TNA is Fun to Watch, But Would You Spend Money on it?

[dman1373]

ok well tna has been going for 10 years now and they are up to about 1.0 ratings, but the problem is the same as wcw in 2000. There are people watching but when it comes to spending money no one wants to. Thats why they have almost no live events and also there buyrates are shit. I mean if you compare it to ecw, they are tiny. I dont think tna has ever had a buyrate of 50,000 while ecw has always had a steady buyrate of 100,000. When you think about that when tnn never ever promoted them, but the same network promotes the shit out of tna, you realize how much people really dont care that much for tna. Well what do you guys think.

 

[waylon p]

I have and I do. I have bought every TNA PPV but one. Since the beginning. I have paid for house shows and will do so again. While I was more excited for ecw, that was a different time, wrestling was really hot then. Not so much now. When WWE is pulling ratings half or less of what they were getting then, perhaps getting the same ratings that ecw was getting back then is not such a bad thing.

 

[starkmoto]

All the comparing of the companies is the problem with your question, tna is so different on so many levels than either of those companies. But to answer your question, I have ordered tna ppvs especially when samoa joe was an actual phenomenon and people who watched tna back then were legitimately excited to see matches like joe vs styles and styles vs daniels. It seems like it's getting exciting again but not ready to spend money again right now.

 

[Zeven_Zion]

ok well tna has been going for 10 years now and they are up to about 1.0 ratings, but the problem is the same as wcw in 2000. There are people watching but when it comes to spending money no one wants to. Thats why they have almost no live events and also there buyrates are shit. I mean if you compare it to ecw, they are tiny. I dont think tna has ever had a buyrate of 50,000 while ecw has always had a steady buyrate of 100,000. When you think about that when tnn never ever promoted them, but the same network promotes the shit out of tna, you realize how much people really dont care that much for tna. Well what do you guys think.

Translation: I just want to take a dump on TNA.

A few things.

1. TNA is tiny compared to ECW - you base this on what? Biased assumptions? TNA's been in business for ten years. ECW was dead and bought out by McMahon at that point. TNA's ratings are pretty much equal to ECW's in the 90's, if not a tid bit better. TNA as a program is bigger than ECW. iMPACT in terms of content is more diverse than ECW. TNA in terms of star power is bigger than ECW. TNA in terms of production values is bigger than ECW. TNA as a business is much, much bigger than ECW. ECW was simply enjoyable for a niche audience who had a VERY specific taste. The way I see it, TNA has surpassed ECW in a lot of ways, no way it's tiny compared to it.

2. TNA has "almost no live events" - you're special.

3. Their buyrates are shit - I'm sure they are. Just for reference though, could you provide me with a source for that claim? I mean, I bet you're not ANOTHER schmuck who spills his garbage all over this forum without basing an argument such as this on some reputable financial data. I bet you're not. I bet. I bet money. Big money. Not like TNA's shitty buyrates.

I thought the topic of this thread was "TNA is fun, but would you spend money on it?", yet the content of the thread has little to do with that.

And yes, TNA is fun. And no, I wouldn't spend money on it. Why? I'm a student. Ain'tnobodygottimefordat. It's taking away from my noodles money.

 

[donfryeismyhero]

If you enjoy TNA, why wouldn't you spend money to support the product (excluding an ability to afford to)? You seem like a TNA hater trying hard to be clever ts. You've made claims of TNA having virtually no house shows and ECW doing better buys than TNA. Do you have any facts to back any of that up? You know stats, numbers, that sort of thing?

 

[SinCityBlitz]

If you're not willing to spend money on the product you're not much of a fan. It's understandable if you don't have the money but TNA is averaging a little over a million people watching Impact yet can only manage anywhere from 8 to 11 thousand buys? You can't tell me all 1 million people watching are poor.

As far as TNA vs ECW, I think both are on the same level. TNA might be a little bit ahead. But that is because of the backing that TNA has. If Paul Heyman had someone backing him with $$$ ECW would have been around for a while. As far as product goes ECW>>>TNA.

As far as buyrates go it was a different time. Wrestling was red hot so more people were willing to spend money on the product.

 

[Kris Benwa]

Translation: I just want to take a dump on TNA.

A few things.

1. TNA is tiny compared to ECW - you base this on what? Biased assumptions? TNA's been in business for ten years. ECW was dead and bought out by McMahon at that point. TNA's ratings are pretty much equal to ECW's in the 90's, if not a tid bit better. TNA as a program is bigger than ECW. iMPACT in terms of content is more diverse than ECW. TNA in terms of star power is bigger than ECW. TNA in terms of production values is bigger than ECW. TNA as a business is much, much bigger than ECW. ECW was simply enjoyable for a niche audience who had a VERY specific taste. The way I see it, TNA has surpassed ECW in a lot of ways, no way it's tiny compared to it.

2. TNA has "almost no live events" - you're special.

3. Their buyrates are shit - I'm sure they are. Just for reference though, could you provide me with a source for that claim? I mean, I bet you're not ANOTHER schmuck who spills his garbage all over this forum without basing an argument such as this on some reputable financial data. I bet you're not. I bet. I bet money. Big money. Not like TNA's shitty buyrates.

I thought the topic of this thread was "TNA is fun, but would you spend money on it?", yet the content of the thread has little to do with that.

And yes, TNA is fun. And no, I wouldn't spend money on it. Why? I'm a student. Ain'tnobodygottimefordat. It's taking away from my noodles money.

This^ way to just take the words right out of my mouth/keyboard shit i don't pay for wwe either i need that money for noodles!

 

[GameOver]

why pay for something you can watch online for free same with people stealing music and games why pay for it if you get it another way for free, if the programmes were must watch, people would pay "if they can afford it" which in this day and age is not everyone. Priorities are vastly different then they were 10-20yrs ago, entertainment takes a back seat to real life for the majority of people and the target demographics of TNA seems to be trailer park and tourists who need a place to crash for a few hours

Sure when they tour they seem to do better money wise then when they stay at home, what does that say? where they reside people have seen the same thing over and over for the past 10yrs and in the case where WWE or someone else tours in those areas too, there's alternatives that people chose between.

for me TNA was great in the first 4yrs then seemed to hit a wall and has been stagnant if not going backwards for most of the time since. Back in the early yrs i woulda payed for the PPV's but they weren't available here til yr 3 of TNA but it was on youtube that i saw my first TNA match and i was hooked then, but that was along time ago.

In summary i watch Impact and Explosion cause it's a habit same with WWE programming, neither are as good as they once were but i would never spend money on a TNA PPV unless i was off work and i was really bored, i've been burned too many times ordering a PPV only to be presented with an extended Impact that is far worse then the shows that led upto it. Why pay $25-$30 to watch impact when it airs for free each week.

as for the other comments that TNA doesn't have live shows, well that person obviously doesn't know shit, even i know they do live tours like WWE does just not as often and they are far bigger globally then ECW was but ECW just capitaliased on the ongoing rivalry between WWF and WCW but there biggest PPV buyrate was only a .98 in December of 2000 the average was .26 so that is far below TNA. when it was part of WWE it was alot higher but thats to be expected, they had advertising a network and WWE stars on it.

 

[The 1-2-3 Killam]

Yes. Of course. I have purchased several things from TNA, and I intend to buy more in the future. I've never had the opportunity to be near to a TNA live event, but if that situation presented itself I would go without a second's hesitation. I like TNA...so I support them. It's quite simple. Would I spend $800 to fly out to Bound for Glory? Probably not. Would I do so for WrestleMania? Probably. But those are very different scales, and very different products. I buy all their pay-per-views. Now granted, I get paid to do that. Would I, under different circumstances? Probably not, but that's just because I'm broke.

Also, TNA hands down has the better clothing merch. THere are very few shirts of WWE I'd ever want to wear. They're all flashy and obviously supporting a particular wrestler. TNA has some cool looking shirts with sweet designs that dont' just scream "HEY! THIS IS _______'s CATCHPHRASE!" Definitely, I would financially support TNA. I have, and I will continue to do so.

Although with episodes like tonight's, I may start questioning that decision...

 

[Rayne]

I'm just going to answer the thread title instead of that rather inane OP.

I can't see myself spending money on professional wrestling period right now. It's just plain not any good. The companies are asking us to sit around for 2-3 hours and sit through a whole load of generic undercard with maybe 20 minutes of passable material in there, counting segments. I've got other shit to do. Professional wrestling isn't a chore to me, and if I'm not being entertained by what I see on television, why would I buy the PPV? I've streamed a couple, and they were pretty damned dreadful as well; at this point, they seem to be paid versions of the television show, with many matches added at the last minute and a feud that's unlikely to pay off unless it's the third time through with the match.

I'll pay for anything I perceive that has value, but I'm being given no reason to buy.

 

[ABMorales787]

Question. How do you know about buyrates when that information isn't released? How do you know it has no sponsors when they have Direct Auto, Panda Energy, Wrangler and now have a Lottery Company. Did I mention the ring is surrounded by all sorts of military sponsor groups? They have around 6 to 7 house shows per 2 weeks. They prefer the lighter schedule. It's been their trademark for years now so why change?

But let's get to the truth. Your claim is baseless horse crap.

 

[RD_21]

I said it many times and I will say it again. If TNA PPV were 20$ I would buy them all, but at 40-50$ it's a no-no. I'm not even buying WWE's one at that price other than Mania once a couple of years.

Even the WWE should lower their PPV price to 25-30$, both companies with a price drop on their PPV would probably more than double their actual buyrates, I just don't see why they keep thinking they are at the right price.

You have to try it, drop the price and see if you make enough buy to cover the price drop, but they won't even try it. When I see WWE's PPV below 200 000 buys and TNA below 20 000, I can't understand why they haven't tried it or refuse to.

 

[Shalashaska]

If TNA were willing to treat their TV tapings and PPVs more like they do their live events then I would absolutely be willing to spend more money on them. The TNA house shows I've been to have been some of the best wrestling I've ever seen, unfortunately when I turn on impact they lose me completely. Its like TNA's live events are like ROH for bigger stars and anything they put on TV is still WCW lite. If they started to mix the two up a little then I could see myself pouring money into the company as they have many of my favourite wrestlers down there.

Simply put, give me a compelling product and I'll be eating up merch and PPVs.

 

[Papa Pillman]

Let's see, would I spend money on TNA???

Well I have seen a PPV live, and been to a few other house shows in multiple different venues/cities, typically paying a premium for floor seats. So that is money that I've spent, which must be quite confusing to the OP considering that "they do almost no live events."

I also buy the majority of the PPVs, while I only stream WWE PPVs. So that is money I spend on TNA most months.

I also have a few t-shirts, all of which I bought while attending these magically non-existent live events.

I also have a fairly extensive DVD collection, consisting of several seperate match or wrestler compilation releases, as well a good amount of PPV DVDs including six or seven of the PPVs from just this year and last; all of which I purchased either through TNA's website or at live events.

And TNA isn't even my "favorite" company to follow, I'd classify myself as more of an ROH guy. So I hope that answers your question on whether or not people are actually willing to spend money on the product.

As for comparing TNA to original ECW, its an apples and oranges situation. The climate of pro wrestling now is much different, let alone the overall television/entertainment landscape. In the late 90s Raw and Nitro could combine to draw upwards of fifteen million viewers in a single night, now Raw draws about a quarter of that as "the only game in town". Attempting to draw relevant comparisons based on viewership/buyrates from now versus over a dozen years ago is a flawed and futile undertaking.

 

[kor420]

Actually, i pay for a TNA ppv and not wwe anymore, as i enjoy the TNA product better and i think you should support something that brings you happiness and joy.

But i realize most people don't buy a TNA ppv and would much rather watch a stream of it. If TNA can't get these people to buy their PPV, they should at least embrace it and use it to their advantage.

TNA is supposedly will be doing away with so many ppvs, they shouldn't and should officially broadcast those events on the internet in HQ, not on their own website but on big streaming sites such as Ustream, Veetle or Justin tv and i'm 100% certain those three sites would put a big advertisement on top of their main page telling people about the event especially if there is an agreement with the two parties if TNA mentions the event on one of their live broadcasts.

Look at how many new people would see tna if it's done correctly.


I Also think they should take their marketing budget and focus solely on the south eastern states instead of trying to spread their resources too thin, and once they build a solid following in those states, move forward..

Lets say you're having a yard sale and you have 100 signs, would you go in a 100 mile radius around your town to stake your yard sale signs, or would you cluster them around in a 15 mile radius at every busy intersection where more people would see them?

I Very rarely see an advertisement any where on tv for tna impact, and that's their problem. They should be blowing the south east up with advertisements.

 

[hatehabsforever]

TNA is fun to watch, and I do attempt to watch Impact as often as I possibly can. Would I personally spend money on it? Not a chance. No disrespect to those who would, but I simply would not.

During the earlier years, I wouldn't have purchased anything TNA related because of a total lack of familiarity with the product. Around 2010, I started to become interested, and I did purchase one TNA PPV, that being Bound For Glory 2010. And with the "they" debacle, I vowed to never purchase one again, and thus far, TNA has not done enough to win me back.

If I am sufficiently interested in a product, I will purchase it. I've never done the streaming thing, never will, and would have no idea whatsoever to even know how to do it, nor do I have any interest in learning. I regularly purchase pretty much every WWE PPV, but not TNA, and I don't see this changing any time soon. Sure, I'm just one guy and may be in the minority, but at this stage of the game, there's no way I'm purchasing a TNA PPV.

 

[MrPlatano1989]

.. at this stage of the game, there's no way I'm purchasing a TNA PPV.

I respect your opinion, even if I have a different one. I will however suggest, if you have time that is, that you check out TNA's 2011 Final Resolution PPV! Its available for free at the moment on TNA's Official Youtube page! I also suggest you take a peek at a recent Before The Bell Feature. They take a look at upcoming ppv's in deep documentary style fashion! These are edited and comprised so well, that they'll make great features on dvd's in the future! They are currently available for free as well, at TNA's Official Youtube page!

Now I've said this before and I'll say it again! The decline in ratings and sales in this business have less to do with the quality of the product, and more to do with the fact that we are in 2012! If the same product being presented now, was featured during the mid 90's, you will see those types of figures and numbers!

In a modern world led by technology, the fans and public have the option of finding free streams, paying $3 for a illegal streams, waiting for it to be on Youtube, downloads and torrents! Multiple options are available! Whereas the 90's, only options seemed to be bootleg cable, ordering the pay per view, or borrowing a taped event from a friend!

I for one have been to every New York TNA house show, and own every dvd between mid 2005, and mid 2012! This includes Unbreakable, and all the various best of series!

TNA is more than fun to watch! Its a collection of wrestlers and creativity from every year of wrestling establishing history! This is the only place you will see all these talents interact, and the footage will only get better with time!

Think of a mid-card 90's match airing for the first time. Something like a young Edge vs a young Hardy. At the time, such a match up doesn't hold much value to the casual fan. The casual fan is booing Edge, and waiting for The Rock or Austin to appear later on in the show. Come forward to 2012 looking back, and its a match featuring a HOF and a future HOF in their early years when they were still dreaming at a chance to represent the top!

This is how I view TNA, everytime I see talents interact, even for a second backstage, I think of how much I will appreciate the footage decades from now! Back in 2001, who would have thought we would have another major wrestling company? Back in 2002, who would have thought TNA will still be around 10 years later? Back in 2005, who would have thought many members of the roster would lead the company to the future and establish their spots! Back in 2006, who would have thought Sting will still be around working hard almost 7 years later? Back in late 2006 when Kurt signed, who would have thought many legends will follow and re-ignite their careers!

This is why I spent my money on TNA every opportunity I have! I'm paying to witness history being established! Talents starting their careers, establishing their legacies, and finishing their historic runs! Sorry for the long post, I love TNA, I love WWE, I love wrestling!

 

[Just Do It]

I've watched TNA since its an inception, and this topic made me realise that in ten years I've never bought a ticket, never ordered a PPV, never bought a figure (although I don't do figures) never bought a DVD or a video game (which I do both).

Jesus.

 

[BrockSamson]

I'd buy tickets to an event in SoCal. I'm not big on merchandise though. Assuming they make the product better I'd be interested in a dvd, or maybe a history of TNA dvd, the story of how it came about documentary style would be cool.

 

[dman1373]

im just speaking the truth and the tna marks want to completely flip shit. All i am saying is over 95% of the million that watch tna dont want to spend money on a ppv. I am saying that the attendance for live events tna put on are in the same league as indy promontion like chikara and roh when with the exposure they have they should have a lot more fans coming to see them. Am I out of line for saying any of this. Im sure the next post will be some tna mark flipping out on me, and saying how tna is the greatest and how im just a dumb wwe fan(which is funny cause i dont think ive mentioned wwe).

 

[midgensa]

Obviously the original poster is a TNA hater. And his assertions about ECW and TNA are almost laughable as TNA has virtually surpassed ECW in all measurable ways at this point.

All that said ... It is a decent thought for a thread at least.

I watch TNA on a fairly regular basis (I would say I catch about 7 of every 10 episodes of Impact give or take). I have only ever paid for ONE TNA PPV (the first Joe vs. Angle match) and I watch about half of them via live stream on the Internet.

So, in the end ... I guess no ... I don't and wouldn't really spend money on it. If they were drawing enough to come to D.C. and do a live Impact or a PPV, I would maybe spend some money there ... hell it is cheaper than buying the PPV to go to it live anyways.

As for the E though ... I don't drop a lot of money on them. Two PPVs a year and watch the rest live stream (probably miss two or three) and have not been to a live event in years.

So, I don't know if it is just that I don't want to spend money on TNA or if I don't really want to spend money on wrestling as a whole right now.

 

[The Boss]

If/when HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN gets a TNA World title shot you bet I'll be there. I was at Lockdown 2011 (when he was originally planned to win the title from Sting but plans were changed do to him not being sufficiently recovered from back surgery yet) and as soon as it's announced I will be there as well. I almost went to Lockdown 2012 when it was rumored that he and Garrett Bischoff would face Ric Flair and Eric Bischoff. HOLLYWOOD HULK HOGAN'S first cage match in 13 years? You bet I would have been there. But unfortunately Flair's departure ruined that match as well.

I'm not saying that he SHOULD get back in the ring, but I'm convinced that he WILL and I'll be there to experience HULKAMANIA live one more time!