So I.... What can... Ugh I Don't Effin Know...TNA needs your money.

[shafe_41]

Kinda long but it'll hold your attention... I promise.

TNA TNA oh dear TNA. What are we going to do with you? What is it going to take to make people notice you? Your TV ratings aren't... well... aren't bad. But these numbers do not translate into PPV buys. Which is obviously where you can make some effing money for yourself. Ok... enough of talking like that.

Seriously... now there's only about 3x as many people that watch Raw each week as opposed to Impact. Now sure that 3x equals around 4.5-5 million people for Raw and only around 1.5-1.8 million for Impact. I believe those rough estimates are pretty close for the purpose of this discussion.

Slammiversary drew 7,000 buys. 7,000. That's like the population of the town I used to live in that doesn't even have a mall. So every person in my town buys Slammiversary, but nobody else in the world does. I can't fathom that. We think the WWE has a flop PPV when they only hit like 175,000 buys or so. But this 7,000 has to be just superepicflopfailbad. Why is it that TNA can't get any of their "loyal" fans to purchase the PPVs? You know there's more than 7,000 loyal TNA fans out there. I know this because most WCW fans were WCW fans... simply because they hated the WWE and Vince McMahon. Now whether they had a reason, or it was just blind hatred... who knows? But who cares. This was one of their biggest PPVs of the year. So what the crap can TNA do to garner some freakin' interest in their PPVs?

My theory on Slammiversary this year is as follows and is a pretty good reason why nobody bought the PPV in my honest opinion: The card sucked a big one. Just predictable rubbish. A cartoon character was still the X Division Champion... but it was a King of the Mountain match. Now I realize it's not the most exciting of matches, but it's a TNA original and you have to give them credit for coming up with that match... or Jarrett, or whoever. Making this an Ultimate-X match would have definately got them more buys. Christopher Daniels/Shane Douglas... ugh. Shane Douglas. It's not ECW in 96 anymore. What made it worse was it was for CD's spot on the roster? What knowledgable fan is goinngo to believe Shane Douglas would replace Christoper Daniels on any roster other than pie eating contest. Angelina Love/Victoria..Tara..whatever. TNA Knockout matches are way better than Diva matches but nobody buys the PPVs for them anyway so whatever women's match is on the card is usually always irrelavent. Mixed Tag Monster's Ball match. Big deal. Abyss has taken the Kane route and gone soft and we know we weren't going to see Edge/Foley at Mania22. Plus it involved Raven. I'm surprised he isn't pushing his walker to the ring by now. The rest of the card is decent and worth seeing... but we've seen it all before. Sting/Matt Morgan...BFD. Beer Money/Team 3D. Love Beer Money, but they need more credible competition. They can't take on Team 3D all the effing time. KOTM match... it's the same thing as the first match of the night. It also doesn't help the top heel stable of the MEM should all be receiving their AARP cards in the mail very soon (except Joe).

I think they already have a one-up on the WWE in a sense seeing as a TNA PPV is only 30 bucks and the cheapest WWE one is 40 bucks. Could TNA double, triple, or have some sort of exponential growth of buyrates if they drop a PPV to 20 bucks? Dare I say 15 bucks? How about $10? I don't order many PPVs now because I'm between jobs, but I would surely scrape 10-15 bucks a month together to enjoy a show full of matches once a month and relax on a Sunday night where there is no football. Or even when football starts... I'd pick a 10-15 PPV from TNA over a shitty Sunday Night game. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

Also, in 2007-2008 I ordered more TNA PPVs than WWE PPVs. I was not disappointed by them either. There was a pretty good stretch that if you watched both PPVs on a monthly basis for about 3-4 months or so, you will be more entertained by the TNA ones. This was especially true in 07 and 08. WWE has really upped the quality of their PPVs as of late (except Mania 25...epic fail). I'm pretty sure BFG this year will top Mania but sadly... it won't be that tough. But in this time period, and this is coming from a lifelong WWE fan but enjoys all wrestling... the quality of the TNA PPV WAS better. The action was better. The flow of matches was better. Hell, even an average match between say... Samoa Joe and Rhino was better than some headline matches on these WWE PPVs.

I understand that TNA needs younger talent and needs to push their younger talent. They also need a couple big young names to join their company. Lashley is a start and in the coming months... we may see Ken Anderson...Anderson which will also boost them. Because you know damn well that with his awful track record of injuries in WWE, he probably won't get hurt once in TNA. And leave it up to him to come up with some gimmick that might capture people enough to watch, and buy, and watch and buy some more. But what can poor TNA do to get some cash flowing other than the obvious answer of "get more talent?"

 

[klunderbunker]

According to the main page, there's a chance that Slammiversary, the flagship show of TNA or at least one of them drew only 7000 buys. If this is the case, then something is very, very wrong in TNA. 7000 buys is simply not acceptable, period. I don't know if it's the booking, the wrestlers, the advertising, or the economy or what, but this number has to go up and it has to go up fast. If this number is true, what does it mean for the company?

 

[Panic Switch]

I personally just can not bring myself to believe that it got around 7000 buys. To me it just seems like a rumour spread through the grape-vine by a WWE enthusiast, who wishes to make it appear as though one of TNA's flagship PPV's bombed.

I won't believe the 7000 buys rumour until a credible source is revealed. It is just utter hogwash, that TNA would have so many viewers yet only a minority of their viewers want to see the PPV? Seems fabricated, no doubt.

 

[Paradox100]

Yea, I'm not the biggest TNA enthusiast, but this is making me feel bad for the company. 7000 thousand is not a lot of buys at all. Let me do the math really quick, 7000 X 30 = 210,000 dollars. Hey, that's a lot of money for us normal folk. But then you have to throw in all the expenses, which are a hell of a lot.

Judgement Day sold 235,000 PPVS. So 235,000 X 40 = 9,400,000 dollars. If this PPV sold every PPV for one dollar, they made more money. See, this isn't good for TNA.

The bad thing about TNA is that it's run to much like WCW's last years. You got the guys well into their forties, who dominate the card. Carry all the gold. You got Vince Russo who is just a massive ClusterF*ck if i ever saw one. They stopped pushing most of the young talent, and things were much better there in 2006. TNA has many people from WCW, you'd think they would look and go "Uhh... Ain't dis what ruined us da first time??"

I believe if TNA wants to get ahead and make more money, they need to push the younger guys. I mean, AJ Styles is the first TNA grandslam champion, yet they make out to be a "rookie" a rookie who doesn't know wrestling. They need to end the Main Event Mafia soon. Before we know it, 20 people will be in it. (I smell New World Order)

The only upside I see in the near future is that they have many ECW people, which will make guys like me tune in. It will have ECW fans go "they got Tazz, Dudleys, Raven, Stevie, and Douglas?" That's a reunion! (Is douglas still with them?)

But personally, I believe they need to make a COMPLETE 180, if not, they will be gone by 2015.

 

[y2empleh]

The problem with Slammiversary's buyrate can be put on one person: Mick Foley. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Foley's work but he's not a heavyweight champion caliber person. Fans are not willing to pay to see Foley as champ. I agree with what they did at Lockdown but I feel the title should have changed at sacrifice, they waited far too long to change the title. The majority of the time, you either need a believable heavyweight title match or if you can't give that, at least give a very high profile undertier match (i.e. Taker/HBK or HBK/Flair from past WM's). The problem with the King of the Mountain concept is that with it being 5 or 6 of your top guys, that doesn't leave room for any other high profile match and thus puts all of the buyrate power on the "selling power" of your champion which Foley has never been able to garnish.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Good. I hope Bound For Glory gets no buys and is in an empty arena. I hope iMPACT! tapings are populated entirely by people who needed a place to sit and read a newspaper. I hope Abyss slamming Sting into a stack of slaming barbed wire draws only polite appluase from the gentleman in the third row.

Why? Because TNA is shit. 7,000 buys is more than they deserve for their shitty pay-per-view. I don't hope it recovers, or even changes and becomes a better product. God knows they couldn't maintain it.

I hope we get to the point where Don West eats his own penis on a special live edition of iMPACT!. I hope we get to the point where Kurt Angle beats Jeff Jarrett to death with a basebell bat because, as he'll explain, "nobody's watching". I hope they wither and die a long, painful death.

 

[Thugz417]

Honestly I want to see the total # for TNA. If it is as low as they claim at 7,000 honestly TNA should fire every single creative member, fire the ENTIRE MEM, Hell just waive every superstars contract..and turn it into another Hannity/Combs (spell check). Because lets face it...that would be such a pathetic # it would just show how horrid the product is....

Now back to reality I think that # is probably closer to 70,000 with a 0 just being omitted. TNA isn't SO horrible that it's only going to get 7k PPV buys. They have more than 7,000 loyal fans.
With the recent additions of Tazz, Raven, Stevie and Shane Douglas things could really start to heat up in TNA. I'd personally love to see the ole ECW boys reunite to take out the British boys and snag those IWGP tag titles

 

[Reddannihilation]

Seeing as 7,000 is a rumour I'm going to wait for credible information. It wouldn't make any sense for the buyrate to be that low when you compare to their TV ratings. Especially when Slammiversary was their best PPV this year, I'd hazard a guess that the number is a misquote.

 

[litpdwi16]

Here's the thing though. When TNA was doing well, they were only generating 60,000 buys for one of their best outings (Angle/Joe part 1) other than that, they were getting about 20,000 buys on a normal basis. I would not put it past the number of 7,000 to be a telling statement about TNA's future.

 

[I_Like_All_Wrestling]

Yes that's a very very low number and they need to pick it up. The biggest problem I still think is that a ton of WWE fans don't know about TNA. People watched WWF and WCW because they were fans of wrestling. If you convince current fans that there is more wrestling with great guys, great stories, and great action people will tune in...but that costs money, and I think TNA is reluctant to spend. TNA needs to get the word out to NEW fans, but when they do, they need to deliver a fresh product.


Below are some ideas that I think could help improve TNAs ratings and PPV buys.

Let's say there were four TNA advertisements during RAW and four during Smackdown (two the first hour and two the second hour), one during ECW, and one during Superstars. Let's say they did this for a month. Now lets say that those ads promoted a code for a TNA PPV for $10 and specifically showed "Hey we got Kurt Angle, Booker T, Sting, Lashley, Foley and other guys, plus these great new guys" showing MCMG, Styles, Daniels and other doing ridiculous moves. I wonder if rating and buys would go up then -- they'd of course have to deliver.

Or let's say they had a few commercials during RAW/Smackdown/ECW promoting TNA and then it cuts to a silhouette of Kennedy with his hand in the air and teases something like "the in ring return of Mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....Thursday Night this Thursday on Spike TV, 9pm." I wonder if that would stir some interest (and if that particular Kennedy move would be legal). Don't tell me that at least wouldn't be interesting to see.

This isn't as important, but I think when TNA tries do shows a "big" arenas, they should do so at college arenas. I think it would be easy to promote on campus and college kids are a good audience. I also think if it's at a big sports school you could even get NCAA Football/Basketball stars sitting ringside. Sure is not "big time" but I think it would have a much much better look and atmosphere. You could also do some contest like "whatever student group makes the most noise throughout the show gets $1,000" or something like that. Free TNA t-shirts to the first 250 in attendance...college students love free shirts, even if they just use them as rags.

I think those ideas would definitely increase ratings and PPV buys. Would it increase them enough to cover the costs? I don't know, and that's probably why it's not happening.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

Instead of focusing on the negative, Slammiversary only drew 7,000 buys. Focus on the positive, TNA have at least 7,000 fans who'll pay to watch that shit. Add to that at least 500 who watched it on Bravo and TNA is averaging a very healthy 1,000 new fans per year. This is an achievement in itself.

Or use the old phrase, ''it could be worse'', 6,000 buys for example.

Factor in the people in attendance. At least 1,000 of those suckers. At least 500 of them are ROH fans looking to see what happened to Joe.

The fact that TNA are getting people to buy their shows during this economical crisis is a reflection on how much they've grown in little over 7 years. Where were WWE after 7 years?

 

[blair4107]

Let's say there were four TNA advertisements during RAW and four during Smackdown (two the first hour and two the second hour), one during ECW, and one during Superstars. Let's say they did this for a month. Now lets say that those ads promoted a code for a TNA PPV for $10 and specifically showed "Hey we got Kurt Angle, Booker T, Sting, Lashley, Foley and other guys, plus these great new guys" showing MCMG, Styles, Daniels and other doing ridiculous moves. I wonder if rating and buys would go up then -- they'd of course have to deliver.

Or let's say they had a few commercials during RAW/Smackdown/ECW promoting TNA and then it cuts to a silhouette of Kennedy with his hand in the air and teases something like "the in ring return of Mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....Thursday Night this Thursday on Spike TV, 9pm." I wonder if that would stir some interest (and if that particular Kennedy move would be legal). Don't tell me that at least wouldn't be interesting to see.

Those are some of the best ideas I've read in a while to help TNA increase ratings and their fan base.

As for TNA needing your money I'd point out that they still have Panda Energy's multimillion-dollar backing. As long as Dixie Carter is willing to stick around and not sell her shares of the company to Vince McMahon (which she actually could at this point if she chose to, TNA Entertainment being an LLC).

I'd suggest bringing someone like Paul Heyman in to be head of creative with Russo as his 2nd in command. Russo is good but as time has shown he shines more when he has someone monitoring him. It's not that he doesn't come up with great ideas, its that he also comes up with a lot of shit ideas and he obviously can't tell the difference. During the time period in which Paul Heyman was running OVW the show was actually entertaining, which is amazing as the show was normally boring and actually made a lot of good wrestlers look stupid like Shelton Benjamin and Santino Marella; during Paul's time we got Mr. Kennedy although it was only for a short time once WWE saw his potential. I just hope they don't put Jim Cornette in charge of creative - he was head at OVW for years and it was always terrible - Batista was "Leviathon" and climbed out of the Ohio River, Doug Basham was "the Machine" and wore a leather-gimp mask, etc and don't forget the great tagteams of "Trash n' Flash" or "Shelton Benjamin and Redd Dogg (Rodney Mack)."

I would also make the rule that if you are a wrestler then you don't work on creative or booking directly. If Jeff Jarrett wants to stick around and not retire then power to him but he shouldn't have direct control or influence over the entire product as a whole and nor should any other active wrestler. You need a quality, impartial person to do this job because their judgment would be better.

I also agree they should stop focusing so much on the former WWE/WCW/ECW guys. The TNA originals have dwindled and most have been replaced by guys that ARE already established but ARE ALSO getting old.

They should plan their storylines out better up front. They should have a story split into weekly segments that make sense. Mick Foley running around episode to episode going from face to heel and back week to week and sometimes even segment to segment doesn't go over well because it doesn't make any sense. At times it really seems like between tapings they change their minds on everything and it doesn't feel like any storyline ever has closure.
Decide...
1. Is this story good for 1 month? 2?
2. Make sure every week builds well and works in a sensible manner
3. Set it in stone, try not to change concepts in the middle of a really wrong storyline

They should also embrace their fanbase. They have chosen to stick with the more "extreme" or "attitude" style that was obviously beneficial in the past, which is fine but they need use that more to their advantage. WWE has gone with a PG show, which is strange after their best years were when they embraced just the opposite so TNA should show in their commercials stuff to try to grab some of the viewers that would prefer it. Will they give up WWE? Doubtful but that's not the point, the point is to get them to watch TNA as well.

 

[Blade]

Well TNA should see this as a wake up call. They've been just screwing around wandering in wrestling land with new particular direction, buying old WWE talent without any real idea of what to do with them.
I mean, really. The biggest angle they have right now is the MEM/Samoa Joe/ Sting thing going on. And it doesn't even make sense. Triple H vs Orton may have produced some average matches, but it's been a good angle and it's made sense.

So what's the cause of the awful PPV buy number? Could TNA's overuse of gimmick matches be coming back to bite them in the ass? Is it a problem with the consumers? The ecomony or something? Or maybe people are just losing patience with TNA.
There's wrestling fans out there that are hoping that TNA will put out that one defining moment or event or angle. They need something like NWO or Hulk Hogan or Wrestlemania. Every successful wrestling promotion has had a key to its success but TNA are simply keyless right now.
They hoped AJ Styles would help them. They got Samoa Joe to help them. Then they started going to WWE, getting Christian. Then they got an actual draw, Kurt Angle. But still they can't seem to get their shit together. I mean if Slammiversary got 7,000 buys, and it was a decent PPV, can you imagine what something as awful as Victory Road will get?
TNA need to stop thinking that they're in fact not doing everything right. Or if they already know that, they need to do something about it. They need something to truly put them on a map. Their ratings going up .1 every few years isn't going to be enough. They need a genuine draw. They need their own Steve Austin or NWO. They need something that we as wrestling fans will care about. Because if PPV sales remain this badly and it starts to cross over into live attendance and merch sales, they're going to go down hard and fast and it really will be WCW all over again.

 

[yoshi_doce2006]

TNA has great wrestling. Sometimes the storylines however are suspect meaning Jeff Jarrett isn't doing his job as a writer. Fact is that if the storylines were better TNA would have more fans.

Being a huge TNA fan I unfortunately can't afford to buy pay-per views but Slamaversary had a match I would never want to see and would never believe in Daniels/Douglas. It's storylines like that that TNA needs to avoid and whoever comes up with those storylines needs fired.

7,000 views out of like 1.4 million, don't believe that unless you give me a credible source. Anyone who bashes TNA for it's storylines had better give them credit for having the best in ring action in wrestling. They have several good matches every Thursday night and deserve respect for that.

TNA will be fine, I doubt it got only 7,000 views and have no use for closed minded wwe enthusiests that call the alternative crap just because it isn't the norm.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

Well TNA should see this as a wake up call. They've been just screwing around wandering in wrestling land with new particular direction, buying old WWE talent without any real idea of what to do with them.
I mean, really. The biggest angle they have right now is the MEM/Samoa Joe/ Sting thing going on. And it doesn't even make sense. Triple H vs Orton may have produced some average matches, but it's been a good angle and it's made sense.

So what's the cause of the awful PPV buy number? Could TNA's overuse of gimmick matches be coming back to bite them in the ass? Is it a problem with the consumers? The ecomony or something? Or maybe people are just losing patience with TNA.
There's wrestling fans out there that are hoping that TNA will put out that one defining moment or event or angle. They need something like NWO or Hulk Hogan or Wrestlemania. Every successful wrestling promotion has had a key to its success but TNA are simply keyless right now.
They hoped AJ Styles would help them. They got Samoa Joe to help them. Then they started going to WWE, getting Christian. Then they got an actual draw, Kurt Angle. But still they can't seem to get their shit together. I mean if Slammiversary got 7,000 buys, and it was a decent PPV, can you imagine what something as awful as Victory Road will get?
TNA need to stop thinking that they're in fact not doing everything right. Or if they already know that, they need to do something about it. They need something to truly put them on a map. Their ratings going up .1 every few years isn't going to be enough. They need a genuine draw. They need their own Steve Austin or NWO. They need something that we as wrestling fans will care about. Because if PPV sales remain this badly and it starts to cross over into live attendance and merch sales, they're going to go down hard and fast and it really will be WCW all over again.

Exactly. TNA is taking the same road that WCW did. Stop trying to be WCW or ECW and make your own friggin product. Be unique and don't copy two wrestling feds that both folded.

"and have no use for closed minded wwe enthusiests that call the alternative crap just because it isn't the norm. "

It's not the fact that it's not the norm it's the fact that it blows. I think most wrestling fans want nothing more than to see competition. But this fed is crap right now.

Does anyone really care about Taz anymore? He's old and fat and is in no way shape or form able to compete. Plus he sucks as an announcer. A complete waste of money. Stop throwing has beens at us and start pushing your younger guys who can work and start making them a household name. The whole TNA creative team should be fired.

 

[The Hiphopapotamus]

7000 pay per view buys is terrible,but you forget to factor in the other countries outside America.The people watching on Bravo (like me),the people in Europe,the people in Australia who watch it.Apparently,TNA is the biggest wrestling show in Australia.

I amn't however defending that amount.They average over a million viewers,and then they get 7000 views.For one of their main pay-per-views of the year.And it was a pretty entertaining show.I liked it.If it was shitty victory road,then I wouldn't mind.It would be a fair assessment.

I'm not sure if it's to do with advertising or promotion,or the recent economic climate,or booking,but TNA really needs to do something to fix it.I hope they take it as a wake up call.They say to themselves:

Shit,we need to start putting on better matches and push the young guys.What happens if the mafia,minus Joe,retire soon.They can barely wrestle now.If they leave,we have barely anyone.And fuck,we ruined Samoa Joe.

I never truly feared for their future.Untill now.I am starting to worry though.

 

[Wrath]

The problem with TNA's PPV's is it always gives you the feeling they just do these PPVs to fill the card.So even most loyal TNA fans don't want to buy their PPV's.For example in every TNA PPV match there is a match that I can care less than my shit.Who cared all Sewell being a wrestler or Nash's bitch vs Sharmell?Even if these matches had been done in iMPACT it made people to turn their tv off.The other thing is angles' not contunivity.For example Jarett and Foley feuded for several PPV's and then Foley and Jarett's relationship suddenly fixed.If the angle does not have it's effects after the PPV why would I care to watch it.Everyting always change in TNA.You look at the Young,Daniels and Aj 1.5 years ago when they were comedy characters(Aj's character actually was half serious) right now they all turned to serious wrestlers.I don't wanna talk about all of the unnecessary turns.The other problem with TNA PPV's is position problem.I don't even have any idea if Nash,Steiner,Booker are midcarder,main eventer or upper midcarder.If they are main eventers like they told us then they should tell me when was the last time they main evented.If they upper midcarder or midcarder then Aj is in the higher position from them and don't mention the Rhino's and 3D's PPV world title match fiascos.The last thing they suffer is I actually think that TNA's PPV's have some better gimmicks than WWE's ones(Not counting Hell in a Cell,Elimination chamber) but because they always throw gimmick matches free on iMPACT nobody cares their gimmick matches on PPV.I think Jarett vs Angle from Genesis was the most bloody and violent match I've seen for a long time but it failed because we always see this type of stipulation matches on iMPACT.

 

[powerade]

I'm gonna throw something out there....

anyone hear of streaming online video websites.....
on a PPV night for TNA and WWE both there are thousands of people on them watching the PPV's for free

These definitly hurt the PPV buyrates....last month it seemed WWE may have found out about these because they kept taking down the feeds everytime one went up...

 

[HBKscm]

ok so 7,000 is a little off its really 20,000 according to http://www.sescoops.com/tna/Complete_List_Of_TNA_PPV_Buyrates_For_2008.shtml. now that being said that still pretty freakin bad. 20,000*30= 600,000. how are they paying people i just don't understand how this numer is keeping them out of the red. If this source is corrrect and the highest buyrate they had for the year is only 55,000, couple that with the fact that they apparently have internal problems with the founder stealing other peoples wives. things do not look to good for tna.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I don't know if I completely buy into that. However, if Slammiversary only did draw 7,000 buys, then it's time for TNA to wake up. I admit that I watch TNA sometimes, mostly just to see if they have anything going on worth watching.

I hate most of what TNA is doing right now. The X-Division is completely stale, it's nothing more right now than a glorified Cruiserweight division, The British Invasion is a complete snorefest that looks as though it's going to form some sort of anti-American group with Bashir and that Asian guy, whatever his name is. Yeah, that's something that's only been done a few thousand times by nearly every wrestling company in the United States for about 60 years or so.

TNA's ultimate problem is that they don't to jack with most of their young talent. They use them as foils to put over the 40+ crowd and it's time for it to end. The MEM has been stale for a long time and most of the guys in the MEM just can't perform in the ring like they used to. It's not so much that TNA uses its younger talent to put the older guys over, it's mostly that the older guys are so far past their prime that it makes TNA's younger talent look even weaker.

If this number is true, then TNA needs to take a long, hard look at everything it's doing and should consider taking drastic measures.

 

[battle axe9]

Maybe this was the real reason Jarrett was pulled from TV and sent home. He is not doing a good job with the booking and this buy rate shows it. Kurt may have a point about taking over the booking, how much worse can he do?

 

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

I hope we get to the point where Don West eats his own penis on a special live edition of iMPACT!.

LIKE KOBAYASHI! NOM*NOM*NOM*NOM

In all seriousness, as much as I dislike TNA, I will reserve my judgement until the actual figures come out. If it is true, this does not bode well for TNA. Not because of talent, as Im sure they'll put on a show regardless of whether 5 million people are watching, or 5 people walked into the Impact Zone.

What it is a concern for is Dixie Carter. What if she panics and does something smart? Like selling those shares to someone in the wrestling business? A buyout from McMahon? Unlikely. But I'm impatient for an Angle return. That and seeing Don West eat his own genitalia would equal a thousand Ultimate X spot fests.

 

[Reddannihilation]

ok so 7,000 is a little off its really 20,000 according to http://www.sescoops.com/tna/Complete_List_Of_TNA_PPV_Buyrates_For_2008.shtml. now that being said that still pretty freakin bad. 20,000*30= 600,000. how are they paying people i just don't understand how this numer is keeping them out of the red. If this source is corrrect and the highest buyrate they had for the year is only 55,000, couple that with the fact that they apparently have internal problems with the founder stealing other peoples wives. things do not look to good for tna.

That site's actually for last year's PPV. However going by those numbers for TNA to have lost that many buyers within a few months something would have had to go terribly wrong. Which is why until an official source prints info I'm not going to jump to any conclusion, as has already been said 7,000 could be a misquote of 70,000.

Also the reason TNA is able to stay afloat with those numbers is simple, TNA work within their budget. They don't have live shows 5 days a week, they don't spend as much money advertising and they probably cut back on other areas as well. When you look at it from a business perspective, TNA is a division of PANDA energy which makes all TNA employee's PANDA employees as such as long as TNA are turning a profit that the owners of PANDA are happy with then the employees will be paid.

And you can't just look at buyrates and assume that's all the money they get, they also get funding from advertising. In fact the majority of money they make comes from advertising, which is why there's a Stacker 2 logo in the TNA ring.

So basically TNA is fine, even if it turns out that the PPV only had 7,000 buyers that isn't going to destroy the company, if they're still pulling a consistent TV rating they're still going to get plenty of money from advertisers.

 

[ztwhite]

From the WZ News Site :

Slammiversary Draws Terribly, Sting Forgets Match Finish?
by Nick Paglino
Jul 22, 2009

PWTorch.com is reporting that last month's TNA Slammiversary PPV drew a mere 7,000 PPV buys. While that number has not been made official as of this writing, it has to be considered an alarmingly low number of buys for one of TNA's most important PPV's of the year.

The Wrestling Observer is reporting that Sting may have forgotten the finish to his match against Samoa Joe at last week's Victory Road PPV. According to the report, the finish was supposed to see Sting pinned by Samoa Joe as opposed to a submission finish. However, it took two attempts from Samoa Joe to get Sting up for the Muscle Buster, and when Sting was not helping which resulted in him being dead weight more or less, Samoa Joe changed the finish of the match in the ring and decided to go with the submission.

Doesn't that last part kind of say it all ??

How does a guy like Sting, a supposed icon, forget the finish to a PPV match ??

As for the buy rate, there really could be a simple answer. TNA has been taping a month worth of Impact's for the past couple of months.

Now I know that every television wrestling fan isn't a member of the WZ forums, but it is possible that they're members of another wrestling website that posts spoilers. Or... they could also simply log on as a guest and look at Impact spoilers. If they did this immediately after the Impact tapings, that means they wouldn't have to log back on for another three (maybe four - kind of bad at math) weeks in order to keep up with TNA. On top of all of that, you don't even have to a member of anything to read tapings results !!!

The old simple phrase goes something like this - "out of sight, out of mind"

In addition, did anyone see an independent commercial promoting Slammiversary ?? I have seen a hundred commercials promoting Night of Champions and none of them have been during WWE programming.

 

[Lithium66]

Well im not being funny i live in da uk so i get the ppv for free after 3 days but i dont watch it.
what i do is watch it for free on justintv and there about 8,000 in one webcast viewing it.so they lose alot of paying viewers that can watch it for free.my advice is charge less for the ppv and ban all the streams for it on sites.i know im shooting myself in the foot cos im one of these ppl that do it buts its the only way tna can make money and get more buys