6,000 fans at SD; only 1,500 fans stayed to watch 205 Live on Tuesday
- Thread starter RammerJammer
- Start date
The Rainmaker
Mr. Money in the Bank
All those red empty spots are impossible to ignore.
Kunty McPhuck
Scust Szn has Returned
They obviously don't give a shyt, because it isn't Raw/Roman related. If they did give a shyt, they would move it and have it as the lead into SD.
Incredible that his shows are in the gutter creatively, live gates and ratings are down, the wrestling business as a whole has been in a slump creatively for years and no one seems to have an answer for it, yet they continue to get these content providers to pay out the wazoo for their subpar content and their stock keeps reaching new highs.
MenacingMonk
Tranquilo
This ain’t new. It always happens.
What’s more
is 6k for a televised show.
What’s more
is 6k for a televised show.
MenacingMonk
Tranquilo
That Trump push.Incredible that his shows are in the gutter creatively, live gates and ratings are down, the wrestling business as a whole has been in a slump creatively for years and no one seems to have an answer for it, yet they continue to get these content providers to pay out the wazoo for their subpar content and their stock keeps reaching new highs.
@MightyHealthy
TrueEpic08
Dum Shiny
Incredible that his shows are in the gutter creatively, live gates and ratings are down, the wrestling business as a whole has been in a slump creatively for years and no one seems to have an answer for it, yet they continue to get these content providers to pay out the wazoo for their subpar content and their stock keeps reaching new highs.
Live sports rights fees are on a run right now, and have been for roughly the past half decade. It actually has nothing to do with anything the WWE has done, it's just that the trend finally reached them (they tried to get in on this in their last rights deal, but it didn't work).
The thought is that live sports is one of, if not the only category of programming that is immune to the time shifting and online consumption trends that have affected channels and their parent companies since the mid-late 2000s. This is why it's not just WWE that's seeing massive increases in rights fees, but all live sports period.
However, I'm of the thought that this is a massive bubble brought on by the usual short sighted business thinking. Here's why: did all of the massive rights fees deals ESPN signed keep them from cutting hundreds of staff members and anchors over the past 5 years? Has it helped their ratings? Has it helped Fox Sports 1's ratings (if it did, they probably would have fought harder to keep the UFC rights)? My point is, it's not the sports themselves that are necessarily that important, but specific events like the Super Bowl, March Madness, the NBA Finals, and the Champions League finals that are truly immune to those downward pressures. As for everything else, they'll still attract live audiences, but those don't necessarily have to be TV audiences, and they're very slowly dwindling anyway (see the ratings decreases for the NFL and College Football).
Now, USA's basically wedded to RAW as long as Bonnie Hammer is chairman of NBCUniversal, so a lot of what I just typed doesn't matter right now. But if ratings and ad revenue keep falling for SmackDown, expect Fox to take a hard look at that deal sooner rather than later. If the bottom falls out for WWE on the TV rights front, then all of a sudden this live events problem that they seemingly don't care about is going to become a very real issue for them.
They don't have to care about always tarping off a third of their arenas for now. I'm not sure they're going to be singing that tune in roughly 5 years.
Prince Akeem
Its not that deep breh....
Incredible that his shows are in the gutter creatively, live gates and ratings are down, the wrestling business as a whole has been in a slump creatively for years and no one seems to have an answer for it, yet they continue to get these content providers to pay out the wazoo for their subpar content and their stock keeps reaching new highs.
WCW fukking DIED under similar circumstances.
I'm just surprised NBC Universal and FOX were willing to pony up for a franchise that hasn't produced results in years. But like you said, content is king right now. All of these networks are starved for DVR-proof content. I'm sure Vince wants to bring back the XFL because he probably thinks he can drum up interest in a league and secure another bag of cash somehow. Eddie Hearn just got a billion over 8 years from DAZN. UFC just got a $800 mil deal with ESPN/ESPN+. Top Rank is flush with cash from ESPN/ESPN+. The PBC just secured a primetime deal with FOX, and their deal includes a studio show AND PPVs.
I'm almost interested to see how their company looks in 5-10 years too. The move to FOX will be HUGE for them. They're finally on one of the big 4 networks, and if they can't produce as expected and they're in the toilet creatively, what will FOX do with them? How will that deal with the Saudis affect who they push 5 years from now? How will it affect their live event business when they run so many "special events"?
I'm so much more interested in this than the garbage they put on screen.
That looks like last days of WCW live attendance levels right there.
TrueEpic08
Dum Shiny
WCW fukking DIED under similar circumstances.
Let's not forget a very important part of the death of WCW story: WCW didn't necessarily die only because of dwindling live event attendance or ratings (WWE would kill for 2001 WCW's ratings right now), but because Jamie Kellner, head of Turner Broadcastiglng at the time, cancelled it for quite arbitrary reasons (fun fact: Kellner also cancelled Animaniacs while he was head of WB, so he's a real prick).
If they would have had a TV deal, they'd have had a chance to rebuild things slowly.
Prince Akeem
Its not that deep breh....
TrueEpic08
Dum Shiny
I get the feeling that their ultimate goal is complete independence from these pressures via the WWE Network. And that plan, in my opinion, trades on the wrestling fan placing more importance on the massive amount of classic programming on the platform than on how terrible and bland the original product is. In short, they want to exploit the wrestling fan's love of nostalgia to prop up their channel and ambitions (really disgusting shyt when you break it down like that).
The thing is, there are really only so many people who are going to pay $120 a year specifically for WWE programming and content, and I think they're closer to that threshold than they think right now (currently sitting ar around 2 million subscribers). It's an unsustainable plan, borne of ambitions propped up by inflated stock and rights fees. I might be wrong about where WWE's heading, but I get the feeling that they actually need to start getting in touch with what the fans want and like quick, fast, and in a hurry before things start going downhill.