Why WWE TLC Card Not Announced + WWE Network Free Tier Launched?

Why Do We Know So Little Of The TLC Card?

As of this morning, if you went to wwe.com and clicked on Shows to find TLC, the only show information you’d find? It would be about previous editions of TLC. As in, there are no officially announced matches for the TLC event that happens a week from this Sunday. Crazy, right?

Yes, we do expect a few matches to be made official. Daniel Bryan versus The Fiend is all but assured based on recent interactions. A Roman Reigns-Baron Corbin match also seems like a sure thing. But as sure as those matches are, nothing has been made official, and we may know why.

According to the Wrestling Observer, Vince McMahon is taking a bit of an interesting view on things. In his mind, the PPV is more about selling WWE Network subscriptions. Now, while you’d think he would want to hype major matches on upcoming shows in order to sell those subscriptions, Vince does not see it quite that way. His thinking is that, when you had to see a specific PPV to fans whenever one was scheduled, you had to specifically sell them on a big reason to shell out a good chunk of money for that specific event.

Now, with the subscription just $9.99 a month, he is more interested in overall subscription and subscriber retention, which apparently he feels does not rely on announcing the majority of a big card weeks in advance.

This is why, with just over a week to go, we’ve had no officially announced matches. It also probably explains why, with other recent shows, we’ve seen only a handful of matches made official before the event.

WWE Network Free Tier Quietly Launched?

We have long heard rumors of WWE adding tiers to the WWE Network subscription plans. While no plans have ever been put in writing and made public yet, it has been discussed that there would be a more expensive tier which added content. Some content up for discussion in a premium tier includes non-WWE wrestling, such as from Evolve, with whom WWE has a good working relationship.

I do not personally recall mention of a free tier, but according to PWInsider there will be one, and for at least some, it seems to have soft-launched yesterday.

Since nothing is officially announced, no one yet knows what will and won’t be available under the free tier. It is believed that access to content would be limited in some fashion-such as some not available as soon, or at all, perhaps. There is also expected to be an ad-driven component to it, which is not all that different from watching some other network programming online or on demand today.

It will be interesting to see what is and is not included in the free tier. Would WWE offer any or all of it’s PPV to the free tier, with ads? Or would those only be watchable after the event is in the books? WWE no doubt wants to lure in more subscribers, and a free tier might help them-though for curious parties, they’ve always offered a one month free trial to new subscribers.