2011 WWE draft
The Brand Extension storyline was initiated in March 2002, in which WWE's Raw and SmackDown television programs were made into brands (similar to conferences within a league) to which employees were assigned; the ECW brand was additionally involved between 2006 and 2009. Annual drafts have followed since this occurrence, except for in 2003. As with past drafts, the purpose of the 2011 WWE draft was to increase television ratings of WWE programming and refresh the rosters for each brand. The 2011 event was confirmed by the RBC Center in April 2011, with WWE officially announcing it on the April 18 episode of "Raw". A USA Network executive had also confirmed the event to occur via a press release on the same day of the WWE announcement.
Elimination Chamber
In 2002, to exploit additional on-screen talent after buying World Championship Wrestling (WCW), WWE began a brand extension that divided the roster between the two brands of WWE, Raw and SmackDown!. Former WCW President and then Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff formally announced the creation of the chamber during the October 21 edition of "Raw" and scheduled the match to feature participants from the Raw brand roster at the 2002 Survivor Series. The match was exclusive to the Raw brand for the first four matches and at joint-branded pay-per-view events, but upon the creation of the ECW brand in , the match was instead promoted for the newly created brand at the 2006 December to Dismember. Beginning in 2008, the match became exclusive to the No Way Out pay-per-view, and two Elimination Chamber matches were featured annually for two years among the three brands. In 2010, WWE replaced their No Way Out event with the self-titled WWE Elimination Chamber, a new pay-per-view event which continued the tradition of its predecessor. From 2008-2014, the match had been featured in February pay-per-view events only. An Elimination Chamber pay-per-view event took place on May 31, 2015, exclusively on the WWE Network. After the second brand extension in 2016, it was announced that the brands would return to having separate pay-per-views. In late 2016, it was announced that Elimination Chamber would return as a SmackDown-exclusive pay-per-view in February 2017, and it switched to being Raw-exclusive in February 2018.