WWE Beat The NBA Head To Head, As 'Normal People' Score Another Win Over Elites/Wokes
Last Saturday, WWE aired its first Saturday Night's Main Event program on NBC in 16 years. The return pitted WWE directly against the semi-finals of the NBA Cup, with the Rockets-Thunder matchup airing on ABC.
The NBA and its media lackeys spent Tuesday morning touting a head-to-head victory for the NBA, citing a 1.89 million to 1.59 million viewer advantage. But the framing is dishonest.
The WWE event was simulcasted on NBC and its complementary streaming service, Peacock, on which 789,000 watched the program live. In actuality, WWE drew 2.3 million viewers compared to the NBA's 1.89 million viewers.
Discounting Peacock's viewership runs contrary to how viewership data is reported in 2024. For example, NBC always combines Peacock viewership with linear viewership when publishing ratings for its weekly Sunday Night Football presentations. The network also coupled the viewership from NBC and Peacock when promoting the numbers for the 2024 Summer Olympics last July and August.
Moreover, WWE fans are accustomed to streaming events on Peacock, where each premium live event exclusively airs — including WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Royal Rumble. Hence, the closer-than-normal linear-to-streaming breakdown. Specifically, about a third of WWE viewers streamed the event on Saturday.
UNIONDALE, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 14: Cody Rhodes enters the arena during Saturday Night Main Event at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on December 14, 2024 in Uniondale, New York. (Photo by WWE/Getty Images)
Normally, NBC would celebrate its victory over rival ABC in a press release. However, NBC just signed an 11-year, $26.95 billion deal with the NBA that begins next year. Already, a report from the Wall Street Journal details how executives within NBC believe the network vastly overpaid for the NBA. Therefore, NBC isn't going to risk fracturing the relationship more by bragging that professional wrestling is a hotter product than the NBA.
But it is.
The NBA has lost 48% of its viewers since 2012. The NBA Cup is down double digits from last season, the tournament's inaugural season. NBA on ESPN games are down an unheard-of 28% year-over-year.
Meanwhile, WWE continues to set record business with its most popular two-year stretch since the Attitude Era in the late 1990s. While NBA Cup tickets sell for $29, WWE is selling out stadiums across the globe.
The NBA and WWE are not apples-to-apples in terms of general popularity. The NBA has 30 local teams, while the WWE is one national entity. That said, there is an argument that WWE is the more valuable television property.
Weekly WWE television shows often draw more viewers than nationally televised NBA games. Last we checked, Raw and SmackDown were averaging around 1.8 million and 2.2 million viewers, respectively. By comparison, the NBA averaged 1.6 million viewers across ESPN, ABC, and TNT last season.
What's more, WWE costs much less to air. NBC will pay an annual fee of $2.5 billion a year to broadcast NBA games, compared to $1.4 billion for WWE. WWE also produces new content 52 weeks a year. Unlike in the NBA, there is no off-season in professional wrestling.
The NBA certainly has more cachet than the WWE. But WWE, at almost half the annual price, is a better investment than the NBA. Put simply, Netflix was wise to choose WWE over the NBA. (WWE Raw will debut as a weekly show on Netflix in January.)
The recent boom period for WWE underscores the value of resisting political pressure. Professional wrestling is one of the few forms of mainstream entertainment that did not plant its flag on the grounds of either side of the culture war.
Last April, WWE president Nick Khan discussed with Fox News host Will Cain how the company's apolitical approach is key to its success.
"Red states we sell out. Blue states we sell out. It's not what we're focused on," Khan told Cain. "What we're focused on is the in ring product and how it delivers to our fans. If politicians are fans of our product, they are welcome."
By contrast, no professional sports league in America has embraced left-wing politics more than the NBA has. And it has cost the league profoundly. Last Friday, FS1 host Colin Cowherd likened the decline of the NBA's popularity to that of the Democratic Party.
"The NBA ratings are down 48 percent in the last 12 years and they have fallen off a cliff this year," Cowherd began. "Adam Silver's solution is let's make the courts brighter. "It is a really bad look for a family of four to go to a game and the [stars] don't play.
"Go ask the Democrats. Be warned, once you detach from regular people in America, you will pay a price."
He's right.
As we discussed in a recent OutKick column, normal people vs. the far-left (the wokes and the elites) is the actual culture war in America. The NBA chose the wokes and the elites. WWE chose normal people.
WWE's win over the NBA on Saturday night was another win for the normal people.