event live on American pay-per-view television and that it had a PPV market of 125 million homes. The event was broadcast on American PPV as the first GFW event. The four-hour "GFW Presents New Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom 9" telecast was available from pay-per-view providers in the United States, including DirecTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-verse, Comcast, Verizon FiOS and all cable systems, and in Canada from Bell ExpressVu, Rogers, Shaw, Sasktel and Telus. The event also aired live on NJPW World, an Internet streaming site introduced by NJPW in early December 2014 which reportedly had 20,000 subscribers worldwide in late January 2015. In Japan, the event also aired on PPV in SKY PerfecTV!'s Sukachan service. In January 2016, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter stated that Wrestle Kingdom 9 "was the only live pro wrestling PPV event ever broadcast [internationally] from Japan". The GFW version of the event was streamed worldwide (except in North America and Japan) on the [Fite TV|Flipps]] application for Internet-connected smartphones, tablet computers and smart TVs. On Flipps, the show was available live and on-demand for 30 days after its initial airing. On November 11, 2014, GFW announced that Jim Ross would be the lead announcer for its version of the event. It was Ross's first professional-wrestling broadcast since his 2013 departure from WWE. Ross attempted to obtain Mike Tenay of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) for color commentary, but TNA refused. Others considered for the job were John Pollock, Mauro Ranallo and Kevin Nash, before GFW settled on Matt Striker. Before the event, the GFW broadcasts experienced setbacks. Many cable companies decided not to air the event live, opting instead for a replay of UFC 182, and the stream would not run on three of the four most used devices compatible with Flipps: Chromecast, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. According to Dave Meltzer, NJPW undercut GFW by including the event in the $8.42 monthly price for NJPW World; the GFW broadcast of Wrestle Kingdom 9 alone was $34.95. The NJPW World stream had Japanese commentary only. AXS TV, which acquired the rights to broadcast Wrestle Kingdom 9 from the TV Asahi Corporation, aired the event in five parts from October 9 to November 6, 2015, to viewers in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Commentary was provided by Mauro Ranallo and Josh Barnett. Storylines Wrestle Kingdom 9 featured ten professional wrestling