The Business of the PG Era

[Jsaturn14]

Alright, I looked through the threads, and I didn't see anything like this on here, so I hope it is good for me to post this

Okay, so I dislike the PG Era a lot. I pretty much despise it, and I miss feuds that actually felt intense and real and storylines that captivated me and matches that left me breathless, and all that, BUT that is not what this thread is about. This thread is about the PG era from a business point of view. I have done a lot of digging on this, and if you would like to join me you can go here: http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2000/2000_11_21.jsp to get quarterly reports from the WWE on how their merchandise sales, ppv sales and such are doing. I am not just making these numbers up!

Alright, so from a business point of view, the PG era is just dumb business. For my comparative purposes I will be using the first quarter of 2000, which IMO was the start of the height of the Attitude Era and the end of the second quarter this year. The first quarter of 2000 ended July 28, and the second quarter of this year ended on June 30, which is pretty dang close if you ask me, and so it was pretty much 10 years apart. Everyone following me so far? Okay, so lets start. So the numbers for the first quarter of 2000 looked like this: Net Income, which is what the WWE makes after all of their production costs and such was at 15.2 million, merchandise sales were 26.7 million. okay, they do some funny math which I am not all the way familiar with, but according to the report their stock was at 18 cents per share. Finally, and most importantly, their ratings were, in a word, amazing. The average rating for a RAW was a 6.4, and the average rating for a Smackdown was a 4.6. Those are astronomical numbers.

How do those numbers compare to today though? Well for the second quarter of this year WWE's net income was 6.3 million, their merchandise sales were 23.3 million, their stock price was 8 cents per share, and....and I have to estimate here as the WWE hasn't released these numbers, but I think a fair estimate is that RAW averages a 3.4 rating, and Smackdown a 2.2. IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY, the Attitude Era was better, my guess is because WWE was targeting the key television demographic during that time, the demographic known as the MONEY demo, 18-34 year olds. So, how is the PG era better from a business perspective? Is it because of sponsorships? As I recall, WWE was getting sponsored by snickers and burger king, and a couple other big companies during its attitude era time, so I find it hard to believe that is the reason. I mean, who want's to sponsor a show that less than 4 million people see every week? There is no money in that! So, my question to all of you is, from a business perspective, why do you think the WWE continues to stick with the PG Era when it can be proven that they made a hell of a lot more money during the Attitude Era!? I am stumped on this one.

 

[Honkey_Kong]

Alright, I looked through the threads, and I didn't see anything like this on here, so I hope it is good for me to post this

Okay, so I dislike the PG Era a lot. I pretty much despise it, and I miss feuds that actually felt intense and real and storylines that captivated me and matches that left me breathless, and all that, BUT that is not what this thread is about. This thread is about the PG era from a business point of view. I have done a lot of digging on this, and if you would like to join me you can go here: http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2000/2000_11_21.jsp to get quarterly reports from the WWE on how their merchandise sales, ppv sales and such are doing. I am not just making these numbers up!

Alright, so from a business point of view, the PG era is just dumb business. For my comparative purposes I will be using the first quarter of 2000, which IMO was the start of the height of the Attitude Era and the end of the second quarter this year. The first quarter of 2000 ended July 28, and the second quarter of this year ended on June 30, which is pretty dang close if you ask me, and so it was pretty much 10 years apart. Everyone following me so far? Okay, so lets start. So the numbers for the first quarter of 2000 looked like this: Net Income, which is what the WWE makes after all of their production costs and such was at 15.2 million, merchandise sales were 26.7 million. okay, they do some funny math which I am not all the way familiar with, but according to the report their stock was at 18 cents per share. Finally, and most importantly, their ratings were, in a word, amazing. The average rating for a RAW was a 6.4, and the average rating for a Smackdown was a 4.6. Those are astronomical numbers.

How do those numbers compare to today though? Well for the second quarter of this year WWE's net income was 6.3 million, their merchandise sales were 23.3 million, their stock price was 8 cents per share, and....and I have to estimate here as the WWE hasn't released these numbers, but I think a fair estimate is that RAW averages a 3.4 rating, and Smackdown a 2.2. IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY, the Attitude Era was better, my guess is because WWE was targeting the key television demographic during that time, the demographic known as the MONEY demo, 18-34 year olds. So, how is the PG era better from a business perspective? Is it because of sponsorships? As I recall, WWE was getting sponsored by snickers and burger king, and a couple other big companies during its attitude era time, so I find it hard to believe that is the reason. I mean, who want's to sponsor a show that less than 4 million people see every week? There is no money in that! So, my question to all of you is, from a business perspective, why do you think the WWE continues to stick with the PG Era when it can be proven that they made a hell of a lot more money during the Attitude Era!? I am stumped on this one.

Well, Linda is bidding for congress. On top of that, if you recall Vince didn't just jump in to the attitude era. It was to counter WCW. I think he really doesn't like the attitude era product (as somebody else on here pointed out). I can't understand why somebody would intentionally want to make less money, but who knows?

 

[GameOver]

U obviously don't see the main point that they have huge $'s coming in from sponsors, shareholders that would not back them if they were "Attitude"

I dislike the full kiddie type feel of some of the programming, however the current PG era is not like the 80s PG era, there is still some attitude just nothing that would push the limits and offend the masses. As pointed out Vince although did bring in more attitude to change with the times the most attitude came about from WCW getting on top and WWE having to counter.
as soon as that ended WWE went back to less attitude within a few yrs

Prior to the Attitude era they had huge success as family based entertainment, which is what they are again striving for obviously.

Us oldies are only a fraction of the demigraphic they can attract, ergo it's good business to targets kids who have parent's, grand parents that will come along. There is a wider variety of fans that would watch and attend shows then just the 18-36 yr old males

Also might point out WWE is not strictly about violent wrestling it is about making stories.

Don't like it but it's not going to change soon.

 

[ilapierre]

WWE sticks with the PG era because

1) Linda McMahon is in a race for Senate. WWE needs to appeal to voters and to campaign sponsors. WWE must be as 'classy as possible' to gain some political power in the state and possibly overturn troublesome regulations that prevent the McMahons from making even more money. WWE can possibly even get away with more on TV if regulations are changed. WWE might also be able to gain power in ensuring that WWE wrestlers continue to be treated like circus animals that have to pay out of their own pockets for their costly but absolutely necessary health insurance. If McMahon gets into Senate, then WWE can push boundaries in the future if they ever need to thwart serious competition. WWE will have more power which means the company will have a better chance at surviving if business was to get really bad or competition was to get really good.

2) The PG era has watered down wrestling i.e. sports entertainment. The PG era of wrestling is like diet soda or light beer compared to every era before. It lacks in substance and isn't as good as regular beer/soda. WWE has had essentially a monopoly over 'sports entertainment' and since buying WCW, WWE has used its near monopoly over the industry to dictate customer preference. To ensure that WWE could survive another threat like the one WCW posed, WWE has purposely put out weak programming that waters down the wrestling landscape. Watered down wrestling kills casual fans interest and only the hardcore WWE loyalists bother watching and they stay loyal to their WWE and represent steady, predictable earnings. Watered down wrestling makes it so that a rival company has to play by the rules of the WWE template in order to have any chance at swaying WWE's audience and of having any kind of real success. The company must reflect WWE but also find a way to motivate new fans to watch their product. David vs Goliath.

Lets say if WWE were to dictate another Attitude Era with no competition, all this would do would motivate new fans to start watching wrestling and these causal fans could very well become TNA fans if TNA was in fact better. Even if many don't, many might watch the competition (as these casual fans are yet to have company loyalty). If wrestling business in general was to increase, so would TNA's or any other rival company's business most likely. This means more sponsors, more money to lure bigger stars, more exposure in television time, larger audiences, and basically it cuts into WWE's potential profits and disrupts their steady earnings. A stronger sports entertainment industry makes rival competition more powerful and more of a threat to WWE and its business. In wrestling, maintaining a near monopoly and making steady business is better for overall business than appeasing die hard fans and making wrestling popular among casual viewers. It is not good business practice to attain a few boom years, that would attract a larger wrestling audience, that would most likely be followed by years at or below the current average battling a much stronger competition.

Bottom line: If, or when, another company can get into the same position WCW was in 13 years ago, WWE has a proven way to save themselves. Since WWE dictates preference, they can go back to delivering excellent sports entertainment (or at least something better than the crap they give us now) and bring back another Attitude Era and sway back all the former WWE faithful that may have been swayed temporarily to the rival product and also bring in some of the newer fans created during this period (just as it did 13 years ago). WWE could then put the other company out of business and steal their viewers and go back to PG programming that only the hardcore WWE faithful could put up with longterm. So the best thing for business is to ensure your survival in the long term. It isn't to please casual/hardcore wrestling fans and give them 'attitude era' wrestling all the time. It would be great for the industry and for the adult wrestling fan. It would be good for you (the OP) and me. But it wouldn't be best for WWE.

 

[mayankeagle]

I disagree that Vince does not like anything to do with attitude. It is true that he had to go attitude only because of WCW's NWO and other storylines, however since he himself got involved so much in the attitude era and it was basically his rivalry with Stone Cold which fetched the TV ratings back, it can't be said that Vince does not like attitude. He is definitely proud of what he did back then, and it was obvious the way he called Stone Cold the greatest WWE superstar of all time while inducting him to the hall of fame.

I agree that PG is bad for the business. It doesn't matter if it gets shareholders to invest in you because that is probably a short term gain. From a long term perspective, if you're losing the quality of matches, the TV ratings, the PPV sales, the sponsorships, the merchandize sales, then sooner or later your competition is going to bury you. Eventually what matters is the fans. If they are not happy with your product, your shareholders will also eventually leave you for somebody else.

 

[holdingholder]

those ratings have NOTHING to do with the change from attitude to pg, wrestling is just at a time where it is not as popular as it once was, I've said it a million times, the attitude era wasn't great because of some great storylines or over the top raunchy action, it was great because of the stars. Stone Cold and The Rock created a trickle down effect that magnified the talent of all the stars around them, not to mention all of those guys were in there prime. Hell if you look at it, during the heyday of the Monday night wars, both show were doing 5-6 plus ratings every week, where did all those fans go? It's not because of the loss of "attitude", shit, WCW never had "attitude" and had amazing ratings for a time. The fact is, nothing last forever, and you can't force what the attitude era was about, it's just a natural progression, that time has come and gone. It's not like they just switched to pg and the ratings went into the tank overnight.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

It has very little to do with PG and more to do with no competition. WCW was PG and yet they were huge. Right now there's no one to make Vince feel uneasy except maybe the Democrats. TNA is a joke.

WWE sticks with the PG era because



2) The PG era has watered down wrestling i.e. sports entertainment. The PG era of wrestling is like diet soda or light beer compared to every era before. It lacks in substance and isn't as good as regular beer/soda. WWE has had essentially a monopoly over 'sports entertainment' and since buying WCW, WWE has used its near monopoly over the industry to dictate customer preference. To ensure that WWE could survive another threat like the one WCW posed, WWE has purposely put out weak programming that waters down the wrestling landscape. Watered down wrestling kills casual fans interest and only the hardcore WWE loyalists bother watching and they stay loyal to their WWE and represent steady, predictable earnings. Watered down wrestling makes it so that a rival company has to play by the rules of the WWE template in order to have any chance at swaying WWE's audience and of having any kind of real success. The company must reflect WWE but also find a way to motivate new fans to watch their product. David vs Goliath.

Actually the Attitude Era is the one that had watered down wrestling. If anything matches got longer and better IMO since. The AE was about LONG interviews and segments and the matches were extremely short. The AE was a lot more about sports entertainment than the PG era is.

One of the big shot wrestling reporters used to do reports on Raw and Nitro and for a while Raw would have like maybe 20 minutes of actual in ring wrestling for a two hour show. That's horrible. Instead we got 30 minutes of Foley doing that is your life and Mae giving birth to a hand.

You can't make a new attitude era. It's just not going to work. It was right place right time when it happened and can't be duplicated. Just like ECW.

 

[GetsHeat]

It's idiotic to blame PG for every downside to the WWE, but it's also ridiculously stupid to try to say that the plummeting buy rates, mediocre Raw ratings, etc are all just related to there being a fad period in during the Attitude era.

Wrestling is obviously much less popular today, and it's for pretty good reason. The product isn't very good now and it's slowly slipped. The Attitude era had a boom for a reason, there were amazing characters that were given freedom to flourish. While today, most the roster is fairly generic playing extremely generic face heel interactions.

The bottom line is wrestling has to evolve if it wants to create the same excitement, ratings, and money that the Attitude Era created, but catering to kids is simply easier, especially when you have no REAL competition.

 

[mayankeagle]

The attitude era did not water down wrestling. If anything, it added more aggressiveness to wrestling and more focus was given to in-ring ability rather than gimmick. Consider Undertaker, he became the American bad-a** and became much quicker/ faster in the ring than he was as the slow/ methodical dead-man. He gave classic matches with Shawn Michaels, Kane, Mankind and Austin during this era. Who would forget the Hell in a Cells, the inferno matches. If anything, the attitude era made wrestling better than it was in the era of Hulk Hogan (in which a lot of matches were slow and more gimmick-oriented). Who'll forget Wrestlemania 17 which had Taker/ HHH, Austin/ Rock, Angle/ Benoit, TLC classic wars.... how can you call any of those matches bad?

Compared to the matches we had back then, the matches that we have right now are definitely watered down. The Wrestlemania standard has really come down. Consider frequent matches like Cena vs Orton. It has been done a million times, it has been beaten to death, and it still happens. It has never produced a legendary match. In fact the heroes/ faces of the current era like Cena have never produced a legendary match or rivalry. The best matches are still produced by the ones who stayed with the company through the attitude era and even before it - Taker and Michaels. The best feuds of recent years were Taker/ Edge, Shawn/ Jericho, Punk/ Hardy - no mention of Cena anywhere. The only case where his feud will qualify to be a good feud willl be Nexus but even that is going down the drain because Nexus lost at Summerslam when they should have won - Nexus made the TV ratings high but now the TV ratings have fallen again. Guaranteed the TV ratings would have been better if they had won at Summerslam.

And there are other guys like CM Punk, Christian and Jack Swagger who can give good matches but are under-utilized because the PG era calls for pushing Cena whom the kids like, because only the kids can be dumb enough to like him since they don't know anything about wrestling history and why Kurt Angle is a better wrestler than Cena and that Cena is not a Superman.

 

[Kenny Powers]

Well the ratings and the buy rates for PPVs have been dropping every year. Maybe it is because of the PG era, but wrestling interest is in a decline right now so even having an edgier product probably wouldn't do any favors.

WWE is a publicly traded company and for them its better for their investors to be PG. With all the incidents in the past with wrestlers premature deaths and the Benoit murders, its better for their image to be PG. I strongly feel though that if the WWE were losing tons of money then sooner or later they would go back to TV 14.

Being TV 14 doesn't make a show good though. The wrestlers and the story lines are what make a show watchable. They say Linda McMahon running for senate has nothing to do with WWE or PG, but I doubt that. Linda wouldn't have a chance of running if we were still in the attitude era. If Linda wins the senate race then you can pretty much guarantee WWE will still be a family friendly company.

Does that mean better business in the long run? Maybe but doubtful.

 

[mikenance]

As quoting Vince McMahon himself -- I think what you are seeing is Vince McMahon being reduced to nothing more than one putrid pussy!!!!!!

He went from having balls the size of Grapefruits to nothing. I think Vince has regrets on going through the attitude era. I read in an article on the internet about that (I think it was Connecticut Post or something). And all these years he defended it. And now we are watching a re-creation of WWF 1995 or so.

I guess Vince figures he can make money from various outlets even if the material is rated PG.

 

[DMac84]

Well whatever the case, the PG era is horrible. Its funny how it will be known as the PG era forever.

I got into wrestling in 1998, and those first few years, 98 - 2000 was the best era in my life thus far, mostly due to wrestling. I mean, Raw was awesome, edgy, stayed on after 11, it was exciting, and then we had to talk about it the next day at school. I could not wait for sunday night heat as a preview to Raw. Now if Sunday night heat were on, I would not watch it to save my life. Just like I have never once watched superstars, rarely watch Smackdown, and only watch Raw.

I would give anything for Wrestling to go back to one unified roster, unified belts, and TV-14 rating with more violence, blood, swearing and intensity. There doesn't have to be a lot of it, just some. Let these guys off of their chain a little. Austin and The Rock would not have been who they were, and the company would not have been as good as it was if it was not for letting them free and creating their own personas.

In todays WWE, you have alot of good characters to work with, alot are popular enough to let them go free, show some real emotion and aggression.

But enough of that. We all know that PG sucks and TV-14 is the way to go. But lets talk about what else plague's wrestling today.

WTF is having commercials in the middle of every match? That never used to happen. How can I be focused on the wrestling if they are gonna build up to a commercial? It kills the whole match for me, so when they come back to the show, I don't care about whats going on anymore.

Or how about the lack of importance of the Titles. It changes so much, at predictable times that they don't matter anymore. Championships used to change hands on Raw or SmackDown a lot more often than now. Im sick of only seeing it at a PPV. Bleh. Im also sick of seeing the same people with it, over and over and over. Soon, everyone is going to pass Ric Flair. WTF.

Lastly, What is up with the wasted time. I know its a PG era. No blood, less "violence", No language. Fine. Show me good wrestling. Why am I seeing Bob Barker talk on RAW. Why is someone promoting a book or movie that I don't care about. Where is my 2 hour Wrestling show. I don't get it anymore. Just someone plugging some bullshit that zero people care about. Santino's funny skits.... ok fine. Hornswaggle.... needs to go. Can we just have a show that glue's us to our seats again?

In closing, all I have to say is in 1998, 1999, and 2000, you could not get me to miss a Raw. I would not get out of my seat. The TV was turned way up, and I was there from 9 - 1105 every monday no matter what. Now, I don't care if im late, if I miss it completely and don't ever read the results online. Because I already know, nothing good happened anyway. I just missed some stupid people try and sell me stuff, some not so funny skits, surely didn't miss any title changes, no one "came back" like they did back in the day... just the same stuff over and over. Cena v Orton, Santino with his unibrow, and some commercials. yay.

Sorry for the rant. And if you read it all, you get a gold star.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The reality is, that Vince was always a "child friendly" promoter... The Hogan/PG era is where he was always most comfortable, putting out product that sold toys, ice cream bars, action figures.

Attitude was a forced change due to the then very real danger of going out of business and as a happy coincidence of having the screwjob and Austin. Vince had some talents that lent themselves to a more mature push and they were able to get it over.

Today's WWE roster does not fit the "attitude" mode... Cena is a PG hero all the way, same for Undertaker... Orton is not suited to Attitude, despite WWE's best intentions to get him over as such... Vince has carefully built this PG era, it hasn't just happened due to a congress run by his wife... ever since Eddy and Benoit, I think he realised the consequences of Attitude onscreen is that people lived it off and thats not something he wants to his company associated with anymore...

WWE is not as successful now at being in the public conciousnes as in 98, that is clear, but it is not making massive losses either... As a business it is viable and still making strides in bringing new talent into the mix... The business goes in cycles and in a few years time we will likely see things pick up... but don't expect Vince to just leap back to Attitude for the sake of it... with a wife in the senate, the microscope will be magnified, not relaxed...

 

[80's were better]

The wrestling of the AE was very much waterdown. Raw was mostly segments. The matches they did have were mostly hardcore or spotfests. while everyone bashes Cena for having only 5 moves that is 3 more moves than Stone cold had unless you count flipping the bird as a move. The main problem with this pg era is not the wrestlers but the poor writing by creative dept. Pg era could work with better stories and feuds that last and make sense. The Hogan era was very pg and made wwe what it is today.