WWE Network in the UK

[ViciousPrism 177]

What are the odds that Sky lawyer'd up?

[Guest Richie Boi 777]

This is getting beyond a joke now!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest FreeSpirit]

Haha lol. That is definitely Sky getting their claws into it from the sounds of it

[Guest bigmatt]

The announcement went up on the website 1 minute before it was supposed to go live.

[Chris2K 176]

Sweet Jesus what a debacle. I'd say it's unbelievable but the way we've been screwed in the last ten months makes it completely unsurprising.

[Guest Magic]

Haha. Oh dear. One minute before lift off, you couldn't make it up. I wasn't going to subscribe anyway. I have Sky Sports and I just download PPV's, not that I'm watching more than the odd bit of WWE here and there. I am going to be getting the ICW On Demand service for four quid a month though, because their shows are much harder to come by if you haven't been at them live so I think it might be worth it at that price.

[Maxximus 353]

This sucks for you guys. I couldn't get rid of it soon enough and now you have to wait even longer for it? Brutal. :lol

[Guest pheadley]

forgot about it till 15mins ago, checked to see if i could get free month but no wwe dont wanna give us that.

[Guest HH-Evolution]

Forget it then...if this is Skys doing, expect a really, really watered down variation - I'm going to stick to my usual plans...

I legit don't think we'll be seeing much of a good result from this if Sky are responsible for the delay, which they likely are.

[Guest The Beltster]

WWE dont know what the f*ck they're doing anymore. In a business or a creative sense. What a laughable load of dog sh*t.

[Guest Laffy]

This is from Yahoo.com explaining abit more about why it was halted.

 

The UK WWE Network launch was halted at the last minute because of WWE negotiations with Sky. “It’s Sky that’s the issue,” Dave Meltzer confirmed on Wrestling Observer Radio,“WWE were in negotiations with Sky before for a TV station. They wanted a TV station, the deal didn’t get done, thats what held it up.”

 

“There’s several issues. They were in negotiations over putting it as a TV station. Sky when they made their deal, part of the deal was pay per views. They were aware that the network was coming in but that wasn’t until next year. Sky were already promoting Survivor Series at a certain price and WWE came in not even offering it at a lower price but offering it for free.”

 

The negotiations over the WWE / Sky partnership was what held up the initial Network launch which was meant to happen in October. Obviously the continued negotiations did not go well, leading the WWE to launch it alone on November 3rd. At the last minute (literally in the hours before launch) Sky said or did something that caused WWE to pull the launch. It’s possible that they went as far to get an injunction. This issue is that Sky had already started marketing their Survivor Series pay per view at a price point of £14.95. When WWE suddenly announced last Thursday that the UK would get Survivor Series free on WWE Network, at that point the Sky representatives needed to act in order to protect their business. By the intervention happening at the last minute, WWE have been seriously embarrassed. Meltzer states “I’d guess they’d figured it would get done by November 3rd, they were assuming it was going to get worked out and then it did not get worked out.”

 

The reason for WWE’s haste was because the US Network numbers had been so bad. They only had 731,000 subscriptions as of last week. The UK is WWE’s number two market, and the original launch for the UK Network had been January 2015. That was then changed to October 2014. WWE then changed it to November as the Sky talks were ongoing.

 

Now there’s no clear launch date, but you’d have to imagine they’ll try for a January date again. It’s important for WWE to get this done for WrestleMania season. It’s also important that they launch soon in order to appease the disgruntled UK fans. WWE and Sky need to work this out quickly as both are being criticised right now. The US Network geo block actually did get removed in the UK earlier on Monday, but was quickly restored a few hours later.

 

“It could get worked out soon, we don’t know” Meltzer states.

 

WWE promised something and failed to deliver. The botched launch has seriously hurt their consumer base and there’s a huge bad feeling to the WWE in the UK right now. The timing couldn’t be worse for WWE, as they are due to tour the UK starting the fifth of November to the thirteenth. This will include Raw and Smackdown tapings. The always raucous UK crowd is sure to give WWE a piece of their mind – especially if the shows promote the Network for the US audience.

[ViciousPrism 177]

Yep. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out Sky have them by the short n' curlies.

[Guest]

Just reading that probably means there is no hope for Germany too, considering main programming is on three TV stations under the same umbrella and the PPV's on the On-Demand streaming network Maxdome, which is just like Netflix. It least the UK got a date, even though it's been pushed back numerous times. :lol

[Guest bigmatt]

Sky have apparently denied it has anything to do with them on twitter and here:

 

Hi all,

 

Please be advised that the the delay on the WWE Network is in no way related to Sky. As previously advised, this is an independent service which Sky will not be providing.

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Shows-you-love/WWE-Thread-2014/m-p/2197865#M963

 

for what it's worth.

[ViciousPrism 177]

If an injunction was sought after, wouldn't WWE be unable to refute these claims?

[etz 78]

The funny part of all this is that WWE could just remove the geo block and it'd get it's UK subscribers anyway.... not that it hasn't already got them... I strongly suspect they're going to be massively disappointed with the new UK numbers, as I imagine we're bolstering the US numbers already.

[Guest John Hancock]

The funny part of all this is that WWE could just remove the geo block and it'd get it's UK subscribers anyway

 

Legally, probably not. I assume Sky have some sort of exclusivity deal, so, if WWE did that, they'd get the shit sued out of them.

[etz 78]

Legally, probably not. I assume Sky have some sort of exclusivity deal, so, if WWE did that, they'd get the shit sued out of them.

 

I imagine they couldn't advertise the network in the UK, but I can't see how Sky could legally force the WWE in the US to block access to it's US based servers from the UK. It might be able to force WWE into not allowing people to sign up from UK physical addresses, maybe, but geo blocking is unlikely to be upheld by the courts as it places an undue burden on WWE resources.

 

Not to mention the dubious nature of the "competition" in delivering content between Sky and WWE network, seeing as how one is a satellite TV network and the other is basically WWE:Youtube. Or WWE:Netflix. Or WWE:Amazon Prime. Finding in favour of a TV network in a case like this is extraordinarily unlikely because of the monumental can of worms it's likely to open in the new media industry.

[Guest John Hancock]

I can't see how Sky could legally force the WWE in the US to block access to it's US based servers from the UK.

 

Because it's a massive, intentional breach of an exclusivity agreement. If WWE sign a contract where Sky agrees to pay them to be their exclusive provider of content to the UK, they would absolutely be in breach of that contract if they made it possibly for British viewers to see WWE products legally without Sky's permission.

 

Loads and loads of other American shows have similar deals, try watching any of the videos the Colbert Report posts on Facebook from a British IP address.

 

There would be no can of worms, it would just be a cut and dry breach of contract, which is why it won't ever happen.

[Guest FreeSpirit]

Like that Customer Service Adviser knows what's going on in top level meetings. Until Sky put out a proper press release (and not just an informal post on their forum) saying otherwise, then it's just a carefully worded statement to deflect attention from Sky.