Are 'Secondary Brands' The Future of Major Wrestling Companies

When you look at wrestling you will be able to see the top three companies globally are World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW). When it comes to titles, booking and roster these companies all have different ideas and philosophies. However, what has become clear recently is these companies have something that resembles a subsidiary programe acting as a smaller brand or developmental for the main show. For WWE it is NXT, for AEW it is Tony Khan's recent acquisition of Ring of Honor (ROH) and for NJPW it is the American brand NJPW Strong. 

Each of these brands have a (somewhat) unique roster, a unique set of titles and will have branding which is different to the main main product. These shows can be used to see if talents can be invested in or if something isn't clicking on the main product to send them there to rebrand and rebuild themselves. NXT had Dolph Ziggler as champion, Brian Cage went to ROH and Aussie Open started mainly on NJPW Strong before being part of the main roster on Japan as well. For the big three having this brand which likely has less of an audience on average to their main roster is a good indication on if something clicks with the audience there. NXT is in a weird place since the switch to 2.0, previously WWE's answer to an indy fed now it is a place of largly gimmicks and inexperienced wrestlers seeing what works and who actually can wrestle. ROH still needs to find a place on TV or streaming to fully test this but we see the basics, Brain Cage has come back into the fold and is in a stable and a few talents have signed deals to appear on the show (The Briscoes, Blake Christian, Toa Liona & Kaun) but we will get more on that later, NJPW Strong at this specific moment in time is the one with the clearest vision, it is a smaller brand for New Japan which I imagine is to act as a touring brand with a roster that American audience can connect with. While this brand only appears on the New Japan streaming service I imagine they feel that if combined with a few names flown over from Japan they can sell out a decent sized arena with the roster they have their and anyone who they can use through their partnership with AEW.

Perhaps these shows are part of a changing landscape in media, in a world where content is king and getting more for your money more shows and more hours of shows may help with prices should the rights to stream this content be on sale. We've seen WWE with their back catalogue to get a deal with Peacock. For Tony Khan getting a streaming deal the purchase of the ROH catalogue provides 20 years worth of content a lot of which can overlap with AEW due to the rosters used. As for New Japan their content is largely on their own streaming platform NJPW World so providing more content to watch they feel will keep viewers.

At the end of the day having two seperate brands with their own titles and storylines seems to be something that the major companies are deploying. With a gap widening between these three worldwide and the closets competition in Impact & NWA in America it feels like this is something these companies are using to keep them at the top. If you can have say an ROH taping get 1,000 in the door comparred to Impact getting 300 then you are only helping your brand at the end of the day. It seems like these are efforts for more content and to sign more people to keep away from rivvals, it will be interesting to monitor any changes to how media is consumed to see if these extra additions of brands change how they are used.