Best Use of Existing Technology - Erin Cline

The existing technology of streaming services is something we see all over our culture in 2017. You can stream movies, television, concerts, and live events using all kinds of streaming technologies. There are specialty streaming services that focus on increasingly large numbers of what would have been considered niche audiences in years past. Do you like Criterion Collection movies? Did you know there's a streaming site for that? (FilmStruck) Do you like video games? Did you know that there is a streaming service for that? (Twitch)

The specific streaming service I would like to bring to attention, I feel, exemplifies this idea of niche audience streaming to a tee - FloSlam. FloSlam is a prowrestling streaming service that pools streams and iPPVs (internet exclusive pay-per-views) into one place and makes it all accessible for a monthly price of $20, or a one time payment for one year of $150. Why does this exist? Are there really that many people watching prowrestling? In a word, yes. The dominant prowrestling company, WWE, developed a streaming service (The WWENetwork) which has climbed to well over 1 million subscribers, and other, smaller wrestling companies have realized that the best way to get people to watch your product is to put it on the internet. People can't know about your company if they never hear about it, and people don't talk unless they can see your product. FloSlam takes many of these smaller companies and pools them into one place, making their products maximally accessible to far larger audiences.

By utilizing this kind of streaming service, independent wrestling companies are dramatically increasing their viewership. This increases ticket sales and leads to being able to book bigger names, which also increases ticket sales. Instead of putting their backs up and trying to pretend that other companies do not exist (as was the case for decades in prowrestling), the companies that are participating in this streaming service are finding that it's easier to challenge the giant of WWE if you bring eyes that are already looking for alternative prowrestling entertainment into a common place. If you like ProWrestlingGorilla, maybe you'll like House of Hardcore. Or, perhaps, if you're there to watch AAW you'll find yourself clicking into Shimmer or Shine - bringing in new audiences and building larger followings for companies that have been looked over or seen as inaccessible in the past.