NEWS ITEMS: Vince McMahon might relaunch the XFL, Ratings for Impact vs. WWE Tribute to the Troops, NXT on USA Network

By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor


SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...

-Vince McMahon is thinking about bringing the XFL back, according to Brad Shephard (@thebradshepard), who was quoted in a new story in the Washington Post for breaking this news. Deadspin’s David Bixenspan (@davidbix) received this reply from his inquiry: “Vince McMahon has established and is personally funding a separate entity from WWE, Alpha Entertainment, to explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football. Mr. McMahon has nothing further to announce at this time. The idea of an alternative football league that advertises the hard-hitting violence that is causing concussions cannot be the marketing campaign this time around, if they go through with this, but they won’t have an issue with finding a network, as they have their own and one would suspect McMahon could negotiate a good deal with himself for the rights.

-Impact Wrestling on Thursday night drew a mere 161,000 viewers up against the WWE Tribute to the Troops special, down from last week’s 226,000 and below the 2017 average headed into the week of 284,000. They drew 329,000 viewers a year ago this week. That’s likely their lowest viewership number of all time since being on commercial national cable television in prime time. It shows that there are viewers who watch Impact only because there’s not another wrestling show on the air, but as soon as offered a WWE product, 65,000 Impact’s viewers – about 25 percent compared to last week – switched over. Tribute drew 1.401 million viewers up against Impact.

-The NXT telecast on USA Network at 7 ET on Wednesday night drew 841,000 viewers. It’d be interesting to get word on whether WWE Network viewership of NXT later in the night crashed or if most of the 841,000 viewers were newer viewers who were checking out the NXT product for the first time.

Send newstips and reports on live events you attend to pwtorch@pwtorch.com


NOW CHECK OUT THIS PREVIOUS UPDATE: NEWS ITEMS: Rock talks President Trump and his timeline to run for U.S. President, NXT viewership on USA, Charlotte on Rousey in WWE

 

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