Who wins the Wednesday Night Wars: 6 cases for AEW
By Amelia N
4. The WWE Network
Yes, I know the WWE Network is mostly a wonderful thing and couldn’t even possibly contribute to AEW’s ratings win, that would be preposterous. Right? Maybe not, hear me out.
From everything that has been announced so far, All Elite’s weekly TV show will be presented live on TNT in the United States and on ITV in the UK. There hasn’t been an announced place for anyone who misses these shows to (legally) catch up on what they’ve missed, which provides a rather large incentive for fans to tune into TNT and watch the All Elite show live as it happens.
Meanwhile, once they’ve moved to the USA Network, WWE’s NXT shows will be airing, oddly enough, on the USA Network. The major difference, though, is that WWE have confirmed that even after NXT has aired on USA, it will only take 24 hours before the shows are uploaded to the WWE Network. This is a great bit of fan service; due to the WWE Network being the original (and still, for now, current) home of NXT, it was important for the company to ensure that the developmental brand is still visible on the Network. All well and good.
If NXT is available on the WWE Network 24 hours after it airs live, though, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense for people to watch All Elite’s show live on TNT (owing to the fact there isn’t currently anywhere to watch it whenever the mood takes), then watch NXT on the WWE Network the next day? It would result in WWE making a decent profit in new Network subscribers, sure, but in terms of the Wednesday night ratings war, All Elite Wrestling seem to have a significant advantage of WWE’s own making.