The big news in WWE over the past few weeks is the company moving away from single-branded Pay Per View (PPV) events. Both RAW and Smackdown Live will now combine for one event a month (for 12 total) in the new schedule.
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We have some details to share on the original plans for the number of PPV events when the brand split was first announced back in 2016.
In the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscribe here), Dave Meltzer says that WWE was originally planning on running 20 events a year.
The original idea behind it was them putting on more shows would hopefully lead to more WWE Network subscriptions. Fans would feel as if they were getting more value for their monthly subscription with so many events.
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WWE eventually realized that they were spending more money because of this and not bringing enough value in return. This was first dropped to 18 and later moved back to 16 per year (which was the number of events that happened in 2017 total).
In case you missed it, you can check the new 2018 WWE PPV schedule here.
Discussion: Are you okay with one event a month?
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Yeah maybe end the brandsplit all together would be better smackdown is getting worse and worse each week