A look at the YouTube performance for this week’s IMPACT!

As we all know, social media and other outlets have become a huge means of drawing in interaction and viewers for wrestling. Most people will point to television ratings like they did during the Monday Night Wars in the late 1990’s, however that can be skewed with so many various means of watching today that do not include cable television.

As you’ve become accustomed to this with WWE product, let’s continue the Impact YouTube! Here is this week’s IMPACT YouTube Report, compiled approximately 48 hours after IMPACT went off the air:

1. Taya Valkyrie vs Tessa Blanchard: Street Fight for Knockouts Title – 122k
2. Johnny Impact vs Brian Cage vs Killer Kross vs Moss: World Title – 116k
3. Team Impact vs Team AAA: World Cup – 59k
4. Top 5 Must-See Moments from Impact Wrestling: UNCAGED – 54k
5. Top 5 Craziest Moments from Taya vs Tessa: Street Fight – 45k

Ratings Analysis:

Well now, very similar to Twitch views, we see a spike since this was a named event. Also for the second week in a row, Knockouts take the top spot, as well as the 5th spot. It’s no surprise that Tessa draws attention. Her last name, her wrestling prowess and overall reputation has given her one of the larger followings for non-WWE female wrestlers. Taya definitely carried her own in the match, and has some popular reach thanks to Lucha Underground, but Tessa is in a league of her own.

Also it’s no surprised that the World Title match would garner solid attention. I’m honestly surprised it’s as close to the Knockouts match in viewers as it is. Johnny isn’t really a home run of a champion for the IWC, but Kross is a breath of fresh air and Brian Cage has a lot of love. So maybe that’s carrying the view count, just like Cage carried Johnny in the match.

World Cup slides in at the 3 spot, and that’s fine. With just shy of 60k views, I feel this was just curiosity since elimination matches are fun and it’s also a quick way to get familiar with luchadors, otherwise unknown to some.

Lastly we have that Top 5 Must-See again, in our Top 5.  I clicked through it this week and it is snippets from other videos they have available on their YouTube. So I suppose showing a cool spot from the match, may inspire some to click on the corresponding video, but given that there’s usually a huge drop off from the Top 5 and the rest…I don’t think it’s having the desired effect.

Overall Views:

2.1.2019 – 311,000

2.8.2019 –  293,000

2.15.20190- 396,000

We see an uptick of 100k views for UNCAGED, so this is also interesting to follow moving forward. Given that I think there have been reports recently that only between 10-15,000 people are watching on Pursuit, the number on Twitch is between 6-10,000 – that means only a maximum of 25,000 people are watching the program live. These YouTube numbers prove there’s still some interest in the Impact product beyond the tangible numbers since even if 25,000 watched the Top 5 videos, that’s only 125,000. The remaining 200,000 or so views, correlates well to the fact that Impact was averaging about 150,000 viewers on Pop TV towards the end of things.

So everyone decrying the death of Impact, it’s a little early for that. They may not be in the most fantastic shape, there’s no denying that. But they still do have interest, just a matter of people finding ways and time to engage with the product.

The number 1 video of the weekend!