Report on Third Quarter PPV Buys

[Jack-Hammer]

WWE announced its fourth quarterly report for 2013 this morning and the ppv buys for its last three ppvs of the year. All in all, the results were somewhat mixed, though far better than I think a lot of people were expecting.

According to WWE, the buyrate for the Hell in a Cell ppv, which featured Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton inside the Cell with HBK as a special referee, drew a healthy 228,000 buys. That's up from 199,000 buys for 2012 and the only HIAC ppv to draw more was the inaugural one back in 2009, which drew 283,000 buys.

The 2013 edition of Survivor Series was the clear loser here. Headlined by Randy Orton vs. Big Show for the WWE Championship, the event drew only 177,000 buys, down from the 208,000 buys in 2012 and way down from the 281,000 buys it drew in 2011.

The 2013 edition of TLC drew slightly better buys this year than last year. This year was headlined by John Cena vs. Randy Orton in a unification TLC match and drew 181,000 buys. That's up from 175,000 buys in 2012, which was headlined by John Cena vs. Dolph Ziggler in a ladder match for the WHC MITB briefcase and featured a phenomenal six man TLC match with Team Hell No & Ryback vs. The Shield.

I was surprised that Hell in a Cell drew such a strong buyrate. I figured it'd do around 185,000 to 190,000 buys, so I'm sure WWE officials are happy with it. I honestly fail to see how Survivor Series can be considered part of the Big Four. I know it's one of the original ppvs, but it no longer remotely feels like a major ppv and that's all on management & creative.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

Headlined by Randy Orton vs. Big Show for the WWE Championship

The major reason why I had little to no interest in Survivor Series last year. For some strange reason, WWE feels the need to give Big Show an out of left field strong push every year. The match and feud with Johnny Ace and Cena, his feud with Undertaker, where Show played the role of a guardian for Vickie, and Sheamus. Although, I'll admit, Sheamus and Big Show had a surprisingly good match at the Hell In A Cell pay per view.

Still, no one had any reason at all to believe in Show having a legit chance to beat Orton, and to make matters worse, you had another predictable world title match (Del Rio VS Cena) with a predictable outcome. Del Rio's rematch should've happened on Raw, because Del Rio losing was a foregone conclusion. You bring more of a buzz to Survivor Series with Orton VS Cena in the title unification match, and you can have the TLC rematch at TLC.

Rock and Cena tagging together was the last time the Survivor Series pay per view had a real buzz surrounding it. Using hindsight, Punk VS Del Rio is a historic match, but we don't have crystal balls.

 

[Hard Hit Prince]

There's always hope for Survivor Series. It was built as something like a "tradition" and it can be again. They should have never turned Survivor Series into yet "another regular PPV format", because the elimination tag team matches draw when they also have their biggest stars and this year, I wasn't at all expecting a big number.

Hell In A Cell should also be credited to John Cena's return against World Heavyweight Champion Alberto Del Rio, but it's a good sign that both Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton started to get some momentum going for them to be presented yet again as top stars. Some months after and both of these guys usually gain new viewers in their segments, even if the full hour loses viewers so those PPV's as expected had a business purpose that worked very well.

TLC was very entertaining and the match to unify the titles would be a draw regardless, but I think that having Orton vs. Cena was a very important decision to it's success because both man are pretty much the most recognized champions in the roster. All in all, WWE didn't quite grew but neither did they lose significant money - the WWE Network will have some upside on this numbers, but it will probably get some downside as the company is probably going to be more lazy for this filler PPV's that are already "sold" months in advance.

However Cena said it best - WWE is getting an All Star team, and one must hope that CM Punk can return for WrestleMania at least. It's a very interesting time to be a fan, because once again we have more than 4 capable guys to sell and deliver a PPV: John Cena, Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan, Batista and to an extent Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker, Triple H, CM Punk and Sheamus.

 

[Thriller Ant]

I'm really happy to see Hell in a Cell did well. Unless they give the credit to HBK, there's finally some proof that Daniel Bryan can draw and hopefully this means he can be pushed strongly again going forward.

 

[ProWrestlingFan]

According to WWE, the buyrate for the Hell in a Cell ppv, which featured Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton inside the Cell with HBK as a special referee, drew a healthy 228,000 buys. That's up from 199,000 buys for 2012 and the only HIAC ppv to draw more was the inaugural one back in 2009, which drew 283,000 buys.

Hell in a Cell probably did well because of Shawn Michaels.

The main-event was intriguing because there was a lot of speculation whether Michaels will turn heel or not.

 

[bioshock]

Looks like Bryan drew better after all.

Survivor Series is always going to be one of the worst buyrate events, until they finally figure out people actually WANT teams of 4 or 5 going against each other. Hence why the first 4 Survivor Series events are so well liked with fans.

Team Orton vs Team Big Show bad as that sounds would sell far better any day then Orton vs Big Show 1v1 for the title. At least in team matches you have that chance to see an unknown rise and do something great, kind of like what Sheamus did in his first Survivor Series match. Or the show Diesel put on in the 1993 & 1994 Survivor Series, or maybe the show Ahmed Johnson put on in the 1995 Survivor Series body slamming Yokozuna, or Ultimate Warrior back in the 1988 Survivor Series. And then the drama between Bret, Shawn, and Owen in the 1993 Survivor Series. You just don't get that with Big Show vs Randy Orton single matches, no matter how you spin it.

 

[Sweettre15]

It's become clear to me that HIAC did great for these reasons:

1) Shawn as a referee in this situation didnt seem to scream Screwjob to the viewers

2) Bryan was given a lot of momentum in the week of the PPV and people expected him to FINALLY win.

3) Cena being back likely gave a little bit of excitement BUT he wasnt gone for that long and people can only get so excited for a match involving Alberto Del Rio.

So it was more than likely a combination of those things but I feel that it was primarily because people thought Bryan was going to win after all those months of getting jerked around and being called a "B+ player" Plus let's be honest if HIAC's buys would have went down then people would have quickly blamed Bryan regardless of HBK as ref and Cena returning so it's only fair to give him some credit for this.

 

[The Perfect Max]

A few are suggesting that Shawn Michaels' appearance at Hell in a Cell boosted the buy rates, but I'm not sure that's entirely the case. I never really saw him as a drawing guy. Sure, he's a phenomenal athlete with tons of talent, but I always felt he was the least drawing out him and the guy(s) he was facing. Maybe just me. Especially in a referee environment, surely it wouldn't jump the buy rate by 40,000. Then again, his appearances are no longer regular. Plus also, Daniel Bryan had huge momentum going into the event, and with John Cena's return, perhaps these factors pushed it up.

As for Survivor Series, well, why bother? It was a "big four" pay-per-view event, but for too long it's been mistreated and a poor blunder one after the other. 177,000 buys isn't good enough, but when the main event is Randy Orton (c) vs The Big Show for the WWE Championship, what do you expect? 208,000 in 2012 was bad enough.

TLC in 2012 deserved the higher buys because it was a great show with some brilliant matches on the card. This year, it was a one-match show: John Cena (c; World Heavyweight Champion) vs Randy Orton (c; WWE Champion) in a TLC Match to unify both championships. No one cared. A match like this should have more than 181,000 buys for sure. Why didn't it? It was built in three weeks, so we didn't have time to get excited, or even interested. Both guys hadn't been champions longer than two months, so it wasn't as if they were on six or seven month runs where finally one would have to lose. And also, the vast majority of the show offered zero interest.

WWE probably love the Hell in a Cell buy rate, bug wonder shy it lowers afterwards. The pay-per-view buys I want to see are that of the 2014 Royal Rumble. Boy that'll show something.

 

[The Life Of Pablo Ren]

I truly believe that Shawn Michaels and John Cena had little to nothing to do with the Hell in a Cell buyrates being so high... maybe it helped it a little but 40,000 extra buys? I'm not buying it (no pun intended). I see it more of, we all knew that finally we were going to get a WWE Champion, they weren't going to do another dusty finish, no DQ. The match itself surprisingly was built up pretty well, Bryan and Orton have amazing, AMAZING chemistry together... people actually enjoyed it.

Survivor Series isn't surprising at all, that was all just so underwhelming. I'm sure WWE doesn't see Survivor Series on the same level as the Royal Rumble or SummerSlam anymore, but if they ever decide to run a big angle in the Fall, they'd do it at Survivor Series as opposed to any other FPV... so it's still sorta special.

TLC was a bit surprising, I still say the unification match should've happened at The Royal Rumble, although that would've taken some of the intrigue away from the Royal Rumble match itself, (they had no problem doing it last year though)... it still would've felt much bigger, the match although billed as huge, and was... felt lackluster due to the fact it was thrown together in a few weeks... and the only solid buildup we got was the segment with all the former World Champions in the ring.

It should also be noted that Battleground drew 114,000 which I believe is the second lowest buyrate in history. I could be wrong about that, but either way, not that surprised. The card was pretty lackluster and on top of that, it was largely speculated that a champion wouldn't be crowned that night and the title would remain vacant which I'm sure drove a lot of people away.