ECW would likely be alive and well had the promotion had access to the streaming options of today, according to Justin Credible.
Despite its popularity, ECW went out of business in 2001 and arguably the biggest factor in the promotion’s demise was expenses associated with its TV shows.
During the “Hitting the Turnbuckle” podcast, Credible, a former ECW World Champion, agreed with host Adam Cousins that the promotion would have done better in 2023 with more options for streaming. He said,
“That’s the thing that was killing ECW: Paul was trying to keep guys like myself, guys like Sabu, guys like Rob Van Dam, so [the wrestlers] were making a lot of money for a small promotion.
“We had to buy our [only] TV time after we lost our TV show with … TNN, that turned into Spike. And then it just became that we were paying out of pockets to run in these markets. Just a lot of money going out and it wasn’t coming in fast enough.”
In a January 2001 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it was reported that ECW was costing at least $4,000 a week to run a TV event.
The promotion was revived in WWE in 2006 as a third brand but was canceled to make way for WWE NXT in February 2010.
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