TNA in "Very Serious" Talks with New Investor Who Wants Controlling Stake of Company

[SHAGAMANIA 3:16]

What proof do you have that TNA has lost all their draws and a huge number of their audience?

There TV audience isn't as big as it used to be and they have lost AJ, Kaz, Daniels, Joe and now Angle, Roode and Young.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

With regards to TNA seeking investors for Impact Wrestling, investors are reportedly already in play, and have been backing Impact Wrestling to keep the show on TV, but have not purchased any kind of interest in TNA Wrestling.

One of the current deals on the table centers around the controlling power of TNA, something Dixie Carter does not want to give up, but is something potential investors are interested in. It’s being said TNA might have to proceed with the deal to stay afloat, and that could give investors a leg up in terms of gaining controlling power of the company.

http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/697...dly-already-backing-impact-wrestling-and-more

Meltzer spoke to this during his interview on JR's podcast, released yesterday (or the day before). TNA are basically at the end of the rope here, and may not get through 2016 without effectively being forced to sell, or sell controlling stake. Any investor stepping in to save them could rather easily use the leverage built into the equation here to acquire 51%.

 

[Rayne]

Cue the posters calling Metzler a stupidhead.

From the perspective of profit/loss for its owners, the smart move would have been to sell in 2013, when Spike had been expressing an ownership interest and their brand only appeared temporarily weak instead of damaged. Since then, well, the past two years don't need to be rehashed, but the strength of TNA's brand, and hence its value, has shrunk significantly.

At this point, I don't see a way forward for TNA under the ownership of Dixie Carter. She doesn't have the personal resources to fund TNA; the Magic Panda Money fallacy has been debunked about a thousand times now; and no one in their right fucking mind is giving Dixie Carter money today without maintaining control of it. While PopTV appears to have much more reasonable expectations than DA did concerning viewer numbers, they don't appear interested in getting involved in the production end of television.

So disregarding scenarios that involve baby angels flying to Nashville with sacks of money, the best possible scenario now is one where TNA is sold while its TV deal isn't in question, to a group interested in playing the professional wrestling game (see Crockett, J., and Turner, T., with the obvious exception of the TV deal analogy.) The worst case is that Dixie Carter overestimates what TNA is currently worth in a sale, rejects the offers she receives, and one day it's announced that the next set of TV tapings has been cancelled. The WWE swoops in and buys their tape library at an appallingly low sum, being literally the only interested buyer and with TNA needing to liquidate their assets to resolve debts.

Tl;dr- If you enjoy watching a company which calls itself TNA or Impact Wrestling, root very, very hard for either a sale or an investor who is just now coming out of a five year coma.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Yeah, this is the end of the Carter era. If TNA is going to survive, whether they rebrand or not (and god in heaven do they need to completely rebrand), there's just no way any investor or majority stake owner is going to pump money in just to keep the same face of failure in place.

At the end of the day, your brand went from two million viewers to three hundred thousand in three years. In what fucked up fantasy world would anyone who knows even the basis of business step in with angel funds only to say "yeah, sure, all you guys can stay running this company".

I think what ends up happening here is she's leveraged out. You don't have the funds to continue. I do (the investor/new owner). I'm willing to pump them into the company to keep you head above water under n number of circumstances. At the top of that list — Carter and Co. are out.

Frankly, it's what they need just to get eyes on the product again. Regardless of who ends up running the show, news going world-wide that Dixie is out and whomever is in might be enough on its own to get fans to give whatever TNA ends up being called a chance again. Whether the product is strong enough to keep them? Well, I don't know. But the numbers are appalling right now.