6,000 fans at SD; only 1,500 fans stayed to watch 205 Live on Tuesday

[The Great One]

So they kind of threw this Smackdown together. Usually WWE advertises in my area like 3 or 4 months out, I heard about this show at the end of July. I mean I really dont go to shows anymore, but thought it was weird.

I am going to a NXT house show on Sunday, and that was also sent out in late July for a September date. The last NXT show I went to, tickets went on Sale on January for a date in May.

shyt is weird as hell.

They did announce a December house show at Little Ceasar's at this Smackdown, so maybe they are back on track, but it sounds like there scheduling has been off and thats why they have low ticket sales. They have also ONLY ran Smackdown in Detroit (not RAW) for like 2 years now, shyt is dumb.

Not making excuses for them, but this sounds like a bigger problem then people not buying tickets.

 

[JerseyBoy23]

So they kind of threw this Smackdown together. Usually WWE advertises in my area like 3 or 4 months out, I heard about this show at the end of July. I mean I really dont go to shows anymore, but thought it was weird.

I am going to a NXT house show on Sunday, and that was also sent out in late July for a September date. The last NXT show I went to, tickets went on Sale on January for a date in May.

shyt is weird as hell.

They did announce a December house show at Little Ceasar's at this Smackdown, so maybe they are back on track, but it sounds like there scheduling has been off and thats why they have low ticket sales. They have also ONLY ran Smackdown in Detroit (not RAW) for like 2 years now, shyt is dumb.

Not making excuses for them, but this sounds like a bigger problem then people not buying tickets.

Reminds me of how they just started advertising for Smackdown on October 23rd last week.

 

[dh86]

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.

They’re getting between $45-50 million per year from Saudi Arabia in a 10 year contract. They have five year deals with fox & usa that has 2 billion coming to them regardless. How is the stock artificially inflated? The contracts are signed and executed, this isn’t speculation. WWE is guaranteed significant profit going forward with no debt.

 

[Pinyapplesuckas]

noticed a lot of empty seats during Smackdown. didnt think it would get brought up tho

 

[The Intergalactic Koala]

This wouldn't happen when the King was around

 

[K-Apps]

Kellner, that guy was something else.

In response to an April 29, 2002 interview [4][5] question on why digital video recorders were bad for the industry, Kellner responded:

“ Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming. ”

We need a Jamie Kellner unappreciation Thread either here or the Film Room. So many stories on how much of a prick he was who had no foresight or care for the decisions he made at Time Warner

 

[Playaz Eyez]

I'm sure the WWE will try to spin this into a positive like they always do. They'll just have one of those "Did You Know?" segments that features some arbitrary statistics have have nothing to do with anything at all

 

[AquaCityBoy]

I'm sure the WWE will try to spin this into a positive like they always do. They'll just have one of those "Did You Know?" segments that features some arbitrary statistics have have nothing to do with anything at all

DID YOU KNOW?

Last Tuesday's edition of SMACKDOWN LIVE had the most active audience on Tout, more than that night's WNBA game, world poker tournament, and Westminster dog show.

 

[AquaCityBoy]

Smackdown

They should shelf the brand for good & just have Raw at this point.

. Like Raw's not about to get raped every week now that football's back.

 

[Mantis Toboggan M.D.]

DID YOU KNOW?

Last Tuesday's edition of SMACKDOWN LIVE had the most active audience on Tout, more than that night's WNBA game, world poker tournament, and Westminster dog show.

Tout

 

[TrueEpic08]

They’re getting between $45-50 million per year from Saudi Arabia in a 10 year contract. They have five year deals with fox & usa that has 2 billion coming to them regardless. How is the stock artificially inflated? The contracts are signed and executed, this isn’t speculation. WWE is guaranteed significant profit going forward with no debt.

In the short term, yes. I'm looking past the next 5 years with the notion that the whole rights fees boom is a symptom of larger negative trends re: cable television in mind. I call it inflated because the massive increase in live sports rights fees is the networks's way of attempting to stave off the inevitable changes to their business models time shifting and online consumption will necessitate (and despite their thoughts to the contrary, live sports are NOT immune to these pressures). Again, WWE didn't get those massive deals because of anything the company did, but because they were the last company in line to get that type of rights deal after every single sports entity in existence got one (if they were doing anything right, they'd have gotten this massive increase when the rights fees were up in 2014 instead of having to crawl back to Bonnie Hammer for a backhanded handout).

Beyond that, the downward trends in WWE's ratings, live events attendance, and quality, and the upward trend in the average age of their audience, are showing no signs of abating. So what happens when, 3 years down the line, ratings have decreased further, ad revenues aren't sufficient, more of their audience have aged out, and they still haven't solved their live events issues? Do you think Fox isn't going to take a good hard look at how much they're paying WWE for SmackDown? Hell, if it keeps going, even NBCUniversal's going to have hard thoughts about them at some point (remember, they were seemingly perfectly fine with the prospect of losing RAW and SmackDown in 2014).

I'm not here trying to predict WWE's death (the one thing the business side of the company has done is work tirelessly to make WWE death proof, with the Saudi deal being an example of those efforts). All I'm saying is that there's a real reason why, on the one hand, WWE's getting this massive influx of cash while also suffering very real problems when it comes to the actual wrestling side of the company. When those two meet, whether that be 5 or 10 or 20 years down the line, I highly doubt WWE comes out unscathed.

 

[hysteria416]

Lol this is romans fault

 

[Breh Obama]

 

[Breh Obama]

Whatever, It's Detroit....everyone there is too poor as shyt to buy tickets

 

[dh86]

In the short term, yes. I'm looking past the next 5 years with the notion that the whole rights fees boom is a symptom of larger negative trends re: cable television in mind. I call it inflated because the massive increase in live sports rights fees is the networks's way of attempting to stave off the inevitable changes to their business models time shifting and online consumption will necessitate (and despite their thoughts to the contrary, live sports are NOT immune to these pressures). Again, WWE didn't get those massive deals because of anything the company did, but because they were the last company in line to get that type of rights deal after every single sports entity in existence got one (if they were doing anything right, they'd have gotten this massive increase when the rights fees were up in 2014 instead of having to crawl back to Bonnie Hammer for a backhanded handout).

Beyond that, the downward trends in WWE's ratings, live events attendance, and quality, and the upward trend in the average age of their audience, are showing no signs of abating. So what happens when, 3 years down the line, ratings have decreased further, ad revenues aren't sufficient, more of their audience have aged out, and they still haven't solved their live events issues? Do you think Fox isn't going to take a good hard look at how much they're paying WWE for SmackDown? Hell, if it keeps going, even NBCUniversal's going to have hard thoughts about them at some point (remember, they were seemingly perfectly fine with the prospect of losing RAW and SmackDown in 2014).

I'm not here trying to predict WWE's death (the one thing the business side of the company has done is work tirelessly to make WWE death proof, with the Saudi deal being an example of those efforts). All I'm saying is that there's a real reason why, on the one hand, WWE's getting this massive influx of cash while also suffering very real problems when it comes to the actual wrestling side of the company. When those two meet, whether that be 5 or 10 or 20 years down the line, I highly doubt WWE comes out unscathed.

There would be a point if WWE increased their spending commiserate with the influx of new cash. WCW did that. They lost money throughout their history even while being on a budget until 96-97. They started making big money with the NWO then Goldberg booms and then their spending exploded and continued even when those booms ended. WWE is going to obviously boost the pay of the top stars and they’re offering big money to the Bullet Club but it won’t be anywhere else to the new money being brought in.

In the past decade, NFL ratings have definitely dropped. In 2007, NFL games were roughly 20 of the top 100 most watched shows of the year. In 2017, 70 of the top 100 most watched shows were NFL games. That’s what really matters. If you look every week, raw & smackdown are nearing the top of most viewed shows in their target demos every week. When I was a kid, when Raw was on, micro machines, stridex pads, 1800 collect were the sponsors. With the genius move to PG, we see real sponsors like Mattel & Mars candy sponsoring WWE that didn’t touch the product before. The quality of sponsors are better than its ever been. I don’t see how this changes in the foreseeable future. The best PPV year WWE ever had was 2000-01 and they made $128.2 million from PPV. The WWE network made $197 million in 2017. Cable did undergo major cord cutting the past few years but that has slowed down recently. Cable networks are looking for an identity to justify their existence, though. Spike went from airing ECW & WWE to subsidizing TNA to no longer being in existence. USA has no more popular original shows and started airing WWE in the early 80s. They’ll never cancel Raw as long as there’s a USA network. Even if NBC Universal pulls the plug on the network existing, Raw is safe for the duration of the contract. Friday Smackdown will air on Fox so it’s immune from your cable television point. They will have to have about 3.5 million viewers weekly to be safe. Master Chef, junior and a Meghan Markle special reached that so its doable. Smackdown gets removed from Fox, it will move to FS1 and automatically be the most viewed regular show on the network and be very safe over next 5 years. Fox has long term contracts with the Big ten, Big east, Big 12, MLB, etc so FS1 is safe to exist for years to come. Basically WWE has their bases covered.