With the announcement of the service for 9.99 are you signing up?
Obviously not as good as Peacock or NJ world because no PPV events included. However it does give you probably the backlog of stuff to watch as well.
Personally as a Canadian it will cost more than that with the exchange and with all the stuff the kids want (Disney+) and the wife (Netflix, Crave) my steaming budget is pretty maxed out. Unlikely to spend more.
Probably, I haven’t watched WWE network in many many months, so I’ll just swap them lol I do have Impact Plus, NJPW World, Dragongate TV and Wrestle Unliverse so what’s one more lol
I would get it if I had time to dive into the back catalog. But without getting the PPVs live, I’ll pass for now.
I signed up in the spring, and got the April PPV included in it. In July, they put a hold on all accounts and stopped charging people as the platform went dark. I presume the show is being part of the relaunch.
I’ll see what’s included and go from there.
I don’t think this is what they wanted - but this is definitely in line with early days Full Sail NXT as it was Network only - and international TV markets. I could see them selling the programming international market, and hope that once they prove they have a solid TV ready product they are more likely to get a domestic TV deal for it.
Have always been interested in the backlog of ROH and if the live PPVs were included I would definitely be in but not with this set-up.
Looking back you have to consider the entire ROH experiment a huge miss. All that time wasted to just get the same streaming set up that ROH had before.
Agree completely @TheBenjamin
When the industry’s monopoly went away fro doing the PPV model it cast a dye that no future industry participants could or should do the streaming w/out PpV model.
New Japan has some this with their US PPVs. Now Honor Club will try the same. I do not think these are good strategies for growth or brand enhancement. It’s destined to remain a niche product that exists entirely reliant on a small audience who they expect to Spend Forever.
Edit (added additional though): While this works at smaller scale and has supported a content industry boom, ROH and TK sought out to drive significant TV rights value. To settle now for less js detrimental long term. You can grow from nothing / you cannot scale down and expect to be seen as more without lightening in a bottle. Very few examples in consumer Media and Content where that’s happened when perception quickly is reality.
I did subscribe to Honor Club when it included PPVs way back when. I won’t now, but still may get the PPVs. I enjoyed Saturdays show which I paid the equivalent of 4months worth of Honor Club for. I don’t see any justification by TK or ROH as to why I should pay an extra $120 a year for something that isn’t standing out as must see.
By comparison, watching ROH once a week and it’s PPV will cost more than HBO max + Netflix combined. TK was a mark for his favorites when he bought ROH and I’m not gonna be a mark for his bad idea and failing to deliver on anything new and original with ROH. IF that changes I am open to considering a different view of it.
We’re right back where we started, but with the casualty of an AEW water down in the process.
I don’t know. I already have my favorite ROH years on DVD, back when Gabe Sapolsky was booking, and I would have preferred to watch the new weekly show without subscribing to something new. Preferably, I’d be more up for something that hosted both ROH and AEW archives.
That’s an interesting point. WWE has basically said that a PPV/PLE costs $10… or nothing, depending on how you look at it and how much you use the rest of the network’s content.
So now all promotions are held to that standard and a 30/40/50 buck PPV had better be worth it. Whether intentional or not, actually a pretty good business move in that context.
I would file this under “devaluing” Pro Wrestling, similar to how they devalued the profession with their hoarding and subsequent dumping of talent on the marketplace.
Whereas UFC has successfully created a premium tier of content, WWE intentionally lowered the value associated to Ppv. That TK has been able to recreate that in a meaningful business off ppv is impressive but by burdening a smaller market share with paying more and more there will be a ceiling reached more quickly. It’ll be too cost prohibitive to be a new fan for people looking to maybe get in on the product. And the big brand doesn’t charge this so I’ll stick with WWE. Without ROH being somehow can’t miss, why pay more. (With free options on YouTube already). I’m surprised by the strategy to do Honor Club like this. Especially when YouTube can be monetized more meaningfully these days.
I would love to see HonorClub try and join forces with another content outlet (perhaps an IWTV, which is suffering due to the launce of Fire+). Just to bulk up the value and content availability.
Also, given that this isn’t a TV product yet, I’d love to see an attempt to give ROH a different look. Do TV at smaller distinct looking venues, like Centre Stage, 2300 Arena, Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium, Lowell Memorial Auditorium or Manhattan Centre, etc. Could go a long way of helping establish a new identity that can be built off of. Perfectly acceptable TV quality venues, without needing 5000+ seats.
That would be pretty cool. Tony has the capital where he doesn’t need ROH to become much more than a well-funded independent promotion and feeder system… might even be better served as a tax write-off than as an actual, profitable promotion. Use a few stars to draw the house, but also use it primarily as a way to get wrestlers seen and over before they come to AEW.
Personally, I would prefer that over trying to position AEW’s little brother as separate national promotion… if Tony Khan was to successfully pull that off, then the Observer should just name the “Promoter of the Year” award after him.
I suspect they will add taping at the start of dynamite or the odd live Rampage.
In fact it probably makes sense to position Rampage as a bigger show with add on of seeing a free taping for ROH right before and trying to go live more often.
That way no added production costs.
I suspect there may be an issue here. Purely speculation. Since ROH is a separate entity, and presumably now trying to operate for its own profit through HonorClub - I’m going to guess that Warner Discovery isn’t going to be into covering production costs for it. And as such, for a variety of other reasons, I can see it being a separate operation for tapings.
If that isn’t an issue, sure - Rampage goes live every week, with a tacked on 90-100 minute ROH taping ahead of time, makes a lot of sense too.
Warner Discovery pays for three hours of AEW content each week. What else AEW does with their taping or talent I don’t think would matter to them. They don’t care that Dark & Elevation are filmed at tapings. Or that AEW uses non-contracted talent all the time.
As long as the AEW brand is considered “cool” to draw in 18-49 year olds that’s all that matters.
True. But we could also be at a point where that has changed. AEW’s TV time presumably would want to be used building up AEW’d brand. Not necessarily using that time to direct fans to a separate entity. One which plenty of fans have been complaining about for the last several months as one that has taken attention away what they had enjoyed previously about AEW.
I’m sure there is a very possible scenario where it is all fine to double up. But at the same time, I’d think for what the new goal of ROH needs to be (a stand alone entity), they need to create their own identity and have a unique look and feel, so it’s not just looked upon as a premium version of Dark.
100% agree.
I think it will be hard. Especially when they just utilize all of AEWs resources so there is a lack of other ideas
What NXT did so well for many years is that they created their identity as something different than the main roster product was at the time.
I’m not saying ROH stylistically needs to be something that drastically different from AEW - but they absolutely need to create their own identity. To me that means something a little more lo-fi, a little rougher around the edges, and something that can lean into their streaming only outlet.
I hope Tony uses ROH as a place to really experiment in storytelling and in content.
Obviously this isn’t what he wanted out of ROH… But maybe, they’ll be able to do something different.
I agree. And also to make sure it’s different Tony shouldn’t be the one booking it. Vince didn’t book NXT. Triple H didn’t book NXT & NXT UK.
Tony needs to find somebody with a different vision for RoH but that he can work with so it can fit in with AEW when it needs too. Anybody have any ideas?
I know AEW has moved away from authority figures but I think one might be needed for this ROH launch. It needs to make sense why certain talent is in ROH and I think Khan, with his sports background, could actually make a draft that makes sense.
I’d bring in Nigel McGuiness as a figurehead GM (a role he had in the old ROH) and give the whole promotion some purpose and direction.
I don’t understand why a talent like Cesaro or Athena would want to be in ROH and they also need to tell those stories.