In the aftermath of YouTube’s “Adpocolypse”, wrestling based content creators have been hit incredibly hard.
Today, What Culture Pro Wrestling (WCPW), arguable one of the biggest brands in terms of wrestling on the internet, provided an official statement explaining just how badly this change in YouTube’s monetisation policy had affected them.
In the statement, they explained that all forthcoming shows for their weekly show, Loaded, filmed in Manchester have been cancelled, with immediate effect.
They owed the reluctant change to YouTube’s new monetisation policy, which, in basic terms, labels all wrestling content as “non-advertiser friendly”:
“Since the change the WCPW YouTube channel has seen its advertising income decimated, with our recent match between Alberto El Patron and Rey Mysterio Jr earning only $44 despite receiving over 1,100,000 views. This is a reduction of around 98% in what would have been Loaded’s main source of revenue.”
With that, it is essentially impossible for them to continue producing a free show. They made clear their intention to work with other groups and individuals, with an effort towards changing YouTube’s harsh stance on wrestling.
Whilst this is a much larger issue than just wrestling, many content creators across the spectrum of YouTube have been negatively hit by the change in advertising regulations, with many announcing how their ad revenues have seen significant cuts, and many more jumping ship to websites such as Twitch.
Previously, American independent companies such as Beyond Wrestling and AAW (All American Wrestling), who both utilised YouTube as part of their business model, have issued statements on how the change has affected smaller companies such as themselves, and how much extra merchandise would have to be shifted every month just to stay afloat.
It is certainly very unfair to see so many individuals and/or group content creators (many of which do/may rely on YouTube as a sole source of income) now have to reconsider their options and creatives going forward.
Whether WWE (who have a huge online presence on YouTube) have been affected by these changes in the monetisation policy is as yet unknown.
In short – please support independent wrestling!
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