Former WWE Co-President George Barrios Remembers Success Of WWE Network

In the age of WWE's media partnership with ESPN in the US, requiring some fans to pay extra for premium live events, many yearn for the days of the WWE Network. The network launched in the states in 2014 for just $10 a month, but was phased out as content began to move to services like Peacock at the beginning of 2021. Former WWE co-president George Barrios recalled the service's near immediate success on an episode of "My World."

"We said, 'Wow. We have this massive library of content that's really untapped. We're going to digitize it," Barrios said. "'We're going to pivot the pay-per-view from a high price model, $50 a month where we have to split it with the cable companies, to we can now go direct and we're going to lower the price to $10.' That becomes the essence of the WWE Network."

Barrios said that the pay-per-views were always going to be the anchor of the network. They wanted the extra content to convince fans, who may have only bought one or two shows a year, to stick around. McMahon, however, wasn't initially convinced by that, according to the former executive.

"I remember Vince at one point, before the launch, I remember him going 'George... How much f****** wrestling do you think people can watch?'" Barrios said. "We launched the network, have probably half a million, six, seven hundred thousand people sign up within hours, which is amazing, it stunned everybody... We're in a meeting, there's a few of us, and I go to Vince, to kind of needle him, I go, 'Hey, Vince, remember when you asked me how much wrestling people could watch? ...Turns out, quite a f****** bit.'"

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "My World w/ Jeff Jarrett" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.