40% of WWE's viewers are female and 17% of its viewers are below the age of 18. Wrestling has an aging demographic, and its audience is getting older faster than any other sport. These and other insights on WWE viewers and the US wrestling industry have been provided in the findings below.
WWE VIEWERS
WWE Viewer Demographics
- According to the WWE website, 40% of WWE's viewers are female (therefore 60% are male) and 17% of its viewers are below the age of 18. In 2019, the average age of TV viewers of wrestling was 54, older than every other sport except baseball (57) and horse racing (63).
- The median age of pro wrestling viewers increased by almost double from 28 in 2000 to 54 in 2016. This increase in the median age is the largest among all sports, with the next-largest being a 16-year increase in the median age of NHL viewers during the same period. Those who started watching when they were kids have stuck around and continue to watch using traditional means, but it has been a difficult task for WWE to attract new young viewers.
Preferences
- Over the past few years, WWE viewers have changed their viewing preferences. They are increasingly consuming wrestling content using new, non-traditional forms of media such as subscription streaming services and free platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.
- This can be attributed to the fact that there is a general shift in consumer behavior towards new media, as they are becoming more accepting of streaming technologies.
Why They Watch Wrestling
- Alfred Konuwa, a sportswriter at Forbes, stated the following: "People don't watch wrestling because they think it's real. They watch it because it's entertaining, and it gives them theater. And it's an escape, and there's a lot of drama. And yes, it's ridiculous, but when it's good, it's very good. It is a hybrid between a television show and a live sports product where there is a writers' room. They come up with the story lines. And then when it's executed, it's done in the form of live sport. So it is very jarring from that standpoint."
- According to a forum on Post Wrestling where people were asked why they still watch WWE, the most common answer was that they are used to it as a force of habit. Most people have been watching it for a long time ("30 plus years", "since they were kids", "two decades") and they feel invested in the story line.
WWE Viewer Psychographics
Values
- WWE viewers, due to the fact that they consist of an older demographic, are very traditional. For them, watching WWE is as much of a tradition as any other tradition, like supporting a specific football team. A vast majority of them are long-time fans of wrestling.
- According to Forbes, WWE viewers "have an undeniable and unquenchable thirst for anything nostalgic." WWE's reliance on stars from the past such as John Cena and The Undertaker is usually met with an overwhelmingly positive response from the viewers, because these were their favorites in the past. The subscriber count on the WWE network reached an all-time high of about two million on the day when WWE decided to feature stars from the 2000s in 2017.
Likes
- Based on the reasons why WWE viewers watch the show, it can be inferred that they like entertainment, drama and anything that gives them an escape.
- WWE viewers are mostly older, and they tend to like routine and tradition. This is a major factor contributing to their viewership, as they have been watching wrestling for a long time and it has become a part of them.
Dislikes
- WWE viewers complain about the fact that a lot of scripting and writing is involved in the shows, to the point where it is hard to grasp the real essence of the wrestlers. It is very easy for them to know that the wrestlers are reciting lines that were written, in contrast to back in the day when wrestling characters were an extension of their real personality.
US WRESTLING INDUSTRY
Viewership Trends
- WWE TV viewership has generally been decreasing over the years, despite its rankings remaining steady. The graph below shows the general trend in WWE TV viewership.
- When it comes to in-person viewership, the trend is the same as TV viewership. Average paid ticket sales have been declining for both North American and international WWE events.
- There has been an increase in subscription to the WWE Network, a "subscription video streaming service that airs the company’s pay-per-view events". This is attributed to the fact that such services are increasingly becoming the norm.
- The time spent watching WWE videos on free online platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as the number of video views, keeps growing. In fact, WWE is one of the most popular YouTube channels worldwide.
Number of People in the US That Watch Wrestling
- According to Alfred Konuwa, a sportswriter at Forbes, WWE had 2.5 to 3 million viewers a week in 2019.
- According to the WWE website, the show has 11 million viewers per week in the U.S. alone.
- In 2019, WWE had 740,000 viewers on average on Top 100 Broadcast & Cable; 2.42 million viewers on average on WWE Raw; and 2.17 million viewers on average on WWE Smackdown.
Future Trends in the Amount and Age of Wrestling Viewers
- Wrestling has an aging demographic, and its audience is getting older faster than any other sport. It is considered the "thing that used to be cool that people don't get attracted to anymore." Alfred Konuwa, a Forbes sportswriter, fears that WWE may not be able to "turn around to be a cool product to teens and to young people", and "reimagine itself as a mainstream property".
- Due to the fact that most of the people who watch wrestling are those who have been watching it for a long time, the viewership is only expected to keep getting older and older. According to Wrestling Inc, in a few years, only people over the age of 50 will care about pro wrestling. This implies that if the wrestling audience does not get younger at some point, the viewership will keep declining as the older viewers get whittled away.
- A young audience is critical for advertisers and is, therefore a key audience for any program to target. However, with the average age of wrestling viewers getting older, that key audience will only keep declining.
- On the bright side, WWE signed a billion-dollar deal with Fox to go on Fox Broadcasting, and it is possible that they may be presented differently on that platform to attract younger viewers. Moreover, AEW has been more successful at connecting with a younger audience than WWE, and seems to be on the right track. This is attributed to the fact that AEW has younger leaders than WWE.
Helpful Insights: WWE Revenue and Outlook
- For the full year of 2019, WWE revenues reached $960.4 million. This is the highest annual revenue in the history of the company.
- WWE believes that it is "well-positioned to take advantage of significant growth opportunities." They plan to increase the monetization of their content by distributing it in India and the Middle East, and evaluating strategic alternatives for WWE Network, their direct-to-consumer service. They estimate a 2020 Adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) of between $250 million to $300 million.
- WWE has the strongest financial outlook in the history of the company, due to new U.S. TV rights for Smackdown and Raw that were effected in late 2019.