Don't Panic, Wrestling Fans!

Adam Rush

Can you feel...the electricity?
The headlines say it all. 1.88 cable ratings. Lowest rating in 20 years! McMahon has lost it. McMahon is killing his own company. The champion is fat. The booking is crap.

Can we just stop criticizing people? The fact is that we shouldn't panic. Here's the thing: more and more people are watching streams online, whether legally or otherwise. Hulu is a choice people make because Hulu is a shorter, more condensed version of RAW. People are cutting cable out of their lives, for that matter, because it's just too expensive, so why are we sitting here making doomsday prophecies?

In this era, we could have Rock vs. Austin, and maybe it'd draw a little better, but it's rough to get TV ratings in an era where TV just isn't all that important anymore. We could have three attitude eras and all the TnA we wanted to, but if no one is watching TV as a whole, then that's difficult.

Some would make the argument that the NFL is still drawing great ratings, but that's partially because it's hard to find football many other places, especially cable-produced games. Streams of NFL games are rare, and with wrestling, that's just not the case.

Now, yeah, RAW isn't the most interesting thing right now. In fact, I think a change to 2 hours is warranted, or at least make it three hours of compelling television! That being said, you can't blame ONLY creative or ONLY our champion on RAW, Kevin Owens.

As a journalism major, I can confidently tell you that just as newspapers have become a niche thing, TV may well be heading the same way, in fact, because the internet can give you most of the same things. Hell, you can watch cable online now! Twitter ratings aren't exactly the best indicator of a show's performance, so why doesn't Nielsen try and figure out how to measure the internet?

At the end of the day, TV is a media that while it won't die out, it will become something much more minor. Wrestling isn't dead by a long shot, either; crowds would tell you that it's still, for the most part, popular enough. No, it's not Hulk-Hogan-is-God level anymore, or Austin-Rock level for that matter, but to say, for example, that John Cena isn't a pop culture icon would not exactly be fair.

The point I'm trying to make here is that wrestling is pretty alive and well, and maybe it won't experience an old-time CABLE RATINGS THROUGH THE ROOF boom period, but I think wrestling is still alright.

Thoughts?
 
Back when TNA was airing their weekly pay per views, I thought, “$10 a show is too much for a company that’s a distant second place from the WWE.” Fast forward to today, and now Impact Wrestling is on its 6th network. The key word I’m using here is “Network”.

If the WWE were to somehow do so bad that USA drops WWE TV altogether, would the WWE Universe be against having to watch Raw and Smackdown on the WWE Network for $10 a month?? Even if they were to increase it to $20, would you have an issue with this??

My point is, with the WWE Network, I don’t believe ratings matter anymore. I attended Smackdown Live last night, and it looked to be a packed house. People may or may not watch TV as much as we used to, but people also stopped listening to the radio as much as we used to as well. That doesn’t mean musicians should stop making music, and it certainly doesn’t mean the Professional Sports Wrestling Entertainers should stop “fighting” for Leather and Gold props.

I’ve been practicing McMahonisn for 27 years plus. If the WWE were to leave TV, but kept the WWE Network up and running, I think we’d all be okay.
 
Wrestling is fine. Bad ratings usually generate the "sky is falling" posts. Raw was up against pretty stiff football competition and all they had to offer was a pre-advertised Reigns vs Owens non-title match with PPV implications. Meh.

Triple H coming back was exciting, then Raw forgot to run with it and we haven't seen him since. Advertising Triple H would have been a better way to get some views.

Getting smoked by football makes sense, it's American football. They also got beat by something called "love and hip hop hollywood" which is pretty embarrassing.

Clash of Champions build hasn't been extraordinary as they've been building towards a event featuring almost entirely rematches. I wonder if that has anything to blame for a lack of Raw interest?

Let's get some fresh feuds going on Mondays and get Triple H and Owens together on TV. I'd love to see the two play off each other.
 
It's still a problem though. I am pretty sure that Vince McMahon, WWE's Board, USA Network's Board and everyone involved in it want it to be the most watched show on television. It's probably every show's goal and sometimes they have to make changes for that to happen.

Raw is capable of getting great numbers. Wrestling as a whole isn't dead. I am sure Americans find professional wrestling to be a part of their culture as well. The 18/32 demographic was brought up around wrestling. Golden Era, NWO, Attitude Era, so you can get them back as fans. I remember that 1000th Episode of Raw getting an enormous rating. Sure it was nostalgia kicking in, but that goes to show that people still want to care for wrestling.

One of the huge problems right now is just the three hour show. It is a problem and they are being stubborn by sticking with it. I predict that in a years time, if nothing changes, SmackDown will surpass Raw in the ratings. Also, Raw hasn't done anything to make people talk about it. They lost their arguably biggest and more accomplished stars.

Maybe it can all change when the Cruiserweights arrive as long as WWE gives them a fair amount of time for the division to build. Back in the 90's, Raw was divided in two parts, well try to give them 1-hour. Maybe people will tune in, maybe they won't, but it's a different way to manage the three hours. It could be less tiresome I believe.

But OP is right. We don't need to panic. I'm sure they will have a plan somewhere down the road. I just hope WWE and USA Network stick together, because I've truly enjoyed their relationship. USA continues to bet on WWE and Wrestling as a whole, and the least we could do is watch the shit out of Suits and Mr. Robot!
 
What I'm about to state has nothing to do w/the recent decline and this weeks bottom out in the ratings. Pro Wrestling in WWE is seriouly hurting. It is hurting b/c it isn't cool or exciting and it rarely provokes any deep emotions. The programming usually lacks in sound logic, continuity and character development. The overall company directive has moved away from solid storytelling and action in the ring. I know WWE turned in a record breaking quarterly report this year and that is a huge accomplishment but it is no reflection of the pro wrestling (sports entertainment) programming which in large part has been garbage.

WWE is fortunate to have a large enough fans base to float the ship right now. They even have fans who want to follow the product and randomly check in via social media and other various outlets. They attempt to hang their hat on these aspects while pretending the pro wrestling programming is fine.
 
WWE fans can find out what happened via WWE.com, they can DVR the show, they can watch RAW on the Network. Ratings don't really matter.

There was also Monday Night Football. We all know that football can only be watched live. It's a game, there's tension, there's passion and drama. WWE is a soap opera, so the whole live gig, doesn't really matter. Especially when you force the viewer to sit through 1 hour of ads, 30 minutes of piss breaks and 30 minutes of recaps. Add the bad writing in there. People will continue to follow WWE, but who really wants to watch the train wreck that RAW is?

However I think WWE knows that it doesn't really matter. They have 2 PPVs per month. They know that you'll tune in for the PPVs on the Network. That's what matters now, the Network bussiness. I think it's safe to say that WWE still makes money from tickets, ads, sales and the Network.

However if those ratings continue, USA might force WWE to tone down the 3-hour thing. It's not as watched as before and you know, it's in a prime time spot. I actually hope that USA calls for RAW to go back to 2 hours. Do they even get anything out by having RAW go for 1 extra hour?
 
What I'm about to state has nothing to do w/the recent decline and this weeks bottom out in the ratings. Pro Wrestling in WWE is seriouly hurting. It is hurting b/c it isn't cool or exciting and it rarely provokes any deep emotions. The programming usually lacks in sound logic, continuity and character development. The overall company directive has moved away from solid storytelling and action in the ring. I know WWE turned in a record breaking quarterly report this year and that is a huge accomplishment but it is no reflection of the pro wrestling (sports entertainment) programming which in large part has been garbage.

WWE is fortunate to have a large enough fans base to float the ship right now. They even have fans who want to follow the product and randomly check in via social media and other various outlets. They attempt to hang their hat on these aspects while pretending the pro wrestling programming is fine.

No new fan would be willing to watch 3 hours of RAW. It's just.. boring. It has to be on the top ten list of the most boring shows on television.

I say just go back to two hours, keep the show exciting and seperate RAW and Smackdown for real. I mean, for real. Have its brand do its own thing. By having two somewhat different brands, means that you get almost double chances of new eyes and those new eyes could then also put the other programm as well into their schedule.
 
Back when TNA was airing their weekly pay per views, I thought, “$10 a show is too much for a company that’s a distant second place from the WWE.” Fast forward to today, and now Impact Wrestling is on its 6th network. The key word I’m using here is “Network”.

If the WWE were to somehow do so bad that USA drops WWE TV altogether, would the WWE Universe be against having to watch Raw and Smackdown on the WWE Network for $10 a month?? Even if they were to increase it to $20, would you have an issue with this??

My point is, with the WWE Network, I don’t believe ratings matter anymore. I attended Smackdown Live last night, and it looked to be a packed house. People may or may not watch TV as much as we used to, but people also stopped listening to the radio as much as we used to as well. That doesn’t mean musicians should stop making music, and it certainly doesn’t mean the Professional Sports Wrestling Entertainers should stop “fighting” for Leather and Gold props.

I’ve been practicing McMahonisn for 27 years plus. If the WWE were to leave TV, but kept the WWE Network up and running, I think we’d all be okay.

While you are 100% correct and ratings don't matter as much as they used to since there are so many other revenue streams available and other methods of gauging how successful a business is (actually, ratings were never the measuring stick to begin with, that's a metric we care about more than the companies themselves), it is indicative of the company as a whole.

Lower ratings won't force WWE to shut its doors down, but they are a symptom of something being wrong. At the end of the day, when your audience melts in half in about a decade - something's rotten. When you go down to the nitty gritty, WWE's main products are TV shows. Without the TV shows, there is no WWE. How many people watch these TV shows is indicative of many other things. And yes, they could always transfer the shows to a smaller Network a-la TNA or even turn the entire thing into a subscription service, but that is horrible for the WWE in so many ways and it's the last thing they want.

Keeping a show alive does not equal success. TNA is alive, some-fucking-how, and the last thing I'd call them is successful. When you have to move your show to a smaller network or God forbid take it off TV entirely and make it all digital, that's called life support. TNA is on life support, desperately trying to recover. Thing is, TNA can do it, because TNA was never that healthy to begin with. TNA is not dealing with major stakeholders, major advertisers and investors. WWE is. If WWE goes to a smaller network and is cornered in that way it's going to produce a domino effect which I'm not sure they'll survive like TNA has.

It's a lot like a really rich person going broke and a middle class person going broke. The middle class guy never had that much money to begin with so while it's a set back, no one depends on him and he probably doesn't depend on no one. But when a rich person goes broke it brings a whole mess of things with him because, low and behold, money trickles into many different ways and once its gone, the base that all this was built on just crumbles. That's a fall the WWE won't take.

It's a numbers game. Less people watch on a weekly basis - less people invest in all of their other ventures (merchandise, subscription service, live events, God knows what else), and it all equals less money.

And not just less money, less of an appeal for sponsors and advertisers. All these people care about is exposure. If WWE can't provide the exposure they take their money someplace else. That's what WWE should be concerned about. If the sponsors and advertisers dash, WWE is threading in TNA's muddy waters. Not to mention that all of these fancy investors are certainly not going to be happy with whatever's going on - it goes against their interest. How are they going to get a return on their investment when the company's audience is shrinking? They'd want to pull out faster than Bieber. And guess what - WWE stops being a good prospect for other investors so the cash stops flowing in - now it just trickles.

So in the end, yes I don't think one single awful rating is something to cry over. Ratings are a metric that fluctuates up and down non-stop. There are so many variables that impact it both positively and negatively, outside of the realm of how good the show was or how chubby Kevin Owens is. Variables that the WWE would pay big league money to know.

That's why looking at singular cases is pointless. We should look for patterns in these things over long periods of time, allowing these metrics to aggregate. From what we're seeing, and this is public information, it's been going downhill every single year. That says something.

The WWE is a corporation. Corporations like to think long term. If this is the current pattern and WWE lost half its audience (if not more) in 10 years, and we know how fast time flies with wrestling, what's going to happen in another 10 years? It's scary to think about and I'm sure it's keeping some people up at night.

The whole scene is changing rapidly. Wrestling is dying off across the board. This is hardly a WWE problem, TNA's going through the same plague. Question here is: is this a wrestling thing, or is it simply that none of the major North American wrestling promotions are doing wrestling right? In other words, is it the genre or the execution?

When you see boxing pretty much die after the McGregor and Diaz fights and the UFC being bought for 4 billion dollars, that makes you think. And while people can go ahead and say that the UFC is not direct competition to WWE - you're right, but I'll tell you what, ever since I started watching UFC as of a few years ago, wrestling's become less and less of an interest. We watch wrestling for the contests, for the drama, for the athleticism. UFC is going in that direction, they're telling stories with their fights, they're learning how to thread the fine line between good storytelling and great action that happens to have the thrill of being real. I'm getting the same thrill from UFC these days that I used to get from wrestling years ago. I'm hyped for certain contests. I ain't hyped for anything going on in wrestling - I don't give a fuck.

You look at the build up for both McGregor vs Diaz fights and you tell me UFC wasn't taking a page of wrestling's book. The promos? The press conference where Conor started flinging bottles and cans at Nate's team? You saw Dana White telling Conor "Conor don't throw those fucking bottles" but inside he was going "Please Conor throw the fucking bottles".

I'm just saying, things are changing and the only one that isn't is pro wrestling. It's sad because pro wrestling is the most versatile and flexible genre out there and it's controlled by people who don't know how to do it right. They can literally get away with anything if they felt like it. If the UFC managed to make MMA, which was this moronic, savage and frankly horrible "thing" into a legit sport and have people breaking limbs on live TV and have advertisers salivate over it, then why the hell can't wrestling get their shit together?
 
If the WWE were to somehow do so bad that USA drops WWE TV altogether, would the WWE Universe be against having to watch Raw and Smackdown on the WWE Network for $10 a month?? Even if they were to increase it to $20, would you have an issue with this??

My point is, with the WWE Network, I don’t believe ratings matter anymore. I attended Smackdown Live last night, and it looked to be a packed house. People may or may not watch TV as much as we used to, but people also stopped listening to the radio as much as we used to as well. That doesn’t mean musicians should stop making music, and it certainly doesn’t mean the Professional Sports Wrestling Entertainers should stop “fighting” for Leather and Gold props.

I’ve been practicing McMahonisn for 27 years plus. If the WWE were to leave TV, but kept the WWE Network up and running, I think we’d all be okay.

This is a very very very bad idea. WWE would go out of business if they went only on the Network. WWE's TV contracts rake in around $200 million per year (with NBC providing around $150-160 million of that). NBC makes that money back from the advertisers that advertise during WWE's programming.

So lets say that the Network stays at $9.99. WWE would need over 20 million subscribers to make up for the TV deals. Include the 1 million they need to break-even and they would need over 22 million subscribers to make the same money they are now(*). And no, WWE would not be able to attract enough advertisers to the Network to offset the TV contract.

*Actually they would need more due to increased service costs (higher demand, more servers and whatever). Since I'm not sure how much more would be needed, I'm only taking into account what their current situation is.

Despite making record revenue last year of $658 million they only brought in $24 million. Losing that $200 million would kill them.

Even if they were able to get 22 million subscribers, attracting new fans would be a big problem. New fans would have to find their Network and be willing to pay for something they are not fans of yet.

Getting smoked by football makes sense, it's American football. They also got beat by something called "love and hip hop hollywood" which is pretty embarrassing.

They have been beaten by that hip hop show a ton of times (its been happening for a long time now). Whatever demographic that hip hop show appeals to really likes it.

There are a ton of reasons why this is happening. It is only live on the East Coast. It is not live anywhere else (in the US at least). It is easy to find a live stream and not have to watch the delayed show nor DVR it. It went up against two NFL games. It is always up against thousands of other channels.

Another big reason is 3 hours. That is causing the creative team to stretch. To drag things out. They have to put guys out there that may not deserve to be on Raw. Put segments that people won't watch because they need to fill 3 hours. Even the good shows feel tired by the end. I only DVR Raw now because sitting through it with all those commercials is too much.

Nielsen does actually track some online viewing but it is tricky of what they will actually count as a view. Only the videos with the same ads as on TV will count as a view for Nielsen. Trying to actually track all online viewership would be incredibly hard and it goes against the point of their tracking. Their tracking is not meant for shows but rather for advertisers. Advertisers pay based off the ratings. So having 500 million people watching a live stream with no ads is something they do not care about.
 
Ratings matter to WWE. They make a ton of money off of their contract with NBC Universal. That money subsidizes all the things WWE brings to it's fans and pays to it's shareholders. The WWE Network has only gone as far helping to make up for the loss of PPV. It doesn't make Raw or SD irrelevant. DVRs, streams, and Hulu do not pay the bills like NBC Universal.

Remember the embarrassment of the negotiations between WWE, NBC Universal, and the other zero media outlets that wanted WWE programming? Remember how NBC Universal called WWE's bluff and still got their business? WWE made a ton of money off that deal but it will end in the next few years. What then? I don't think Raw will disappear but it could become a lot less profitable for WWE. What about SD? It is now a live show which means it costs more to produce. What value will it have in the future as fewer people watch it when there is the most money to be made? Will it still be worth it to keep it live or does it go back to being the taped Raw recap show we complained about endlessly?

Ratings matter. I'm not jumping off a building just yet but they do matter.
 
Ratings matter to WWE. They make a ton of money off of their contract with NBC Universal. That money subsidizes all the things WWE brings to it's fans and pays to it's shareholders. The WWE Network has only gone as far helping to make up for the loss of PPV. It doesn't make Raw or SD irrelevant. DVRs, streams, and Hulu do not pay the bills like NBC Universal.

GSB, your entire post brought to light many great points. During the last negotiating period WWE greatly over estimated their worth to major broadcast outlets. Fortunately NBCU gave them a fair deal which allowed them to remain on USA. SmackDown going Live is an interesting case as NBCU/USA is fronting much of the cost involved in the pricey production. They obviously see value and upside but how long will that continue?

I would be very interested to see how much is coming in per basic advertising packages and official sponsorships. Despite the incredibly low ratings during the third hour how profitable is that portion of the show? I'd also be interested to know USA's take on the current ratings. Wrestling still ranks relatively high on cable. Does the revenue to cost out weigh running some reruns. Remember Spike TV decided it was more efficient to run episodes of Cops over Impact despite lower viewers.
 
Ratings matter to WWE. They make a ton of money off of their contract with NBC Universal. That money subsidizes all the things WWE brings to it's fans and pays to it's shareholders. The WWE Network has only gone as far helping to make up for the loss of PPV. It doesn't make Raw or SD irrelevant. DVRs, streams, and Hulu do not pay the bills like NBC Universal.

Using the numbers from April, the Network has 1.82 million subscribers. Taking away the 1 million for break-even costs, that is over $8 million. Say a PPV got 200,000 buys at $50 per buy. That would be around $10 million but they would lose a percentage of that to the PPV providers. So they either make more per month with the Network or about the same as before. This really only hurts at a time like Mania when the PPVs buys would make significantly more in the past.

Remember the embarrassment of the negotiations between WWE, NBC Universal, and the other zero media outlets that wanted WWE programming? Remember how NBC Universal called WWE's bluff and still got their business? WWE made a ton of money off that deal but it will end in the next few years. What then? I don't think Raw will disappear but it could become a lot less profitable for WWE. What about SD? It is now a live show which means it costs more to produce. What value will it have in the future as fewer people watch it when there is the most money to be made? Will it still be worth it to keep it live or does it go back to being the taped Raw recap show we complained about endlessly?

Ratings matter. I'm not jumping off a building just yet but they do matter.

The reason it was embarrassing was they blabbed about their goals which were way too lofty (they thought they could get something similar to NASCAR which was a dumb mindset). I don't like NASCAR but WWE tried a dumb argument of people are compelled to watch our show live. Sports get a big audience and people are compelled to watch live. WWE can get a nice sized audience but don't have a reason for people to watch live. So the real embarrassment wasn't the deal but their own delusions. The deal they got was a 50% increase from the previous deal which is great.

Fans are another reason why wrestling makes less. WWE's audience makes way less than comparable products like the UFC and boxing. That in addition to wrestling having a bad stigma leads to lower advertiser turnouts. Hurts their bargaining power.

I would be very interested to see how much is coming in per basic advertising packages and official sponsorships. Despite the incredibly low ratings during the third hour how profitable is that portion of the show? I'd also be interested to know USA's take on the current ratings. Wrestling still ranks relatively high on cable. Does the revenue to cost out weigh running some reruns. Remember Spike TV decided it was more efficient to run episodes of Cops over Impact despite lower viewers.

Probably not. The reason Spike made more with cops was TNA wasn't pulling in great advertisers. Neither was cops. So Spike either had to pay for an already completed show or pay for TNA to produce a new one. So the costs on cops would be much lower making it easy to make more than TNA. WWE has a hard time getting big advertisers but they do have some. Meaning NBC probably does make more with Raw than a rerun. Now if the ratings continue this avalanche, then a rerun might become a better option for them.
 
Probably not. The reason Spike made more with cops was TNA wasn't pulling in great advertisers. Neither was cops. So Spike either had to pay for an already completed show or pay for TNA to produce a new one. So the costs on cops would be much lower making it easy to make more than TNA. WWE has a hard time getting big advertisers but they do have some. Meaning NBC probably does make more with Raw than a rerun. Now if the ratings continue this avalanche, then a rerun might become a better option for them.

As I alluded towards, Spike found going with reruns a more profitable Avenue. While TNA might have had a hard time pulling appropriate advertising dollars I would assume their production cost were/are much less than WWE's. Could NBCU/USA eventually get to this point? Of course in WWE's favor they have their own production company to help offset cost. I'm not entirely sure how much TNA had to outsource. I know a lot of their post production remains in house. WWE seems to be attracting bigger name sponsors but we have no clue what the going rate is. I can guarantee PepsiCo/YUM is paying a fraction of what they spend on NFL Sundays when they back WWE.
 
I disagree I believe ratings is the main thing, How can you advertise the live events, The next PPV, The Network or how can you appeal to new fans, Bring back old fans or keep the current fans if nobody is watching or nobody is talking about it.
Having lived through the Hulkamania and Attitude eras it seemed like loads at school, work, on other TV shows were talking about wrestling like what happened on RAW last night etc during those periods and wrestling seemed cool, TV ratings was high but now I barely hear anyone mention wrestling outside of this website and don't personally even know anyone who watches Raw anymore, For me I do still enjoy wrestling but with Family and work commitments I don't have the same free time anymore to watch it everyweek especially now that its 3 hours long and just catch the highlights on youtube.
I agree probably ratings are down for a lot of TV overall than it was 20 or 30 years ago but when you go from the number one rated show on that network down to like not even in the top 10 then I would say theres a problem.
 
I say just go back to two hours, keep the show exciting and seperate RAW and Smackdown for real. I mean, for real. Have its brand do its own thing. By having two somewhat different brands, means that you get almost double chances of new eyes and those new eyes could then also put the other programm as well into their schedule.

One of the things that doesn't make sense is that they want us to believe that Raw and Smackdown are actually a competition. Since when does the competition advertise each others ppvs? I understand advertisements on the network and even USA commercials, but on the tron or whatever they're calling it these days? Backlash 2 weeks away on Raw's, Clash of Champions 2 weeks away on Smackdown's etc. It's a minor thing, but to really try to get the impression of competition across, this should really stop.
 
I also agree that rating are important. If they weren't then half the TV shows that have been cancelled in the past would still be on the air. Poor ratings usually means the end of some programs. Now not saying this will happen with the WWE, but it is a problem when they get to the negotiating table to sign a new contract with the USA Network. It could mean less money for McMahon, and that means less profits coming through the doors. Won't make the shareholders happy.

In saying all that though I have one question that I don't believe has been asked before. Most households have more than one TV these days, in fact they might have several. So how are the ratings gauged if I for example am watching RAW, my husband watching baseball and my son something else? One house, 3 different channels being viewed, and that is most of the time not just Monday nights.

Yes ratings do usually decline when the NFL starts, but you also have to take into consideration that summer is over and the kids are home watching RAW. So you'd think that the ratings that dropped during the summer would at least remain steady. Or am I wrong?
 
The problem with raw is that they really don't have anybody on their roster that can actually draw. All those guys we're sent on smackdown so your left with a show that is mostly for the hard core fans. The other thing is that raw is 3 hours so the third hour always seen to be use for all the crap that nobody want to watch. This week, you had the new day vs the club, enzo vs epico & jinder mahal vs jack swagger all in the third hour before the main event. If you wanted fans to switch channel, all those segment put together will do it. Pushing bo dallas doesn't help either. Raw got 3 hours to fill, they need to fill those 3 hoirs with segments that will keep peoples to watch. They need to make guys like kevin owens, roman reigns and others draws that will bring new viewers. When lesnar comes back, use the fact that je's on the show to make some of those other guys look like they are on the same level as lesnar. Now on raw, it seem like the are hotshotting stuff and then don't really know how to folow up.

best exemple, kevin owens. When owens won the championship, they use hhh to make him look like a main evnt star, so naturally, you would think that you would have a follow up to this on the next episode of raw and at the same time continue to the ascension of owens into the main event level. But no, hhh is nowhere to be seen and owens is book the same way as he was before winning the championship which make him look like a midcard guy holding a world title.

So stuff like that will make fans that love wrestling and football choose football over wrestling and a the same time, will bring the ratings of raw down.
 
GSB, your entire post brought to light many great points.

They were OK, let's not get carried away.

During the last negotiating period WWE greatly over estimated their worth to major broadcast outlets. Fortunately NBCU gave them a fair deal which allowed them to remain on USA. SmackDown going Live is an interesting case as NBCU/USA is fronting much of the cost involved in the pricey production. They obviously see value and upside but how long will that continue?

The extra hour and going live are interesting cases. They seem like positives but what is WWE getting out of it? I don't know the answer to that. Is there more money or just more work?

I would be very interested to see how much is coming in per basic advertising packages and official sponsorships. Despite the incredibly low ratings during the third hour how profitable is that portion of the show? I'd also be interested to know USA's take on the current ratings.
That's the big question. Vince can tell the stockholders that ratings do not matter but what does USA think? They are the ones stuck in this contract with WWE and relying on WWE programming to carry their other shows while bringing in ad revenue. How will they react when the contract is ready to be renegotiated?

Will WWE have the leverage to negotiate a better deal with declining ratings or will that revenue disappear?

Wrestling still ranks relatively high on cable. Does the revenue to cost out weigh running some reruns. Remember Spike TV decided it was more efficient to run episodes of Cops over Impact despite lower viewers.

I don't know what Mr. Robot or Suits cost to make but it is another direction they could go. It will also be interesting if the number of cable channels retracts in the years to come. If that happens it leaves WWE with fewer options.

Then again, with the low brow crap we see on NBC, Fox, CBS, and ABC maybe WWE is on its way to a bigger audience and more money. Who knows? ESPN, Fox Sports, and NBC Sports may need a new weekly show to keep a more consistent audience.

But again, who knows? All I know is that logically I'm not going to pay more money for a show that has fewer viewers.

Using the numbers from April, the Network has 1.82 million subscribers. Taking away the 1 million for break-even costs, that is over $8 million. Say a PPV got 200,000 buys at $50 per buy. That would be around $10 million but they would lose a percentage of that to the PPV providers. So they either make more per month with the Network or about the same as before. This really only hurts at a time like Mania when the PPVs buys would make significantly more in the past.

I don't know. All I know is WWE isn't going to make up the $200m a year they make on cable with new Network subscribers if Raw and SD head to the Network.

The reason it was embarrassing was they blabbed about their goals which were way too lofty (they thought they could get something similar to NASCAR which was a dumb mindset). I don't like NASCAR but WWE tried a dumb argument of people are compelled to watch our show live. Sports get a big audience and people are compelled to watch live. WWE can get a nice sized audience but don't have a reason for people to watch live. So the real embarrassment wasn't the deal but their own delusions. The deal they got was a 50% increase from the previous deal which is great.

I thought it was also pretty embarassing when WWE rejected USA, went out to market and then came crawling back.

Fans are another reason why wrestling makes less. WWE's audience makes way less than comparable products like the UFC and boxing. That in addition to wrestling having a bad stigma leads to lower advertiser turnouts. Hurts their bargaining power.

Yes, purchasing power matters.
 
In saying all that though I have one question that I don't believe has been asked before. Most households have more than one TV these days, in fact they might have several. So how are the ratings gauged if I for example am watching RAW, my husband watching baseball and my son something else? One house, 3 different channels being viewed, and that is most of the time not just Monday nights.

Yes ratings do usually decline when the NFL starts, but you also have to take into consideration that summer is over and the kids are home watching RAW. So you'd think that the ratings that dropped during the summer would at least remain steady. Or am I wrong?

Ratings are done by the Nielsen. They do advanced analytics to choose who to give a Nielsen box to. That box records what is watched and when. That data is sent to Nielsen. They decide through analytics how many viewers that one person represents. Those are the only people who have an impact on the ratings. One person can represent like 20 thousand views or 100 thousand. It depends on a ton of different factors.

This does run into problems. The Houston Astro's once got a 0 rating on opening day in Houston because no one with a box happened to watch in the Houston area.

But to answer your question, most of us have no bearing on the ratings.
 
If a show is good people will watch. The reason why raw's ratings and viewereship is going down is because it's not good anymore. People will make excuses about going against football. Weren't they going against football from the late 90s-early 2000s when wrestling was hot? The ratings for wrestling were great then despite going against football. They will be hard pressed to do 3 million or more viewers between now and late December with the programming they dish out. I mean how the hell can they justify putting a sqaush match in 2016? Who wouldn't watch football over that?
 
WWE seems to be attracting bigger name sponsors but we have no clue what the going rate is. I can guarantee PepsiCo/YUM is paying a fraction of what they spend on NFL Sundays when they back WWE.

This is 100% on track and why WWE is going to have a hard time during re-negotiations with USA.

Advertisers pay for the makeup of a viewing audience (education, income, etc) and unfortuantley the price to advertise on wrestling is much lower than other shows.

USA can very well make more money from advertisers on a show with 1/3rd the ratings of RAW and yet the target audience of that particular show with 1/3 less ratings than RAW costs MORE to advertise on due to the target audience (higher education, higher income, etc).

This is a point a know is greatly overlooked when anyone says ratings don't matter. They 100% do to USA and in turn WWE.
 
If I am WWE, I would be shitting in my pants. As I said on another thread, there is a huge tumor in the company. Pro wrestling itself is VERY healthy, for which I will explain later. "Sports Entertainment" is dying a slow and painful death. The big reason is that WWE tries to be all things to all people. Guess what? When you are all things to all people, you become nothing to nobody. The storylines are beyond incoherent to the point of nonsensical. They constantly tell you that wins and losses do not matter. You have people rammed down your throat who should not be Main Eventing. People that cannot cut a promo to save their lives, yet being pushed like they are saviors to Shakespeare. I causes fans to run for the exits. 14 years ago, they might not have had much choice between WWF and WWF. TNA and RoH were in their infancy. You could not watch anything from Japan unless you moved there, or happen to score a tape/DVD of a card. Well, it is 2016. Times have changed.

Today, fans of Pro Wrestling HAVE choices. Roku streams cards. YouTube streams cards. I watched a live card of WhatCulture Pro Wrestling on YouTube. Got to see Will Ospreay and Marty Scrull in a 6-way match. Also on that card was Moose vs. Drew Galloway in a great match. Better than anything on RAW. Also, on my phone and tablet, I have the Fite TV app. Very legal. I watched the most recent episodes of Championship Wrestling from Hollywood, Paragon, Canada's Wrestling Centre, Scotland's ICW Fight Club, and Minnesota's AWF TV taping (complete with their local commercials!). All are legal to be shown on Fite. If I want to see a live show? WrestlePro, owned by WWE Alums Pat Buck, Brian Myers and Kevin Matthews, routinely draw 1500-2000 to their shows in the NYC Metro area. NYC's Warriors of Wrestling, House of Glory, And Tier 1 do monthly cards, and those three are the biggest ones. BTW, NONE of them copy the WWE model.

So, why should one support a company that cannot get out of the way of their own arrogance? Tries to be all things to all people? Why should I support a three hour show, when two of those hours are filled with mindless chatter, pushing this product or cause, or an idiotic segment that takes away from a good show? Sure, I have watched MMA. Cannot, for the life of me, get into it. I was one of those poor souls that dropped $60 to see CM Punk get annihilated, and Alitair Overeem get his ass overeamed. And one wonders why I am exasperated with MMA? Sure, you say get the Network. I say, "for what?" I am not interested in Total Divas or Holy Foley. Sure, I might miss a PPV or two. But, I'll catch it on a friend's PC or tablet.

In closing, most of you "Sports Entertainment" fans are wringing your hands on why WWE is falling in the ratings. Why ratings are not up for "The biggest, the best and on TV every week" company on the planet? The very reason is that most of us fans of "Professional Wrestling" have found alternatives to WWE with the new technology. And, we found live performances that make us want to go to those performances. Those companies give us fans what we want: Good, hard action with little fluff. When WWE realizes that, and becomes more like WrestlePro rather than "Days of our Lives", fans will return.
 
If I am WWE, I would be shitting in my pants. As I said on another thread, there is a huge tumor in the company. Pro wrestling itself is VERY healthy, for which I will explain later. "Sports Entertainment" is dying a slow and painful death. The big reason is that WWE tries to be all things to all people. Guess what? When you are all things to all people, you become nothing to nobody. The storylines are beyond incoherent to the point of nonsensical. They constantly tell you that wins and losses do not matter. You have people rammed down your throat who should not be Main Eventing. People that cannot cut a promo to save their lives, yet being pushed like they are saviors to Shakespeare. I causes fans to run for the exits. 14 years ago, they might not have had much choice between WWF and WWF. TNA and RoH were in their infancy. You could not watch anything from Japan unless you moved there, or happen to score a tape/DVD of a card. Well, it is 2016. Times have changed.

Today, fans of Pro Wrestling HAVE choices. Roku streams cards. YouTube streams cards. I watched a live card of WhatCulture Pro Wrestling on YouTube. Got to see Will Ospreay and Marty Scrull in a 6-way match. Also on that card was Moose vs. Drew Galloway in a great match. Better than anything on RAW. Also, on my phone and tablet, I have the Fite TV app. Very legal. I watched the most recent episodes of Championship Wrestling from Hollywood, Paragon, Canada's Wrestling Centre, Scotland's ICW Fight Club, and Minnesota's AWF TV taping (complete with their local commercials!). All are legal to be shown on Fite. If I want to see a live show? WrestlePro, owned by WWE Alums Pat Buck, Brian Myers and Kevin Matthews, routinely draw 1500-2000 to their shows in the NYC Metro area. NYC's Warriors of Wrestling, House of Glory, And Tier 1 do monthly cards, and those three are the biggest ones. BTW, NONE of them copy the WWE model.

So, why should one support a company that cannot get out of the way of their own arrogance? Tries to be all things to all people? Why should I support a three hour show, when two of those hours are filled with mindless chatter, pushing this product or cause, or an idiotic segment that takes away from a good show? Sure, I have watched MMA. Cannot, for the life of me, get into it. I was one of those poor souls that dropped $60 to see CM Punk get annihilated, and Alitair Overeem get his ass overeamed. And one wonders why I am exasperated with MMA? Sure, you say get the Network. I say, "for what?" I am not interested in Total Divas or Holy Foley. Sure, I might miss a PPV or two. But, I'll catch it on a friend's PC or tablet.

In closing, most of you "Sports Entertainment" fans are wringing your hands on why WWE is falling in the ratings. Why ratings are not up for "The biggest, the best and on TV every week" company on the planet? The very reason is that most of us fans of "Professional Wrestling" have found alternatives to WWE with the new technology. And, we found live performances that make us want to go to those performances. Those companies give us fans what we want: Good, hard action with little fluff. When WWE realizes that, and becomes more like WrestlePro rather than "Days of our Lives", fans will return.

Uh wow this is really off the mark. TNA gets around 300,000 viewers. I can't imagine ROH getting way more than that. That is a very tiny audience. Those Indy companies are nowhere near even TNA level. WWE isn't losing audience to Indy companies, they are losing it to things like the NFL (3 hour Raw vs MNF, easy to choose), the 5000 different TV channels or to streaming (since streaming won't count as a view but that only matters if you have a Nielsen Box).

1500-2000 is not a big attendance number.

WWE produces stuff like Holy Foley in hopes that it will attract people that like that stuff to buy the Network. The Network still has stuff wrestling fans would like. This doesn't hurt them. The Network can try to have wide appeal range and not be hurt.
 
Raw may wind up drawing literally an all time low next week because it's got MASSIVE competition.

WWE will have its usual competition at this time of year with Monday Night Football, though I don't think MNF will draw a super huge audience next week as it's the Atlanta Falcons taking on the New Orleans Saints. It's doubtful it'll be some major barnburner as neither team is especially impressive right now; the Falcons haven't made the playoffs since 2012 and the Saints are 0-2 for the season.

I think the real competition will come in the form of the first Presidential Debate between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. I won't be at all surprised if 30 to 40 million homes tune in for it mostly because so many people want to see Clinton & Trump tear into each other while on stage together for the first time with about 1.5 months until the election. Also, let's face it, Trump is good for ratings because he's become the modern shock jock of politics: people who like him want to hear what outrageous thing he'll say next while people who don't like him also want to hear what outrageous thing he'll say next.
 
WWE isn't going anywhere, any time soon. Whether or not wrestling is cool or edgy anymore doesn't matter. The TV product is just one of many. The network gig, merchandise sales, movies, video games, and attendence revenue is more than enough to keep this company thriving. Go to any major city in the world, and if WWE is coming to town, you better believe those seats are getting filled.

Along with that, while there is tons of indie wrestling promotions, and even TNA, WWE is the only legitimate wrestling company that has brand equity and is a household name.

As far as ratings, like others have said, majority of individuals don't subscribe to cable anymore, mostly due to an abundance of commercial interruption and irellevance in today's age. This isn't a great indicator of WWE's performance. I personally watch the condensed versions of RAW and SD on Hulu Plus, and many people torrent their content as well.

Everything's going to be okay.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
174,825
Messages
3,300,727
Members
21,726
Latest member
chrisxenforo
Back
Top