"You want Less WWE PPV's, You got it ... Oh, but you're going to have to pay for it!"

[General Disarray]

I don't think this is a huge deal. It's obviously a smart business decision by the WWE that'll increase their revenue and give us one less PPV when we already have too many. They may lose a few PPV buyers, but the extra 5 bucks will be more than enough to make up for it.

Personally, I don't buy PPVs, so this doesn't really affect me, aside from the fact that there is one less PPV a year, which is actually something that I like. I'm sure a lot of people aren't too thrilled with this, but if this is what makes you go crazy and refuse to continue watching the WWE, than you have a problem.

[Lord Sidious]

Originally Posted by wolvdog316

I'm sorry but that's bullshit night. Fans will flock to the better wrestling product, the one they can relate too the most. How did WCW succeed? They stole A LOT of WWE fans. How did ECW succeed. They were pretty much doing what TNA is doing right now, without ANY big past stars. How did they do?

I love how you call NSL's post "bullshit" when he flat-out told you that he KNOWS people who do that.

Why is it so surprising that people order by name recognition? I could do a survey of WWE fans, and I guarantee you that a rather large percentage of them still to this day have absolutely no idea that TNA even exists. So no, fans don't necessarily flock to the better wrestling product at all.

It is very much a combination of Brand Recognition, which every wrestling fan knows of WWE's existence ...

in addition to Brand Imaging. "Bigger is Better". And WWE has the "Wal-Mart" image of simply being the biggest group out there. And they are.

It's because, and I loved ECW to death, but it's because the avg wrestling fan doesn't want to watch spot fest after spot fest. 90% of fans aren't like us. They can't watch an hour long match with AJ Styles and Daniels. They can't watch a Shawn Michaels vs Benjamin wrestling match for half an hour. They like to see Orton vs Cena with all the buildup, the big spots mixed in, and the climax.

A great wrestling match IMO brings the fan UP then down, then UP then down. The rollercoaster affect. TNA seems to take ECW's approach and just keep going up and up and up and by the time the finish is there, it's lackluster because you need to be brought down before the big finish. Unless you got two guys who are incredible and can provide a match that just goes up and up ala Rock and Austin at WM7

Hogan had the rollercoaster effect and we know what he did. Sting had it, even Angle had it, or still has it rather.

Shawn and Taker from this year is an excellent point. Up, then down, UP, then down, then UP UP WHAM. They let you catch your breath and then boom they hit you. TNA really doesn't have that.

TNA just needs that HUGE star. WWE had it in Hogan, then Bret and Shawn, then Austin and Rock. WCW had it in Hogan, then Sting, then Goldberg. TNA needs that one in a million star that makes you, even for one second, suspend belief and become emerged in their product. AJ and Samoa sadly is not it. As much as I love AJ, he can't be it. People doesn't care about him.

LOL. The casual wrestling fan, I can guarantee you, doesn't even think that in-depth about what they want out of their matches. You are unbelievable ignorant to the concepts of Advertising, Marketing, and Brand Imaging and its role in the marketplace. I'd advise taking a few college courses in them to get a better understanding of their effects and the subliminal roles they play in day-to-day life.

[psykohurricane]

You got to take into account that TNA is also raising the price of their PPV's so for die-hard wrestling fans that use to buy most PPV from both company, that will be a lot of money to spend on wrestling.

The price hike as nothing to do with WWE cutting a PPV or anything else that Vince will tell you. The real reason for the Price hike is that Vince wants to kill TNA and have Bragging rights over Hulk Hogan. Hogan and Vince hated each other right now and this would be the ultimate revenge for Vince if he could beat Hogan and say that Hogan isn't a draw anymore. That's why the PPV price were hike up.

Has far as i'm concern, it doesn't bother me that much since i could always see them at the cineplex theatre for 15$ so if there one PPV that i want to see i just go there and save a lot of money.

[robbo316]

Originally Posted by Lord Sidious

$5 doesn't sound like a lot. It's going to be $60 more a year, for whomever purchases all the rest of the monthly PPV's though ... which will likely make up for a good portion of that lost revenue."

It's actually $65, for 13 PPVs, which is really a spend of $25 more over the course of a year than it has been in the past, it's $1.92 a month which isn't very much, when you break it down.

And, yes, I used to be a salesman!!

[hatehabsforever]

Doesn't this whole argument fall squarely into the realm of the irrelevant?

Here's how I see it. Assume you are an avid WWE fan and rent all PPV's in any given year. The number of PPV's in 2010 will be 13, at an increase of $5 per event, totalling an extra $65 per year. But there's one fewer PPV than last year, which would have cost you another $45 by the above assumption. So you will actually only be paying $20 more over the entire year to see the entire PPV schedule if you so choose. Hardly much of a financial burden and if $20 over the whole year is problematic for you, chances are you're not renting a lot of PPV's in the first place, so you'd be unaffected anyway.

As I see it, people are confusing the issues. People throughout this thread have been complaining about a number of things which are irrelevant to the question at hand. If you are unhappy with the WWE product (storylines, superstars, divas, or whatever your beef is), that's one thing. Maybe you prefer TNA or MMA. Maybe you already feel that $40 is too high. Maybe you watch things online, or wait to rent videos at your local video stores, or wait and purchase them at WalMart later for less money. All plausible arguments if you feel these ways, but irrelevant to the topic at hand. Because if any of these are your opinions, which of course everyone is entitled to, you probably weren't buying PPV's at $40 a pop no more than you'd be willing to pay $45. It's not like you were content to purchase PPV's at $40 per show, but now that they're $45, you're all of a sudden going to stream them online; chances are you were doing it anyway.

Would I have a threshold price which I would draw the line at? Probably not, depending on how suddenly the price shot up. If all of a sudden the PPV's were, for example, $60, I would likely have to consider whether or not I want to pay that much. But let's face it, prices will continue to increase, and in 3-4 years time, they likely will cost $60, and most likely I will pay it.

If you enjoy the WWE (which I still do despite multiple issues we all have with it) you will likely continue to do what you have always done, and a small price hike will not play any role whatsoever in your purchasing tendencies. If you are disillusioned with it as many are, you're not going to buy it anyway. It's foolsh to think that the WWE will cut back the numbers of PPV's but not offset this loss with a modest price increase. Some people seem to think that Vince and the WWE owe us fans something, but they don't. They'll put the product out there and let the general public decide for themselves what they want to do.

If anything were to concern me more so than the numbers of PPV or their slight price hike, it would be the trend toward these theme oriented PPV's. Offering such PPV's as HIAC, where there are multiple matches of the same theme is problematic for me. The $5 difference is not an issue, but what is an issue is watching 2 or 3 HIAC matches in the one event. It cheapens the product and takes away the novelty of such matches which should only happen at most oncde per year, rather than three times in one night. And the tendency has been and will continue apparently to be toward these themed PPV's.

[Coco The Monkey]

What the heck? I opened this thread expecting serious progress. You know, six shows a year maybe. That could have cut down on the feeling that 99% of what they're selling is watered-down gruel that has very little care put into it and give them a chance to build things up properly and get people to really emotionally invest in the few pay-per-views that are left. Really, what would be better: six shows that people care about and want to buy, or thirteen shows with about two or three shows tops that people really give a shit about?

Thirteen shows isn't progress at all. This isn't really going to do any favors in terms of getting more people to buy or care about the shows, and the $5 price hike almost makes me think they realize this. The same few people will buy all the monthly shows and that extra $5 per household will make up the difference for not selling that fourteenth meaningless pay-per-view every year. In fact, they cut out the expense of producing those extra three hours of original, live teleivion every year. So really, this may help the bottom line a little bit without making any extra fans buy shows and without putting any more effort into the product.

Typical Vince McMahon.

Originally Posted by HBK-aholic

What's $5 when you're already paying 40?

Gotta love the "How much worse can it get?" effect.

This is how cults get people to give up all of their possessions over time.

[Lord Sidious]

Originally Posted by robbo316

It's actually $65, for 13 PPVs, which is really a spend of $25 more over the course of a year than it has been in the past, it's $1.92 a month which isn't very much, when you break it down.

And, yes, I used to be a salesman!!

Well, the Wrestlemania price isn't being hiked, which was why I stated that it would be an additional $60 for the year, not $65. 12 PPV's multiplied by $5. WWE made clear that the Wrestlemania price was not going to increase.

Now, I am not sure how you are deriving "$25" over the course of a year. It's not an additional $25 if you purchase the remaining 12 PPV's. It's $60 more, which was why the figure was brought up to begin with. How you are deriving that it will be an additional $1.92 a month when it is clearly going to cost an additional $60 for the year (again, assuming all 12 PPV's are purchased) is beyond me.

So essentially, these fans will be paying for well over the price of another PPV that they aren't even going to see. It's a ripoff.

And as stated, if TNA is smart, they will absolutely nail WWE on this and play it up for all that it's worth.

[hatehabsforever]

LORDSIDIOUS, I think the $20 or $25 figures were derived from the assumption that someone purchases the entire slate of PPV's for the entire year, at least that was the assumption I made in my earlier post. In other words, if I purchased all 14 of the events from last year, I would likely do so again this year, and as such would pay the additional $45 to do so. So by paying $5 extra for the 13 events this year, an extra $65, but by saving $45 by not buying the PPV which has been eliminated but which I would have bought if it still existed, I will spend $20 extra all year.

2009: 14 events X $40 = $560.00

2010: 13 events x $45 = $585.00

So in 2010, I will only spend 585-560=$25 more.

Granted that's for 1 less PPV, but I thought we were pretty much all in agreement that the number of PPV's should go down. I would like to see another 1 or 2 be cut as well, which again would likely jack the price up even higher, but it would be a nominal difference for a better product.

With regards to TNA taking advantage of the situation, I highly doubt it. It is going to take a lot more than a nominal price hike to make TNA competitive with the WWE on a numbers perspective, with or without Hogan, Bischoff, and possibly Flair. I'm not going to debate WWE vs TNA in terms of superiority as this is an endless debate on this site. But from a numbers standpoint alone, TNA isn't a blip on the radar of WWE. Look at attendance figures, PPV sales, TV ratings, etc., and it's not remotely close. Even for those of you who prefer TNA over WWE, you cannot really argue this fact. I highly doubt a $25 price hike extrapolated out over the year is going to entice anyone to choose TNA over WWE. Some people will make this choice simply because they prefer TNA over WWE (not me), but the financial side of it will make no difference whatsoever. Not to mention the fact that I wouldn't be surprised to see TNA increase prices too as I doubt obtaining Hogan came cheap and someone will have to pay for it.

[OIL]

Well, I'm not sure if the UK prices are going to increase, but it's not exactly clever increasing the prices. I'm sure the WWE are playing off the fact that a lot of young kids will beg their parents to buy the PPV, and the parents almost always give in.

It's good that they're reducing the number of PPV's though. There are way to many, and it should be one a month or less so they can properly build up the fueds.

[MrCharisma]

I usually order the Rumble and Wrestlemania each year and the rest I just catch an online stream. But now that I hear this I will not be ordering any more wwe programming but instead just watch the streams or live play by play. The way wrestling is going I think the price going up in a slap in my face. Look at all those ppv's with kane vs khali, people were paying for those and now those same people have to pay more? lol wwe is crying out for money I guess. As much as I don't like tna I think I'll start watching their shows. As for ordering anything these days, just not worth it.