Oh Bilal: WWE is a Sport?!

Many would say no, but from a programming stand point Nielsen and others seem to disagree.

 


 

In America

For those of you who follow Nielsen ratings you’ll notice under their section “Top Cable Sports Programs” WWE RAW pops up fairly frequently. Granted this portion of the the Nielsen site hasn’t been updated since early May but WWE is side by side with the NBA Playoffs, MLB among others.

One key difference though WWE RAW is on the USA Network. A channel that is not know for any sports aside from dog shows, and sparse Olympic coverage. USA would tell you that their slogan is “Characters Welcome.” From there you can guess that WWE‘s characters stand along side Monk and Burn Notice in their minds at least.

While some like to use this as a reason why WWE isn’t considered a sport, its a flawed argument at best. NBC doesn’t have a cable sports network, thus they throw WWE Smackdown on SyFy. Explain to me the correlation between science fiction and WWE. While you’ll garner some laughs you can’t make a serious case and NBC Universal doesn’t to attempt to.

However, down the dial WWE Superstars is on WGN America a channel that is striving to be the next TNT/TBS. As many know WGN (based out of Chicago) features local MLB and NBA games.

In Canada

Lets take a bus to my native land of Canada. There its extremely cut and dry. WWE RAW, Smackdown, Vintage Classics, NXT and even a Canadian rehash of Experience air on The Score Television Network. Smart phone users world wide know The Score for their free and fairly awesome sports application. It gets even better, due to CRTC regulations they air RAW on a 15 minute delay. What regulation? Well in laymen terms one that limits live content on Canada channels. This rule is designed for… you guessed it sports programming primarily.

So to summarize: Nielsen tracks WWE Raw as a sports program, In Canada the CRTC and The Score treat and regulate WWE shows as a sports program.

Other Arguments

There are other arguments such as “WWE is fixed” well in recent history the NBA has been plagued by this and MLB has a history of it. UFC is clearly more “real” but frankly as a sport WWE has better production values. That’s a personal choice but subjective at best for either side.

WWE has less contact/athleticism” take an NFL quarterback he plays 60 minutes a week, divide that by half for defence, than again for the half of the play where he hands or passes it off, he’s active for 15 minutes maximum. Now take any WWE superstar they do at least 2 shows a week granted their likely 10 minute matches but that’s still 5 more minutes in contact that a quarterback.

I realize 90% of you will disagree, which is good otherwise this would be a foregone conclusion. So let me know down below.

Until next week,

Your either Wrestling Edge or Against Us!

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