A throng of fans rushes to WWE.com this morning at 9 a.m. ET to sign up for the WWE Network, which was launching to much fanfare. Everyone was excited to sink their teeth into the heavily hyped service that would change the industry forever.
It's just too bad so many of them haven't been able to do so.
Indeed, there have been a number of problems with signing up for the over-the-top channel. When I attempted to do so roughly 15 minutes ago, the WWE Network page would not load and it simply told me it was "unavailable."
That's when I read Sean Rueter's post updating us with a comment from WWE that demand is so high there are issues with accommodating everyone. Actually, if you go to the front page of WWE.com, it looks like this:
One might think this a bad sign for the future, and while some fans are understandably livid, it's at least good news to know that so many are attempting to sign up at once that it broke the system.
Here's a levelheaded viewpoint:
@cagesideseats I can't believe people are surprised at this. If the govt., Sony, and Microsoft can't have perfect launches, WWE sure isn't.
— Dustin Bailey (@dustbusta) February 24, 2014
There are those who have been able to sign up and watch video without issue and of them, not a single complaint has been logged. So, once the kinks are worked out and all those trying are actually able to sign up, it seems all will be right in the world. Actually, many may be best served to simply hold off until tomorrow, though that's obviously not ideal for what the company has planned for tonight's (Feb. 24, 2014) episode of Monday Night Raw from Green Bay.
This isn't the worst thing -- that would be having the site crash during WrestleMania -- but it's not doing anything to instill confidence that WWE can handle the demand.
So far, it's not a smooth launch for the WWE Network.