Starrcade was never broadcast via pay-per-view television.
Starrcade was an annual professional wrestling event , originally broadcast via closed-circuit television and eventually broadcast via pay-per-view television , held from 1983 to 2000 by the National Wrestling Alliance ( NWA ) and later World Championship Wrestling ( WCW ) . In 1987 , the WWF scheduled a pay-per-view of their own , Survivor Series , on Thanksgiving night and demanded exclusivity from cable providers on carriage of the event . From 1987 , Starrcade was broadcast on pay-per-view , the first NWA event to do so . Starrcade (1985) . It aired live on closed-circuit television.In 2014 , the WWE Network included the previous Starrcades ( 1983 -- 1986 ) , which had been transmitted via closed-circuit television , alongside the rest of the Starrcades in the pay-per-view section , and rated the show as TV-MA due to the amount of violence in the matches , particularly the `` I Quit '' match between Tully Blanchard and Magnum , T.A. . Starrcade ( 1997 ) was the fifteenth annual Starrcade professional wrestling pay-per-view ( PPV ) event .