The biggest talking point coming out of the most recent Friday Night SmackDown may have been Cody Rhodes slapping The Rock or Seth Rollins agreeing to the tag team match booked for Night 1 of WrestleMania XL, but another absolutely huge story came out of that episode when Logan Paul announced his PRIME Hydration company will be partnering up with WWE to put their branding in the center of the ring for pay-per-views going forward.
Casual fans will likely hear this news and think "So what?" After all, it is commonplace for brands to purchase space on the mat for boxing, MMA and other sports. Advertisements are riddled all over nearly every possible surface for the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB, too.
But WWE has always remained firmly against this. NEVER in the company's history have there been advertisements placed on the ring, even if the commentary team would interrupt a match to talk about KFC or a graphic would pop up on the screen to promote something and block the action going on.
The closest WWE has ever come to this would be the Tapout logo on the Cruiserweight Classic (which they owned a major stake in)
But now, with this announcement, all of that is going to change.
Recently, WWE has been experimenting with bombarding its audiences with as many advertisements as possible, even going so far as to have the LED screens on the sides of the ring and the security barricades plastered with Cinnamon Toast Crunch advertisements and such.
Clearly, more than ever, even prior to the UFC merger and Endeavor forming the TKO organization, operations for WWE take a money-first approach. Obviously, for the company itself, nearly all things that bring in more money are good. The stockholders don't care about anything but the bottom line and revenue will never cease being above entertainment value in their eyes.
But while some of these endeavors are great for the company and not necessarily bad for the fans—for instance, when WWE gets paid to bring live events to a city that hasn't had a live show in a while, or how we might see some interesting tweaks to Monday Night Raw's presentation when it starts being broadcast on Netflix for that platform having paid more for the television rights—this PRIME deal is opening up the floodgates in a way that could be a negative for fans.
There's something to be said about the purity of the WWE ring leading up to this point. Clips from any show from any decade felt timeless and untainted. But now, the biggest moments will always be accompanied by some in-your-face advertisement.
When you think of Hulk Hogan slamming Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III, would you want to associate that with Burger King? Imagine always having the big pinfalls for championship matches take place on top of a giant TurboTax symbol, rather than even the WrestleMania 12 logo like what happened in 1996:
It won't matter how gaudy or ugly the logos are. Outside of extreme circumstances, WWE won't even care what the brand is that's being advertised. It won't matter if it has nothing to do with professional wrestling or sports entertainment. For all we know, WWE could get into the dicey territory of allowing sponsored placements of political campaigns and controversial social brands in there if all the board cares about is who offers the highest price point for that space.
After all, Logan Paul himself isn't without scrutiny. All the credit to his in-ring performances and athleticism, as well as his mic work allowing him to be a natural at being a WWE Superstar, he's still someone who has drawn his fair share of criticism and ire. The 2017 Aokigahara forest incident alone is enough to have called into question whether or not WWE should be in a partnership with him. At a certain point, being a mega popular social media star turned fighter and all the benefits that come with that still have to be compared to the potential drawbacks of being associated forever with that entity. WWE has gone out of its way to edit out people like Chris Benoit from footage, or edited around botches in matches and blurred out problematic fans, but you can't edit around a logo that is dead center of the ring.
Plus, where does WWE stop? Once they start getting money from this deal and have cracked the seal that prevented any of these types of advertisements in the past, it will be easier for them to justify adding even more product placement.
Cable used to be a paid service because it had no commercials. Then, commercials popped up. Then, commercials started airing on top of the programming during the actual television show.
We know WWE isn't going to ever go back to having a pure no-ads ring after this. Ever. This will always be a thing. And then, soon, there will be smaller ads in the corners to coincide with the big one in the center, for those companies that don't want to pay as much. Or, WWE will have multiple advertisements in the center if no one is willing to put up the money for the big solo one.
At what point will the turnbuckles get monetized? Or the ring gear the wrestlers wear?
Are we going to look forward in 5 years and see "Snickers presents WWE WrestleMania 45" with Zoloft and NordVPN all over the ring, the Apple logo on the turnbuckles, the ring apron promoting Travelocity, a Nike logo swoosh instead of the WWE logo, the commentators wearing hats that say subscribe to Xfinity with Red Bull cans on the desk telling us about all the best sports betting sites, Bron Breakker's singlet covered in patches like a NASCAR driver's outfit holding up a championship belt that has side plates not with his name, but with a PlayStation emblem?
That might sound ridiculous, but it's a discussion brought up in baseball and other places already. It's only a matter of time before WWE dumps that onslaught of advertisements onto its fans just the same, all with the excuse that record profits each quarter simply aren't enough.
Get used to this type of a sight, as this is what every premium live event (and eventually, every television broadcast in general) is going to look like:
So the next time WWE hits you with a commercial for Progressive's Slam of the Week despite how you paid for the ad-free tier of Peacock Premium Plus and shows you footage of someone doing a maneuver on top of a Slim Jim logo, remember that all these millions of dollars earned by flashing all these commercials in your face are more than enough money to justify TKO paying its employees better and not having to fire its staff for "budget cuts" purposes.
And if you're Logan Paul, KSI and the folks over at PRIME Hydration, Smark Out Moment is open for some ad space and an "official hydration drink partner" if you're willing to cough up some bucks. We could use the funding. Hit up our Patreon.
0 comments: