Pay Per View Vs Television
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It
seems that the concept of making money in 2009 has been completely lost when it
comes to the professional wrestling industry.
The
term ‘draw’ is thrown around so frequently today and yet I don’t believe there
are many performers in professional wrestling right now that can be considered
one. There are no draws in TNA right now as any performer placed in any situation
is not going to spike business and it is largely the ‘TNA’ name that is drawing
the same audience to TV every week
and the same amount to Pay Per View
one Sunday a month. The last time we saw something ‘draw’ in TNA it was a
unique main event between Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe at the 2008 ‘Lockdown’ event
- it was so successful that the company abandoned the promotional practice and
reverted back to the same type of
promotion that hinders rather than enhances their pay per view audience each
month.
In
the WWE there are certainly some performers that can be classified as ‘draws’.
There is no question John Cena is one of them – he draws young audiences to
live events and sells a ton of merchandise but TV quarters and pay per view
buys are largely based on how the collective ‘WWE broth’ tastes each month as
opposed to a single ingredient making a significant difference. The terms ‘WWE’
and ‘WrestleMania’ are probably the biggest draws in the company rather than
any one performer who could make a large difference in business.
My
biggest problem I see within the two major wrestling promotions right now is a
feeling of ‘satisfaction’ with what is working. WWE pay per view business is
not great but it’s passable, television ratings are good but not great, their
top characters are not Steve Austin or Rock level attractions but they are over
and the quarterly financial results reflect a very healthy company despite
ignoring gigantic pay per view declines and being able to flip the page to
money being made up for those losses and a result of ‘everything is rosy’ and
we will continue ‘business as usual’.
Over
in TNA the company is serving one master and that is Spike TV, who are content
with their weekly 1.1 – 1.2 rating as the company continues to run in circles
with the ever elusive ‘2 million viewer’ mark seemingly valued a lot more than
attaining 80,000 buys on pay per view.
When
did professional wrestling shows start caring more about arbitrary television
numbers than substantive pay per view numbers?
The
WWE and TNA are locked into very comfortable and stable television contracts
and are not in any danger of being cancelled. Yet we just finished a week where
the WWE decided that mocking a sports team owner took precedent over time spent
on national television to build to their pay per view in two weeks, which has
the potential to generate significantly higher returns than convincing fans
that this faceless sports team owner was a jackass. This came one night after
the latest TNA pay per view event where fans that spent $30 were teased with
the promise of seeing ‘three former world champions’ if you tune into ‘Impact’
this week – is this not ass backwards?
The
UFC has proven that Pay Per View is far from a dying business and yet their
juggernaut of success appears to be so daunting to the professional wrestling industry
that they have thrown in the towel stating that ‘we are entertainment and they
are sport’ despite the UFC using a pro wrestling presentation to draw buys
every month.
Whether
‘Raw’ does a 3.2 or 4.0 next week means nothing because they are paid a fixed
rate by the USA Network and do not control the advertising and the same deal applies to the TNA and Spike TV
relationship. I would never insist that either company negate their television
responsibilities and not deliver a strong product but at the same time – the pay per view is the focus and the
money earner for each company, which takes priority over quarter hours and over
run segments to build an artificial number that will never be monetized to the
degree that taking those same viewers
and turning them into ‘pay per view customers’ will be.
TV
has always been a bridge for wrestling promoters to grab fans and lead them
somewhere – be it a house show or a pay per view – but today the bridge has
become the start and end point for the wrestling fan.
Rather
than freaking out about television ratings every week – one should have the
patience to monitor those TV ratings and then check out the financial reports
and see what those ratings led to each month in terms of PPV buys – and that
would be a better reflection of how the TV time was utilized.
There
has never been a point where I am less interested in checking out a pay per
view each month from these companies and there are a litany of reasons why -
but the paramount one is that the TV every week enhances my belief that it
really doesn’t matter whether I catch this show or not. The emphasis on TV over
pay per view dates back to the fall out from the ‘Monday Night Wars’ but in
2009 the only war going on is a ‘civil war’ with each company only hurting
themselves by taking their focus off of pay per view business and hoping for a
quick fix with a strong television number that paints a façade that ‘everything
is great’.
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