Because WCW and WWF had television contracts and advertisers. They didn't run out of bingo hall and the stuff ECW was doing was not allowed on television.
That doesn't make any sense.
For the record, fans didn't record ECW events. The company did.
Had nothing to do with television contracts and advertisers. ECW was releasing that footage when they had the TV deal with TNN. You can go on YouTube right now and see the "fan cam" version of Sandman's return and the TV version of Sandman's return, the latter of which included footage from the "fan cam" version. As a matter of fact, they regularly showed "fan cam" footage on TV, especially when the action was in the crowd or outside the building.
They started recording it because, at the time, they didn't tape everything; only what was going to be shown on TV and released on home video. They were at the ECW Arena one night for a show that wasn't going to be taped and Gabe asked Rob why weren't they taping it. They ran it by Heyman, he liked the idea and from that point on, they taped every show going forward, some of which wasn't released until long after ECW went out of business. Haven't bought anything from RF in a while but I guarantee he's still releasing never before seen "fan cam" footage because they taped everything.