wrestling swooped in and joined AXS TV instead.
One thing to note is the deal with ROKU is not an exclusive deal, so this would mean that depending on how the viewership numbers go, the company may be able to get on a second network to produce more weekly content. CBS Sports was another option but the money just wasn’t there, including an advertising split.
