Global Force Wrestling has gone through a lot of changes this year after Anthem Sports & Entertainment bought the company, Jeff Jarrett went from consultant to running the former Total Nonstop Action program again and then they merged with Jarrett’s GFW project because they were smart enough to ditch the TNA letters. Don’t forget the “Broken” issues with the Hardys that never seem to go away.
What’s next for GFW? They’re going into the business of having their own network … sort of.
During last night’s edition of Impact Wrestling, announcer Jeremy Borash (who has been with the company since day one) mentioned that later in September, GFW will be launching the Global Wrestling Network on IOS, Android and GlobalWrestlingNetwork.com. It will have free episodes of Impact from the company’s 15 year history as part of a back catalog. What hasn’t been confirmed is is the price of the GWN venture and what other content they might have. It will likely be an internet only venture rather than trying to make it a television channel.
I should point out also that GFW/TNA Impact Wrestling has had a TNAWrestling Plus channel on Youtube for years that has a lot of PPVs and specials about specific talents on it. I doubt most fans even know about it because the company barely promoted it, but it’s still out there.
Is the demand for such a channel that great? I don’t know, but I’m leaning towards a no. The reality is that GFW’s audience is not growing as they typically get about 350,000 viewers in a good week in the US. Do people even watch Pop TV? I have no idea. When Impact was getting around 1.2 million viewers most weeks on Spike TV seven years ago there may have been more of an interest in this sort of thing, but not now.
If the costs of starting up this project aren’t too high, then I wish them luck with it. I just don’t know how well it’s going to do or if it’s even worth the time to have a few hundred diehard Impact fans to sign up to watch AJ Styles vs. James Storm from 2007 for example. Chances are the same fans can probably find it on YouTube if they search hard enough.
I watch Impact nearly every week and it has some good moments, but there’s a definite lack of star power. It’s going to be tough for them to win over new fans when they lack big names. Trying to build a network off that is tall task.
