Indie Promotions Depending Financially On YouTube Suffer Big Hit With Change In Policy
The professional wrestling business can generate a good living financially for a promoter. For some independent shows, the largely supportive audience can profit enough to generate more events, as well as pay the talent and venues for following shows. However, when it comes to getting more established talent to headline shows, other financial measures are done, such as social media advertisers and sponsors, to cover expenses.
For a few years, many companies have experienced success from the standpoint of visibility by having their promotion produce weekly shows on YouTube. The ongoing submission of material, followed by the sizable fanbase, allowed pro wrestling organizations to receive a good financial gain and expand their respective product. However, recent policies of YouTube have presented a major hurdle for these companies.
This year, there have been some very controversial videos regarding social relations that has unfortunately caused large advertisers to back out. This has also forced YouTube to be much more strict on their viewing restrictions, especially with teens and children.
Based on the type of product pro wrestling presents, especially within the independent circuit, many organizations will now suffer the fate of being a part of the rollout of changes Google is doing to ensure that the content presented on YouTube remains family-friendly for the most part. The restricted mode, which acts similar to Parental Control, affects wrestling channels, and specifically their revenue.
Google is slowly rolling out the changes, but mandates such as wrestling channels having to reach a certain number of viewers to receive any form of monetization leaves many promotions taking a huge hit in their revenue.