Eric Bischoff Details Plans For Scrapped OTT Platform
Eric Bischoff has revealed that he once had plans to meld the modern wrestling industry with the territorial days, courtesy of an over-the-top (OTT) video platform for fans across the United States.
On the latest episode of "Strictly Business," independent wrestling was the topic at hand as Randy Carver, promoter of Limitless Wrestling, was the special guest. Bischoff was asked about how important streaming services are to the growth of the independent wrestling scene.
"I think it's critical to the wrestling space," Bischoff said. The former WCW president discussed plans he had made about half a decade ago, alongside Wrestling Inc. Senior News Editor Nick Hausman, to launch an OTT-like platform for independent wrestling in the U.S.
"I developed the idea and funded it to a point and started it," Bischoff said. "And then I met Nick Hausman and kind of explained to him what we were doing, and he was very excited about it, and Nick actually jumped on board to try and develop this idea."
The finished product, as Bischoff laid out, would have been similar to what we see from modern wrestling streaming services such as FITE TV, IWTV, and Title Match Network.
"We wanted to have a destination, call it a website, whereby if you lived in Utah, but you were really interested in the indie scene because of someone that you've heard about in Maine, you'd have the opportunity to watch that product and it would all be aggregated," Bischoff said. All the promotions would have had to do is upload their content, and Bischoff's website would host it. The site would also create "territories" for each region, giving it a similar feel to the wrestling industry of yesteryear. All the territories on the platform would then eventually get together for something big.
"Once a year, we'd have some of the top talent from each of those promotions that wrestled there regularly or were hired to wrestle in this particular event," Bischoff said. "We would have basically the Super Bowl of independent wrestling."
If you use any quotes from this article please credit the "Strictly Business" podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.