Are the Lack of PPV's Killing TNA's Overall Product?

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

Alright folks, it's been awhile since I made a non-spam thread, so let's see if I still remember how to do this...

At the start of 2013, TNA Wrestling announced their intent to reduce the number of pay-per-views from 12, the standard monthly format, to only 4. The remaining pay-per-view events would be, in order: TNA Genesis, TNA Lockdown, TNA Slammiversary and Bound for Glory.

TNA also recorded a series of One Night Only pay-per-view events, all of which were recorded in a matter of weeks, that are still being released almost 9-10 months later. Those events cut massively into the payroll, costing them a lot of money to bring in a lot of names, and haven't panned out for the company, as hardly anybody is buying them.

My question is simple: has the cut back on monthly pay-per-views killed TNA's overall product?

Since cutting down to only four major shows, I really feel like Impact Wrestling has lost its focus. Before, there was a big event every month. There was a focus, and something to drive towards. You started an angle, and you had four weeks (sometimes more or less) to build it up before the payoff. If an angle did well, sometimes it went on for two or three months. This is the modern traditional wrestling format.

Obviously there are ways to make good weekly TV without having PPVs every single month. WWF did it for a very long time; granted that was before Monday Night Raw. I still think giving TNA monthly, or maybe bi-monthly goals to work towards, is best for the product as a whole. TO me, they've seemed really disjointed and out of focus this year. Their feuds come and go, sometimes they have no payoff, sometimes the "payoff" lasts way too long and you get sick of the feud. But the bihg thing is, I've lost interest because I'm used to seeing, "Ok, this is the feud, there's four weeks of TV" or "there's only one more show left to build this up, I want to see what's going to happen."

The way it is now, they have a lot of open-ended feuds, and without certainty that they will blow off at a definite, defined point, it's hard to remain interested. It's like, if your girlfriend says "we're definitely going to have sex for the first time" after a month of fooling around, but then she follows up with, "but we don't do it until I say, and I'm not going to tell you when it's going to be." After a couple weeks, you start thinking, is this shit actually going to happen!? Maybe you lose interest. Maybe you get frustrated. MAYBE YOU GO HAVE SEX WITH ANOTHER WRESTLING COMPANY!!

TL;DR - I think the lack of structure caused by an absence of PPVs is killing the overall product of TNA Wrestling.

 

[das1234]

my answer would actually be yes.
the thought was good, but i think four was overdoing it. i would have gone with 8 or 6, probably 8.
the problem is that they dont seem to know how to write longterm stories anymore. instead, they just had one story that went on for far too long, and many things that just came and went. you are right with that, just look at roode/magnus. i know what it was for, but why didnt we see that match? what happened to the MEM, they are still introduced as being in it? what was the MEM even for when bully kicked guys out by himself? why were none of these kicking-out-matches on PPV? and so on...

so i agree that they totally lost focus, and i blame it heavily on the writing/creative, they just cant provide stuff that is fit for these long timespans, and when BFG came around it seemed like they only realized that BFG was around the corner 2 weeks before is happened.

also they created an additional problem with their "free ppvs", while seeming like a great idea at first, they actually make it seem like there are less important episodes that you can miss because they arent ppv episodes.
that step also hilarously cut the effective "ppv preparation time" from 4 weeks to 2 weeks, with every second taping being a free ppv taping with 2 episodes of ppv.
i dont know, i just feel that the idea was good, they went overboard with it and started to do some really stupid stuff to compensate.
however, i also think that by taking wwe as an example with their 8 or whatever hours a week to build ppvs, tna would have been better off putting on a ppv every 6 weeks with only 2 hours of build a week instead.

 

[ASKane]

PPV = Money. Money = Success. No Money = Fail. TNA = Fail. PPV's are a wrestling companies main source of income so if they don't do PPV's they don't make money so they are a fail. The problem with 1 night only is not just that you know who has won before it happens. They have little to no storyline behind them. There is a PPV which airs in about March next year which has the Aces N Eights as a team, good 4 months ago not in 4 months time. The matches do not create or boost activate storylines so people don't care. Also if you have a PPV entirely about the Knockouts division you are gonna get little interest from anyone as 3 hours of knockouts is not very interesting over a month let alone a night.

 

[Big Monty]

from a fans point of view, I would rather have less PPVs for each wrestling organization and let them build up the storylines more. TNA's problem isn't with fewer PPVs (although from a financial perspective, as long as they weren't losing $$ when producing them, more would always be better) , but rather poor story line writing

 

[Fabulous Freebirds]

It's amazing how things change. When TNA first announced that they were eliminating 8 ppv's, a majority of reaction was positive because most people said they never watch ppv's such as Against All Odds and Final Resolution.

Now, we saw what happens when you get rid of those "b-ppv's". They got nothing to build for every month, therefore the audience has nothing to really care about on a monthly basis.

Yes, lack of ppv's have hurt TNA this year. Go back to the 12 ppv's and BE HAPPY with whatever buys you get. Something is better than nothing.

 

[5 Moves of Doom]

My answer would be yes. PPVs help bring in revenue and would have helped solve some of their financial issues that they have recently had with paying talent and the cost for going on the road. PPVs also help with story progression and TV ratings. I would say TNA should move to maybe 8-10 PPVs a year at least to help bring in some more profit. Having only 4 a year isn't really helping them IMO, especially if they are planning to go on the road.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

This is a reach. Not every feud has to build to a PPV. TNA has built to other moments that happen on Impact. TNA lacks talented performers. They don't have guys that are the total package. No, I don't mean guys like Lex Luger, I mean guys who have the look, charisma, name, in-ring ability, and acting ability. TNA's creative is not much better or worse than WWE's. WWE's creative just has it much easier because their talent and legacy is just far superior to TNA's.

If TNA wants to make it they should do everything I say. Anything different is a failure.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Killing the overall product? No, not in my opinion. But it's definitely hurt the bank account. There were a couple of major problems with the new format:

Problem 1. Using the extra time between ppvs to build those shows to feel like "must see" events. With so much time in-between ppvs, a good deal of Impact Wrestling came across as filler, to me at least. Rather than making the best use of the extra time, much of that time wasn't really devoted to heavily hyping & building up the ppv. As a result, the only solidified build for the shows, most of the time, came within the month prior to the ppv. I was skeptical from the beginning of the company's ability to pull it off.

Problem 2. TNA ppv events don't draw many buys to begin with. If all the leaked info regarding TNA ppv buys is accurate, then most TNA ppv events tend to draw an average of 7,000 to 10,000 buys. Sometimes the numbers are a little higher. Again, if the info is accurate, then the four ppvs they run would have to garner many times the normal buyrate to equal what they'd make with the monthly ppv format. Reportedly, Slammiversary only drew 13,000 buys and even if the other shows drew similar numbers, it's still nowhere close to making up the difference.

As others have pointed out, the four ppv format has led to a substantial loss in revenue. That's the risk of going with only four or six shows a year that so many have wanted to see TNA and WWE do for a long time. MAYBE shows MIGHT be built up to where they'd draw 4 or 5 times what they normally would, but it's just not very likely.

 

[LSN80]

Since cutting down to only four major shows, I really feel like Impact Wrestling has lost its focus. Before, there was a big event every month. There was a focus, and something to drive towards.

The issue with your theory is a simple one: TNA has not only had those four PPV's that they've built towards, but a number of "specials" as well, and not those of the 'One Night Only' variety. They've had TV specials to build to as well, using former PPV's such as Destination X or Hardcore Justice as major television events. After Slammiversary, especially, we've seen these specials close to once a month, and they've given them the PPV treatment and hype as they did previous for the one-a-month PPVs. Destination X centered around the build to Sabin vs. Ray, for example and Hardcore Justice was about the rematch with Ray vs. Sabin in a cage. I can't say whether or not these shows were held in accordance of one a month per calendar year, but the frequency of them has been more than enough that there has been ample opportunity for a structured product.

I still think giving TNA monthly, or maybe bi-monthly goals to work towards, is best for the product as a whole. TO me, they've seemed really disjointed and out of focus this year.

Have you been watching the TNA product? They've been doing exactly that. I'm not sure what their post Bound For Glory schedule is, but as I said prior, the only thing that has changed is that TNA has gone from the monthly PPV to the(close to) one a month TV special.

So I ask, with that being fact, in what ways has TNA been disjointed to you, given the fact that they have given themselves these small windows with which to work? There have been areas where they've lacked focus, most noticeably the Tag and X Division's, but WWE has the same problem with 5 storyline building hours(I don't count Main Event)in comparison to TNA's 2. There's only so much that can be done in two hours a week, and with the build to BFG, smaller feuds suffered or disapeared as the focus was on the major feuds in the company.

Their feuds come and go.

Again, that's an issue with only two hours of TV time. A feud that gets air-time one week may fail to get it the next because of a time crunch. Last night saw the new X-Division champ not even make the show, along with some bigger names such as Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe, and Austin Aries. It was about the major fallout from BFG, and unfortunately, time wasn't available for the X-Division.

Such is life on once weekly show with an abundance of roster members.

The way it is now, they have a lot of open-ended feuds, and without certainty that they will blow off at a definite, defined point, it's hard to remain interested.

Why does a wrestling company have to define down when theyre going to blow off a feud to its audience? Ideally, Bound For Glory is the place as the biggest show of the year, but with new champions, feuds will continue because of rematches. Its been a tried and true method used in wrestling forever. Last night, for example, we saw the likely end of the Ray/AJ feud, just four days following BFG. We didn't know in advance, especially with Dixie lurking, but a level of unpredictability is a good thing.

If a company paints-by-numbers the start and finish of feuds, it greatly dampens the suspense, drama, and gives away the winner more often than not. Sometimes, that's a good thing, and further, most of the better feuds I've seen have hinted at an end date, rather than drawing a line in the sand and labeling things "The last encounter." Both TNA and WWE do this with some success. To borrow a WWE example, it appears we're getting the end of Bryan and Orton on Sunday, for example, but do we know for sure?

Nope, which is part of the fun.

It's like, if your girlfriend says "we're definitely going to have sex for the first time" after a month of fooling around, but then she follows up with, "but we don't do it until I say, and I'm not going to tell you when it's going to be." After a couple weeks, you start thinking, is this shit actually going to happen!? Maybe you lose interest. Maybe you get frustrated.
MAYBE YOU GO HAVE SEX WITH ANOTHER WRESTLING COMPANY!! :shrug

Or maybe you have faith that she's waiting until the timing is perfect and the end result will be beneficial for both of you, not rushed just to satisfy one party and their impatience. And if said impatient person can't wait on the girl or the payoff of the feud, than that gal is better off without them, as is the wrestling company. It's a 'right now, gimme gimme' mentality that doesn't allow for a better....climax, lets say.

And its one of the reasons we're amateurs on the sidelines, and there are professional writers and bookers who know the ins and outs of the wrestling business far better than we ever will.

I think the lack of structure caused by an absence of PPVs is killing the overall product of TNA Wrestling.

So, with said dilemna, how would you fix it? I think TNA already has a nice modus in place with their quarterly PPV's and monthly TV specials, but Ive watched the product frequently enough to see that.

Have you?

 

[DexVendetta88]

My answer is a definite yes. These guys must've been on pretty good drugs when they decided to cut their PPVs down to 4. TNA just can't get away with it because this is where the money really is. Not live events, not TV tapings, hell not even merchandise it's PPV where the money really comes in. Sure they had a couple bad PPVs in the past, but that shouldn't stop them from cutting it down. You don't see WWE cutting down their PPVs at all, and if they do they only get rid of 1 or 2 tops. After years of not charging admission to the ImpactZone, then cutting PPVs down to 4 a year, and traveling on the road constantly now it's no wonder that TNA is in this sorry state right now. I hate to say it, but it'll be a matter of time before TNA folds. I'm gonna give them a year or 2 tops for survival.

 

[Maverick T Kenderson]

I like the one night only events as non-storylined shows, they brought in some great Indy talent and there was some great matches. In regards to 4 mainstream ppvs instead of 12, I think undisciplined booking created the failure of that imitative. They found it too difficult to build storylines at the right pace.

 

[ABMorales787]

No. Quite the opposite. It has done a great deal of benefit for Impact Wrestling. So far, every single advertised "supercard" Impact they've had, has produced a bump in the ratings. Hardcore Justice, BFG Series Finals, Destination X, Full Metal Mayhem at Corpus Christy, these have given a noted beef to the ratings. And in my honest opinion, the No Surrender edition of Impact has been the best TV episode of wrestling in the entire year between either company.

The only issue it's produced is the massive gap between Slammiversary and Bound For Glory. Not really for TV programming, but for TNA's wallet. At the very least one PPV fits on that schedule.

 

[Zeven_Zion]

Yeah, the number of PPVs is reducing the quality of the show.

How about this. A WILD idea. Never before heard or seen. The quality of the show is killing the quality of the show. Nuts, right?

I mean, come on, Killam. I get what you mean but you can't seriously believe that this reduces (or improves) the quality of the shows. They haven't lost focus because of the lack of PPVs. You're acting like TNA actually DID something with their PPVs before. Like they meant something to a storyline, like something actually happened.

It didn't. It never did. They were glorified Impacts without promos. Storylines went on and on for months (and almost years), and the PPVs didn't improve or reduce their quality. They were just there. We got a couple of head scratching title changes, and half the time these title changes took place on the Impact following a PPV which kind of gunned down and murdered the point in the first place. People were basically paying for Impact. Except it's likely they weren't paying.

If the change has hurt anything it's TNA's finances (I assume), and my perception of the move. At first I was pumped because I thought TNA would make PPVs super memorable because of it.

But they never did. This year's Bound for Glory was the worst I've ever seen. I've been watching TNA since 2009, mind you, so I'm kind of limited in my BFG experiences. As far as the other three PPVs go, I couldn't tell you what happened on 'em if my life depended on it. I remember Bully won the belt at LockDown and AJ won at BFG. Why? Because it was memorable. It had an impact on the company. I don't remember the rest because it was either poorly done, or boring or it wasn't worthy of being stored in mah brain.

Therefore, TNA fucked themselves with this. It was supposed to give people more time to gather up some dough so they can cough it up for the PPV which TNA was supposed to make feel REALLY REALLY special because it was every four months. The result? PPVs feel the same they always have, nothing worth anyone's money except for Bound For Glory (maaaaybe), so now they're probably making two or three times less money 'cause my assumption is that the PPVs buys per PPV are either the same or actually lower. Expect them to do 12 PPVs a year within a month or so.

So ... no, the PPVs aren't killing the product or the show. Whoever's writing it is. Not saying Impact is horrible now. It's fine, just chaotic. They're transitioning from something to something and it's weird. It's like when Bischoff and Hogan came along in 2009, only now they're leaving so the company is going through a detox.

Hey! The Detox Era! Copyright Zeven_Zion, 2013.

 

[Stinger]

my answer would actually be yes.
the thought was good, but i think four was overdoing it. i would have gone with 8 or 6, probably 8.
the problem is that they dont seem to know how to write longterm stories anymore.

This sums up how I feel too. When TNA first announced they were scaling back on PPVs, I thought it was a great idea because in all honesty, they really don't have enough television time to give a PPV proper build up every month. I thought 4 was a good number because they'd be able to properly build feuds over the span of 3 months, leading to the payoff at the PPV. But that hasn't been the case.

Really, nothing has changed. They build up for their free PPVs just like they did for their regular PPVs, and quite honestly, I'm often left feeling like they through a bunch of random parts together at the last second before the PPV. Unfortunately, that's how I felt about Bound For Glory and I see that being the case with whatever the next PPV is (is it Genesis in January?).

 

[GameOver]

It was already pretty average but i will say yes it's made it even worse, not that i have bought a PPV more then a few a year, they just aren't value for money when i can just read the results online and get the general idea of what happened visually and it still sounds lame "overall"

They have gone from one extreme to another, not a oh we are losing money let's filter things down steadily b4 we get to that point, rather let's blow our budget oh we have no money lets cut back everything non essential, damn thats not working either, lets hire new nobodies and get rid of the few name stars we had cause they are costing us money.

on the flipside as a viewer and someone that they want to buy into the product we need something to lead into PPV's and really's there's very little worth buying into the PPV's anyway and now they are being given away for free so there's no incentive to buy into the product at all the only paid PPV's are pre-taped stuff that has nothing to do with the main product.

Where's the consistancy?

 

[SpecialFNK]

if TNA thought cutting the monthly PPV and filling them with the One Night Only PPV, they were severely mistaken. the ONO PPV seem like a massive fail to me. no storylines, no feuds, just random matches. which are fine if you watch solely to see in ring wrestling, but there are a lot of general viewers who watch for other factors. add in these ONP PPV are taped well well in advance it was just a bad idea.

I like the idea of the Impact special PPV shows, but I think they should have been done differently. they could have been 3 hour shows, which would mean they wouldn't be much different than a PPV as far as matches. add in commercials and you can stretch a normal PPV to a 3 hour length.
in this type of situation, could TNA charge more for advertising on TV? similar to how the Super Bowl charges more for those commercials.

I do think adding more than 4 PPV could be better. make it 6, 1 every 2 months. gives you plenty of time to build the matches, and to promote them.

if cutting back from 12 was going to make them not make the money, why would they do it in the first place?

 

[Stinger]

The "One Night Only" pay-per-views would be better if they weren't filmed months in advance, and if there was a little more logic to them. For example, I'd really like a "Open Fight Night" style One Night Only PPV (God, I miss OFN. I loved those nights so much).

Want to know a real head scratcher? TNA wasted an Austin Aries/Kurt Angle match on one of those One Night Only PPVs

 

[Honkey_Kong]

You guys bitched several times about WWE and TNA having TOO MANY ppvs because they could never have enough time to build their payoff matches. Now it's too few and they're losing direction? Come on, it's either one or the other.

The fact of the matter was that TNA was losing money off their 12 ppv per year schedule. Otherwise, they'd still be running them.

I for one think that the 4ppvs per year thing is a good idea for them to build feuds up. What they SHOULD be doing though is throwing in specials on non ppv months. Like Clash of The Champions or Saturday Night's Main Event. If you look in the WWE's Rock 'n Wrestling era, those Main Events really built up the PPV payoffs. And in the 80's and 90's WCW/JPW made big waves for their product with those Clashes.

 

[SpecialFNK]

could TNA ever do PPV specials on another network?
WWF used to have Saturday Nights Main Event on NBC on Saturday nights in stead of Saturday Night Live. if TNA could ever get that time slot during the offseason for SNL it would be a major get. although I don't know why NBC would be interested.
but is another network for a special an option?

 

[New Hot Fed]

Definitly yea. Not too long ago, there was definitly a sort of focus when there was the whole Aries being disguised as Manic and then Sabin getting a rematch...the whole building up to Destination X was awesome(even if it wasn't a PPV, it felt like one). But right now, other than the "AJ going rogue" stuff, there's nothing much to Impact. I figure things may pick up when they'll return to the Impact Zone.

Problem with TNA was not that they could not support PPV, it's that they did a bad job of building their shows toward making the PPV successful. Before Hogan came in, TNA made money off the PPVs. And there's definitly a willingness to push your product with more passion when you have to push for people to buy the PPV. It makes you go all out.

 

[XxTalonxX]

My answer would be yes. PPVs help bring in revenue and would have helped solve some of their financial issues that they have recently had with paying talent and the cost for going on the road. PPVs also help with story progression and TV ratings. I would say TNA should move to maybe 8-10 PPVs a year at least to help bring in some more profit. Having only 4 a year isn't really helping them IMO, especially if they are planning to go on the road.

If they had gotten rid of at least four, it gives them time to build up some of their feuds. It's like the saying says 1 step forward 3 steps back, so I would say that having only four PPV's a year is killing them.

 

[blockanWo]

I dont think the lack of PPV's are killing the product at all. The quality of the product is.

PPV's used to be about the culmination of a story or at least a large step in that direction.

TNA has always had a tradition of screwball PPV endings. TNA for some reason are a huge fan of the swerve.

Reducing the PPV number gave them time to do their swerves on Impact without angering people who buy (LOL) the PPV. But they arent doing that. Theyre still throwing curve balls.

I do feel they could have probably cut to 6-8 PPVs. But at the end of the day if theyre not using PPV's correctly and putting on good shows, it doesnt matter if you have 3 a year or 16. People wont buy, people wont watch.

I couldnt tell you the last time I purchased a PPV. I think it was the "They" BFG. If I didnt feel like I was robbed after most PPV's id probably buy more.

 

[Dirk]

No, the people who are firing long-tems prospects and hiring fighters are hurting the quality.

 

[Stormlor]

I do not think the lack of pay-per-view (PPV) events has done anything bad to TNA. In actuality, I think it has saved them money in the end. Running a PPV can be costly as it costs money to run the actual program, plus any satellite communication, which could include deals with certain telecommunication companies. Renting an arena, which costs extremely high.

TNA cutting down the PPV to four per year has helped the company stay around longer. The “One Night Only” PPVs though on the other hand do not bring anything to the company. These broadcasts are tape delayed and most wrestling fans will read the results on the Internet, or find a YouTube stream of it.

WWE should actual take a page from TNA though, currently the WWE product is stale, and every PPV seems to be getting worse. Night of Champions was a disaster, and it looks like Survivor Series, which should be treated, as a main WWE event will also have diminishing numbers.

For TNA though, the cost of being able to stay alive and not running out of money is the reason they cut down the monthly PPVs. Since Spike TV is not funding the company as much as Spike TV did before it is causing TNA to rethink some issues.

 

[Mustang Sally]

For TNA though, the cost of being able to stay alive and not running out of money is the reason they cut down the monthly PPVs.

Well, yes. As much as I'd like to see TNA survive, their actions in past months make me think that their investors have closed the cash box, refusing to pay in more money just to keep the company going; thereby insisting that the company either pay for itself through regular operations ......or call it quits.

Pay-per-views are expensive to produce, no? Back in the days of the Monday Night Wars when WCW had the bucks to air everything live while WWE tried to tape their shows was an indication that it costs considerably more to produce a live show. Eventually, Vince McMahon was forced to pony up the bucks to air live, and it was lucky for him he could.

In TNAs case, I figure they simply no longer have the money to put on monthly PPVs, and any other explanation they might have provided for cutting down was just spin.

Honestly, if the buys for the 12 PPVs were high enough to pay the freight, we'd still be seeing them. But isn't it ironic that while TNA can't generate PPV income without staging PPVs, they need major dollars to put them on in the first place......proving the adage that it takes money to make money.