Title Match Wrestling recently noted that they hit a milestone of 300,000 subscribers on YouTube, but they aren’t exactly celebrating as YouTube recently demonetized the channel.
Title Match is home to a number of wrestling promotions and original series including the ‘Ladies Night Out’ events. They were recently told they had been demonetized due to YouTube claiming they had been posting ‘reused content’. When a channel is labeled for demonetization, YouTube stops running revenue-generating ads on your videos, which pretty much guarantees the creators—and in this case, the wrestlers—won’t be getting paid for their work.
Many top names in women’s wrestling have been featured on Title Match’s shows; their lineup also includes a number of wrestling promotions like WrestlePro, AML Wrestling and Reality Of Wrestling, and original content like Stevie Ray’s Stand Up For Greatness and a number of shoot-style video interviews.
Title Match Wrestling issued the following statement to Wrestlezone about the ongoing issue:
“We’re just disappointed. This decision from YouTube is devastating to all the amazing women featured on our Ladies Night Out events, as well at the countless talents behind the camera who have worked tirelessly to make Title Match Wrestling a success.”
Title Match says they were sent a letter in April from YouTube (right as they hit 100 million views) that informed them they were being demonetized due to ‘reused content’ and they immediately asked YouTube’s Creator Studio to look into the issue. Days later, they received a generic email response saying monetization would not be reinstated, and they re-applied and have been waiting for a review ever since.
Title Match has now gone nearly two months without any ads running on their videos, and as a result they were forced to make drastic changes due to losing ad revenue to several more Ladies shows that are planned. In addition, the loss of ad revenue also put every show they had planned to sponsor on hold, and now hundreds of people—including on-air, venue and production staff—have been affected by these changes.
The channel generated 8 million views on YouTube; the video views and audience engagement analytical stats remained active, yet the videos ran without ads. Title Match has since deleted a number of videos that other promotions sent them for extra exposure as well as 100+ additional videos that they actually own the licensing/distribution rights to out of fear YouTube might flag them for more ‘reused content’.
This is not the first time YouTube has gone after wrestling channels for monetizing content, as they had previously gone after a number of wrestling channels (among other content that was deemed ‘not ad-friendly’) in April 2017, and changed their algorithms many times that ultimately hurt these content creators financially. Title Match is hoping to come to some resolution with YouTube over the latest issue; fans can still support the company at TitleMatchNetwork.com by signing up for a subscription (comes with a free 30-day trial.)
?I NEED YOUR HELP?
I spent 10 hours+ at @StarrcastEvents alone getting content and interviews for @TitleMatchWN BUT @YouTube @TeamYouTube are claiming it isn’t our original footage!?
IM LITERALLY SAYING THE BRAND, WEARING THE SHIRT, AT THE EVENT…!??
??please tell YT &RT https://t.co/klaEiOg6Fu
— Barbi Hayden (@BarbiHayden) June 6, 2019
