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I've been away traveling the last week and far and away the number one topic I've been asked to comment on is SiriusXM rebranding Busted Open 24/7 into a WWE Radio channel, especially since we've pretty much seen the channel will no longer feature discussion of AEW. There’s a lot to unpack here, so here we go….
One, I can understand why SiriusXM wants this corporate partnership. They live and die by subscriptions and WWE has a massive fan base and general awareness in the entertainment realm, far larger than any other company. SiriusXM doesn’t want to have a football channel - they want to have an NFL channel. They don’t want a role playing game show, they want to have something branded Dungeons & Dragons. It’s about getting people to subscribe and then once they have, give them something with a brand name to attract them to the different stations.
It’s the way corporate America works - they want to have synergy with successful brands and they want to use them for awareness, clout and to make money, the same way WWE wants to use that outlet to get themselves attention and to promote their mantra to anyone willing to listen. WWE under TKO has been beyond successful at selling advertising and sponsorships and this realm gives them a new revenue to do just that.
From the SiriusXM side of things, the deal is also something that gives them access to WWE live broadcasts and podcasts, allowing them more programming that is basically “turn key”, i.e. they can just plug it and run the content as opposed to having a producer, live personalities, etc. creating live content they are streaming from their studios.
From the WWE side of things, It also gives them an opportunity to take a brand that has built a nice following for itself, Busted Open Radio, and by partnering with SiriusXM, elbow AEW’s coverage there out of the way and off the air. If you don’t think WWE was happy to do that, well, I have some magic beans to sell you.
Is it unfair to AEW? Absolutely and anyone who will argue otherwise is either a buffoon or realizes saying that out loud is going to put them on the wrong side of their bosses. But, if you are WWE, you don’t care that it's unfair. You care about your company and keeping all challengers far and away - and if you are TKO, you don’t have to play fair to do that if you don’t want to. There's a reason they have licensed Kappa Publishing's Pro Wrestling Illustrated photo library - if they have that license, it means AEW doesn't have access to it. Even if that's not the priority, WWE is surely happy to be able to thwart AEW any way they can.
If you are Sirius XM, you can always argue and say, “Well, we tried to give AEW a chance to have the same partnership” since Tony Khan and others had regular appearances on Busted Open in the past. I don’t know if the claim truly holds up to scrutiny, but they can make the claim and move on, which is what they did. They moved on for the sure thing in what they see as the industry leader.
All that said, if fans want to be upset at SiriusXM that they are partnering with WWE and have rebranded that channel as opposed to it being just a pro wrestling channel, they have every right. It's pretty obvious to me Busted Open will no longer be discussing AEW in great depth on that channel, and if that upsets you or anyone else to the fact you want to cancel your SiriusXM subscription, you should go ahead and cancel it and tell them that's why. That is the only thing that is going to make a difference to SiriusXM - if a huge contingent of people sign off and stop paying because of this. Any other online complaints are going to be considered the cost of doing business and written off, because the assumption within Sirius will be that these people complaining aren’t really subscribers, because they have no data to prove otherwise. If someone is truly that pissed, go to their online account center, cancel and give Sirius the hard data as to why you are walking away from their service. That's the only way to even try to effect change and get them to back off the unspoken "No AEW" edict.
All that said, I do think the amount of strife and anger being thrown at Dave LaGreca is completely unwarranted and unfair. First, there would be zero pro wrestling representation on SiriusXM if it wasn't for LaGreca's passion and hustle. He's very much the lifeblood of Busted Open and everything flows through him. I absolutely, 100% believe that had LaGreca not been so great at garnering attention for Busted Open and building the roster of personalities involved, there would not have been a "24/7" channel ever launched, but the reality is that LaGreca’s passion and the success of the channel is now a victim of its own success, because that success attracted the WWE partnership and LaGreca’s bosses at SiriusXM are happy to have a corporate partner in WWE.
If fans believe LaGreca had any say or input into any of this, again, they are being buffoons. This is all way above his pay grade, just as the initial hiring of many on the Busted Open 24/7 channel was. LaGreca is not the boss and had zero say in SiriusXM making a deal with WWE. I hate to speak the harsh truth to everyone here, but LaGreca, as much as I respect and like him, is simply one in a long list of talents under contract to SiriusXM and he has to do what his corporate overlords dictate, just as anyone does under their own bosses at their jobs. If they were partnering with AEW and WWE coverage was now banned instead, as ridiculous as that would equally be, LaGreca would have to do what’s asked of him - the same way I’d have to adjust if Dave Scherer made changes to PWInsider.com. If I don’t, it’s the first step towards being out of a job. It doesn’t matter if I’ve been here 22 years or not. You do your job or someone else will.
I have the greatest amount of respect for LaGreca, but in the hierarchy of SiriusXM, he’s not Howard Stern. He's not someone with the pull or clout to step in front of a big corporate deal. If LaGreca put his foot down and refused to go along with the change, he'd be in breach of his contract and out quicker than you could say Gorilla Monsoon. The same with everyone else working on the show. They are under contract and will do what their bosses want them to do. If they don’t want to, they can disappear from Sirius XM as quickly as the entire MMA channel did. One second there, the next, gone and forgotten.
I understand there were fans who were angry about Thunder Rosa exiting, but before her, Jonathan Coachman got the axe too, so whether that was so SiriusXM could have plausible deniability or not, I don’t know, but Rosa’s exit was obviously an unfortunate ripple effect of the new deal between WWE and SiriusXM.
The reality, sad as it is, is that under the WWE branding, the exact same programming will probably get more attention than it ever did before. WWE, like Xerox or MLB, is a brand name that brings immediate recognition. That - and celebrity involvement - is something SiriusXM has always coveted. That’s why they have Beatles and Bruce Springsteen channels that get the heavy promotion, as opposed to just having generic rock stations.
If I was SiriusXM,. I'd add one hour a week for a show that is distinctly about everything BUT WWE and let the callers dictate the topics. I doubt it would happen, but it would at least give them plausible deniability of the obvious.
WWE Radio as a station kicked off this week and I completely understand why some fans are angry and frustrated, but the reality is, this move should be seen as a reason to fuel additional creation and resources for AEW and smaller alternative products. The good news for fans of those promotions is Tony Khan has more than enough financial backing and personal drive to create something of his own if he chooses….but we’ll see.
We will also see what the future of Busted Open is down the line as well. All contracts eventually expire and a sad side effect of having the WWE branding is that WWE will always be what gets the spotlight, which makes the very staff and personalities who built Busted Open from a one hour broadcast to a 24/7 platform standing in the shadows, again, whether anyone likes it or not - but they shouldn’t be blamed for doing their jobs. I'm just happy the entire show wasn't wiped out as part of the change.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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