How can WWE get the 5.0 ratings?

[louchratis]

I'm sure this has already been written in the posts above (I just paged through to post a quick comment) but Vince makes a lot more money with sub-4.0 ratings than he did when the WWE was pulling in ratings that were consistently extremely high. The reason is because being TV-PG and producing a kid-friendly product lends itself to more corporate sponsorships. The era of the WWE being presented by low-end products like Stacker 2 is long gone and has been replaced by legit Fortune 500 Companies such as Mattel. Given the option, I'm sure Vince would love to have his cake and eat it too (pull in higher ratings and get legit corporate sponsors) but in this day and age, I don't think that's possible. Given the option between getting higher ratings with an edgier product and making more money with a toned-down product, Vince chose the latter.

 

[Xpyred013]

WWE needs to SPLIT THE BRANDS AGAIN, it's giving more exposure to young talents.

We are sick of seeing the same talents on RAW and on SmackDown

SWITCH BACK RAW TO 2 HOURS, 3 hours is too much wrestling.
You can't have many meaningless matches and expect viewers to keep tuning, it happens to me a lot of times, I tune out on some Ziggler vs Fandango match then I tune in again after a couple of times, I see a Los Matadores vs 3MB, then I tune out then tune in again then I see Khali or something like that then I tune out and never tune in again and who are the ones that's going to get blamed for the bad ratings? The wrestlers who are in the main event (Example: daniel bryan).

3 hours of wrestling is just too d@mn long, switch it back to 2 hours.
Seperate the brands and NEVER let a smackdown guy appear on RAW and vice versa.

The brand split sucked because you had the same feuds over and over again in those programs anyhow. I stopped watching when the brand split happened because I didn't care for the same crap repeatedly.

During the attitude era, every match on the show was part of a bigger storyline. The mid card wrestlers were in matches with main eventers and everything furthered everything. It didn't matter if someone was in the job squad, the union, a shotgun saturday night "star" or whatever else, everyone was used on raw and smackdown before the split. And honestly, 3 hours would be perfect if WWE utilized the same storyline basis now that it did for attitude.

I don't care for PG or tv14. I want story. Right now WWE lacks it. I could care less about the Kofi Kingstons, the Swaggers or a bunch others because it's the same crap over and over again. Make everyone useful by making them part of a bigger story even if they are main eventers.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

If WWE brought The Rock / Brock Lesnar full-time, I'm 100% sure that ratings will go up.

WWE just needs to sign that NBC universal contract.

How is WWE supposed to bring The Rock and/or Brock Lesnar back full time when neither one of them is remotely interested in doing so?

The Rock's movie career is in full swing, with the movies he made in 2013 grossing over $1.3 billion worldwide. He's an established part of the highly lucrative G.I. Joe and Fast & Furious franchises, he's THE star of the $100 million budgeted Hercules film, he's in negotiations to portray a DC Comics character, rumored to be the African American Green Lantern John Stewart and, according to Forbes, The Rock earned $46 million dollars in salary from his movies in 2013. Is WWE supposed to pony up $50 million a year for The Rock? No wrestler's worth anything close to that.

As for Brock Lesnar, the deal he's currently signed to is the only way he'd come back to WWE. The reason Lesnar left WWE in the first place, after less than 2 years, was WWE's intense travel & road schedule. Lesnar's deal is structured similarly to what you'd see if he was still signed to the UFC: he makes a few appearances to promote his matches, has 3 or 4 matches per year at the very most, makes a lot of money for those matches and is MIA in between.

Even without reading any potential spoilers, it was all over the internet that Brock Lesnar was most likely going to pop up at Raw this past Monday several days before Raw even aired. That knowledge didn't exactly propel WWE close to the 5.0 range in the ratings. For the next few months, Brock Lesnar will probably be on Raw pretty frequently and will be a frequent focus of the show. People know this because the first four months of the year is WrestleMania season, so let's see how Lesnar's frequent presence does in the ratings. I'm 100% certain that Raw still won't be anywhere near the 5.0 level.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

The brand split sucked because you had the same feuds over and over again in those programs anyhow. I stopped watching when the brand split happened because I didn't care for the same crap repeatedly.

During the attitude era, every match on the show was part of a bigger storyline. The mid card wrestlers were in matches with main eventers and everything furthered everything. It didn't matter if someone was in the job squad, the union, a shotgun saturday night "star" or whatever else, everyone was used on raw and smackdown before the split. And honestly, 3 hours would be perfect if WWE utilized the same storyline basis now that it did for attitude.

I don't care for PG or tv14. I want story. Right now WWE lacks it. I could care less about the Kofi Kingstons, the Swaggers or a bunch others because it's the same crap over and over again. Make everyone useful by making them part of a bigger story even if they are main eventers.

An example of what you're talking about is what's been happening in TNA for several years. Generally speaking, it revolves around a faction wars/power struggle angle in which anyone that's even remotely relevant is involved in some sort of program that's part of that faction wars umbrella. Hasn't worked in TNA, they've been doing it for years, it's become extremely repetitive and their ratings are lower than they've ever been.

And no, not every match on the show during the Attitude Era was part of something bigger, nor was every angle. Val Venis getting his penis "chopped off' with a katana by Kai En Tai, Goldust's cross-dressing adventures, Al Snow with his mannequin head or the Diva pillow fight matches were part of anything significant happening.

 

[Radical]

Most of the people in this thread have pretty much summed it up.

There is a very slim chance WWE will ever get back to 5.0 rating.

Not only are there many, many more ways these days to watch a show without actually watching it live there are also a lot more channels to watch. Heck, YOUTUBE is super popular and people just watch shows on there instead of TV these days.

So I think WWE is LUCKY to even be getting about 3-4 Million viewers for Raw each week and about 1-3 Million viewers for SmackDown. They are pretty good at maintaining those numbers and they ARE still building new stars.

Anyone see NXT? There are solid bunch of really promising stars down there and I'm sure at least a few of them will be able to help the company keep up their ratings and make money at PPVs.

Plus, for like another 3-5 years AT LEAST (likely) we will have the all mighty Cena to keep banking on. But in that time there still will be other stars made.

 

[lil steroid meat]

Well, for starters the Attitude Era can never be replicated because what was edgy 20 years ago is not nearly as shocking today in a society AFTER porn and internet desensitization. And even then, if you resort to more edgy angles, it might just result in more controversy than ratings.

Secondly, the WWE has no need to strive for better ratings because business is good right now. The WWE Network just put the company's worth over $1 Billion. Business wise, WWE has no reason to come off of cruise control.

Someone on this forum said that WWE is Microsoft without the cool, hip innovator coming to take their spot. With Spike looking to acquire Smackdown, leaving TNA without a television deal + their major stars leaving + shitty management and shitty creative, TNA definitely isn't going to be the proverbial Apple, and ROH has a loyal following but without a major television deal, it is not even in the same ballpark as WWE.

It would take something like NJPW trying to conquer the American market to get WWE to tighten up, and I'm sure Vince has had a proverbial "red button" angle that he's been saving for the next Bischoff/Heyman type mind that comes along.

But as far as what they COULD do? An angle/star that made wrestling cool again and completely demolished Cena and the fan friendly image that WWE has worked so hard for over the last decade . . . but that might not be best for WWE's business, plus how high can ratings go in an era with YouTube, Torrents and DVR's?

What's best for product quality, ratings, and business are all three completely different things.

 

[lil steroid meat]

WWE couldn't afford the Rock on a full-time basis, and why would the Rock even consider it when he's past his prime now? He can just continue to make multi-million dollar paydays doing movies, and just generally making money off of his brand and trademarks.

Lesnar has no interest in wrestling a full-time schedule, and why would he when he's getting paid over a million bucks to work select dates a year. Lesnar is a big-time farmer, and also is business partners in a few MMA gyms. Not really two things you can just walk away from and go work a full-time 250-300 day road schedule, especially the farming since Brock is hands on with it.

So no, it's not just a "WWE needs to sign this contract and all is fixed." That's what we call being delusional. The biggest possible feud they could get out of Lesnar and Rock would be Lesnar vs. Rock, the re-match, which would only be hugely marketable at Summerslam or Mania... They don't need to sign those two to full time contracts to get that match out of them.

Not to mention we would eventually get used to it. Just like we got used to HHH, HBK, Jericho, Taker etc. We weren't necessarily bored with those guys, but it wasn't anything special when they were involved in an angle.

 

[LuckyLouie]

I'll explain everything.



WWE will probably never get those 5 ratings ever again.

They don't know how to build stars anymore, they don't have good storylines, they aren't consistent, they don't know how to build long feuds anymore.

Let's look at the long feuds this year: Punk vs Heyman and Bryan vs The Authority.

After Lesnar left, the punk-heyman feud sucked badly.
The Bryan-Authority feud was an absolute flop.



WWE needs to SPLIT THE BRANDS AGAIN, it's giving more exposure to young talents.

We are sick of seeing the same talents on RAW and on SmackDown.

WWE did a GREAT job by building Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes in the summer, their feud on SD was really entertaining especially when Rhodes threw the briefcase in the sea and Sandow went to get it.
Then what happens? WWE have them appear on a meaningless match on RAW, completely ruins the whole feud.

SWITCH BACK RAW TO 2 HOURS, 3 hours is too much wrestling.
You can't have many meaningless matches and expect viewers to keep tuning, it happens to me a lot of times, I tune out on some Ziggler vs Fandango match then I tune in again after a couple of times, I see a Los Matadores vs 3MB, then I tune out then tune in again then I see Khali or something like that then I tune out and never tune in again and who are the ones that's going to get blamed for the bad ratings? The wrestlers who are in the main event (Example: daniel bryan).

3 hours of wrestling is just too d@mn long, switch it back to 2 hours.
Seperate the brands and NEVER let a smackdown guy appear on RAW and vice versa.

That's how you created big money making blockbuster matches, matches like Kurt Angle vs Shawn Michaels (WM21), Batista vs John Cena (SummerSlam 2008)...
That's what made those matches important because they were first time ever matches, nowadays everyone faces everyone because of the many programming you have, it's just a stupid idea.


They're obviously getting more money by the brand extension (live events for example) so why have one roster on two shows, two rosters on two shows is better and a draft every 2-3 years.


If you look at Battleground for example, the two biggest matches in terms of star power are Bryan-Orton and Ryback-Punk and Del Rio- RVD, that's weak considering 3 years ago, Punk wasn't a top star, Ryback, ADR and Bryan weren't even in WWE.

Then compare that to WrestleMania, Rock-Cena, Taker-Punk and Brock-Hunter.

There isn't any comparaison.

WWE needs to know how to use their part timers right.
One time: you have Rock, Brock, HHH and Taker and in another time you have 0 part timers.

WrestleMania represents about 1/4 of the annual PPV buyrates and a huge part of WWE's revenue, they want to have the best PPV buyrate of WM as they possibly can.

But why not bring the same stars at other PPVs? Why not give a bigger importance to SummerSlam? Bring back The Rock for example to SummerSlam, or even have Rock vs Brock II at SummerSlam.
Bring back Taker to Survivor Series, have Triple H wrestle at some B-level PPV.


WWE are putting profit over people. They don't care about their fans anymore. The WWE isn't a "growing" business, they're just happy where they are, getting money from sponsors and by selling their stocks.


Here is a list of what I think WWE should do to bring ratings up:
-Switch back to 2 hour RAW
-Make the product more edgy (targeting an audience of 14-50 years old is better than an audience of 4-12 years old in terms of profit)
-Give more importance to B-level PPVs.
-No part timer vs part timer, have part timers work with the current roster (Rock-Orton, Taker-Sheamus, Lesnar-Big E, HHH-Bryan, Batista-Reigns...)
-Stop filler matches
-Give more PPV quality matches with a stipulation on RAW
-Bring celebrities to PPVs (not only WrestleMania and pair them up with current stars like Hogan-Mr T and Austin-Tyson, and stars who could draw a lot of viewers not unknown jobbers)
-Stop being tyrans and give WWE Creative more freedom in creating storylines, gimmicks... (http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/4/27/2137216/top-ten-horror-stories-from-wwe-creative)
-Have new refreshing storylines not the same cr@p over and over again.


And the last one and most important one:
-Pay money to get money
( Just like Vince can pay Floyd Mayweather 20 millions for only appearing at WrestleMania and on a bunch of RAWs, if he was able to sign that TV licensing deal with NBC (around 500 million dollars a year) he should bring back many stars, fuckk he should go all in and sign The Rock and Brock Lesnar to full-time WWE contracts, Rock gets 40 millions in Hwood, pay him a bit more and bring him back, sign the Fcking beast to a full time contract, if he gets 5 millions a year per 24 appearances, then a 50-60 appearance and more PPV matches would be around 10-15 millions a year)


OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH YEAAAAAAAAAAAH DIGGGGG IIIITTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!

I really hope WWE sign with NBC Universal.
Imagine WWE getting 500-800 millions a year instead of their annual 140 million dollar.
NBC Universal signed with Nascar to a 10 year 4.5 billion dollars contract.
This contract will really play a MAJOR role in WWE's future.


CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE ROCK AND BROCK LESNAR FULL-TIME AGAIN, THIS WILL BE AWESOME!!!

NO. The reason it all sucks is because you have fans that think they know how to run the company. And just like anything else today, if its not done how you like it....then its wrong.
But its wrestling, its not a real sport, but I love it.
It all comes in cycles and everything they have done to this point is evolve. Making RAW longer was a good idea. But they just dont use it the right way.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

Monday Night Raw is the single best rated non-sports program on Monday nights every single week. That should tell you pretty much everyone you need to know. Raw isn't going back to 5.0 because NOTHING is going back to 5.0. This isn't the late 90s anymore. Back then Friends could pull in 20-30 million people every week. Not even the best of the best of the best can do that now.

 

[Irig]

Its actually pretty easy they should have interesting storylines for everyone in everyshow. I doubt it though.

 

[shafe_41]

I previously posted about how nothing could ever get WWE over the 5.0. I did think of something...

AJ and Summer Rae doing a live Brazzers shoot with each other on Raw and advertise it weeks in advance. Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.

 

[BestWrestlingOpinions]

I previously posted about how nothing could ever get WWE over the 5.0. I did think of something...

AJ and Summer Rae doing a live Brazzers shoot with each other on Raw and advertise it weeks in advance. Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.

One thing I would love to see.... I'd love to see just a 20 minute shoot segment of both of them making out....


------------------------------
In all seriousness, I guess, as I said, there is no way, because people just don't watch it on TV anymore.
The main point I made this thread is for people to finally realize that ratings don't mean anything, no matter who shows up.

 

[Best in the World 79]

If you're a wrestling fan, then you're going to watch regardless. A lot of people stopped watching after the attitude era simply because they graduated high scool, college, aka they grew themselves out. Others stopped when stone cold walked out. Others when wcw died. Etc. Not everyone loves wwe. So not near as many people will watch. John Cena is not as big as hogan or Austin. Nor is punk. Nor Orton. Nor Bryan. Not even hhh. No one full time today is anything like what we saw in the last 10-20 years in terms of size of wrestling stars. The internet ruined wrestling for a lot or people. I have literally heard someone say they immediately stopped after they found out Issac yankem was kane. Kane taking his mask off lost at least one viewer. That's just an example. I hate that guys that I feel would entertain the best are relegated to shitty roles. Bit that's the way it is. I deal with it because I love wrestling. If the product isn't sizzling, then they'll never be back to those levels of ratings. Times just change.