Best Ways to Integrate WWE Network During WrestleMania Week

Last night at the SmackDown/Main Event taping in Ontario, CA, Triple H announced that the 2014 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony will air live on WWE Network on April 5.  The announcement will air tonight on Main Event.  So far, The Ultimate Warrior, Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Lita have been announced, with Paul Bearer and Mr. T rumored (according to F4WOnline.com, h/t CamelClutchBlog.com) to be joining them.

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The Hall of Fame has not been available via a live stream for several years.  WWE.com would air a live stream of most of the inductions, with those earmarked for the USA Network special not shown.  Live streaming wasn't close to perfected yet, but it was a nice option for fans who couldn't be there in person and didn't want to wait for the DVD.  Last year, WWE added a budget priced Internet pay-per-view of the complete ceremony which was available the week after WrestleMania.  The 2014 ceremony will be the first time the whole event is aired live.

It's likely that there will be other events as part of WrestleMania week on WWE Network in addition to the Hall of Fame ceremony and WrestleMania itself.  Maybe they won't all be live, but there are plenty of things WWE can cover.

The most obvious one is the live matches at WrestleMania Fan Axxess, which features talent from NXT and some undercard talent from the main roster.  These matches have been around pretty much as long as Axxess has, but they've never been broadcast until now.  With the weekly NXT show being one of the featured programs on the network and a NXT special during the free trial week being the first live broadcast on the network, it would be a nice way to get fans into the habit of watching each week.

If they're doing a charity auction again this year, it would be a creative use of the network.  Having said that, I would think anyone with the means to participate would be in New Orleans, but if they built a nice event out of it, it could be worth watching.

Of course they could also just do cut-ins throughout the week.  Since the network will have minimal ads but plenty of programming formatted for ad-supported television with commercial breaks, they'll have plenty of room for cut-ins from New Orleans either during breaks or during the break between shows if they don't use the break time allotted in the body of the shows.  They could be from Axxess, a tailgate party the afternoon of WrestleMania, the red carpet of the charity event...there are a lot of possibilities.

With WWE's vision of of the network being "interactive" with app integration and all that jazz, a lot of live programming during the biggest week of the year is a good way integrate that concept and get it over.  

David Bixenspan has been Bleacher Report's WWE Team Leader since 2011 and also writes for Figure 4 Weekly, available to F4WOnline.com subscribers along with other content including the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and variety of audio shows.  His article about the beginning of WWE's national expansion in 1984 is in issue #102 of Fighting Spirit Magazine, available online internationally and at newsagents in the UK. 

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