WWE
Vince McMahon (R), the chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Inc., hold a plaque as he poses with the WWE star Triple H after McMahon's Hollywood Walk of Fame star was unveiled during a ceremony in California March 14, 2008. Fred Prouser (UNITED STATES)

The World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, Network continued its aggressive push to roll out their exclusive wrestling channel by announcing that it will begin expanding in other key areas namely, Canada and the Middle East. The WWE is teaming up with OSN, the front running pay cable company in the Middle East and is also tying up with Rogers, Eastlink and a slew of other Canadian cable companies to expand the programming of premium wrestling events to more areas.

“OSN has a long standing relationship with WWE and we are very excited to be expanding that relationship further with the exclusive carriage of the WWE Network,”OSN’s Vice President Andy Harkman said per Wrestlezone. “We will be co-branding the linear channel OSN WWE Network HD and following on from our enhanced TV deal renewal last year, this is great news for WWE fans in the Middle East & North Africa region.”

The expansion of Vince McMahon’s company to several countries signifies the renewed success the WWE Network has posted in the last few months of 2014. Just eleven months after its launch the network has reached 1 million subscribers due in part to the success of its pay-per-view events including the recently held Royal Rumble at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. The network also gave out free trial runs in the United Kingdom that translated to additional numbers for the company.

Harkman, OSN’s Vice-President for Sport and Production, welcomed the addition of the WWE network to its list of channel services. With the arrangement, WWE fans in the Middle East and North Africa will have the opportunity to watch forthcoming pay-per-view events such as the Fastlane at the end of October and Wrestlemania 31 next month. OSN and the WWE Network agreed upon a five-year partnership that will govern the distribution of the channel to subscribers.

The pair of tie-ups and expansions makes the WWE Network one of the fastest growing cable subscriptions. It is now available in more than 170 countries and is looking to improve upon the 1 million subscribers it reported in January. The service costs $9.99 per month which will include the weekly Smackdown and Raw events as well as 12 WWE pay-per-view live events and over 3,000 hours of video on demand material.

For concerns on this story, contact the author at v.hidalgo@ibtimes.com.au.

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