Too many pay-per-views?

[S prince]

After reading another threat about how to make a title match gain more hype by possibly having a longer buildup to the match and by defending the title every other pay per view, why not cut back on the number of PPV in a calender year. I didn't mind how it used to be in the 90s, with Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, King of the Ring, Summerslam, and survivor series. Focus on the 5 main ones, and maybe, just maybe throw in one to two more pay-per-views reminiscent of like the In Your House pay-per-views. Make the champion hold on to the title as long as possible and maybe have more frequent title defenses on Raw or Smackdown to focus more on those programs. Because like that one thread stated, the PPV's come too quick each month, no time for story lines to really build.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Its been said a thousand times over. A lot of people are hot fired up about this idea, but at the same time, do you REALLY want to sacrifice having a big show to look forward to every month? Are you seriously willing to wait that long in between PPVs? I find it doubtfull. So many of us are so young that the one (at least!) PPV schedule is all we know. I doubt a lot of these folks would actually be happy without a show like that every month. the only way I could see something like that working, is by having a Saturday Night's Main EVent every month, and making it a tri branded supershow. Possibly having the participants in the major feuds on one brand teaming together to face off with the feud guys on the other brand, something like that, and maybe one title match. Id say this is the only way you could space out the PPVs that much, but still keep the fans happy.

To the other side, which is the reality side, WWE would never do it, becuase of money. Regardless of everything else, 12 (13? 14? I havent a fucking clue. bear with me) equals 12 things to sell for 40$ a pop. Why get rid of that revenue? They would never. Unless you can show me a way in which they could make up for slashing that revenue in half, its a totally unrealistic idea.

 

[klunderbunker]

I've listed out this plan a dozen times before but i'll do it again.

Back in the mid to late 90s, WWF ran a series of PPVs known as In Your House. For the most part they were two hours shows with a slightly lower level main event usually still for the title. The cost was dropped from $30 to $20 which made sense as it was 2/3 of the usual run time. Your main event might consist of the world champion defending against a glorifed mid carder. Picture this is you will.

Imagine if Judgement Day was one of these events. Based on MVP suddenly being pushed to the main event scene for all of two days, we'll go with him. Instead of having Orton/MVP on Raw that night, build MVP up as Orton's first challenger. He faces Priceless in singles matches for two weeks then pins Orton in a 6 man or something the week before JD. At the PPV, they have a 20-25 minute match where MVP comes so close to winning but ultimately falls short. Let's look at what this accomplishes:

MVP gets a taste of the main event. He's not ready to make that leap yet, but people see him headlining a PPV, he gets to show what he can do there, and he gets put over while still losing.

Orton looks good. He beats the US Champion, someone he should beat, has a good match doing it, and has a successful title defense on PPV.

Most importantly, it lets you build up Orton vs. Batista as a big time match. Instead of giving us a three week build up, using this you could build it up all the way to Summerslam if you tried hard enough. At that point, the feud is huge and we get the epic main event showdown that's been brewing for 5 months.

Also, if you drop the price down to say 25 dollars, while you lose the initial 15 dollars, how many more people would order a show that's almost at half price? There are likely some fans out there that simply can't afford to buy two shows such as Backlash and JD back to back so they would have to pick one or the other, meaning the company only makes 40 dollars for two shows. If you lower both shows to 25, there's a good chance the customer can afford the extra ten dollars rather than 30 dollars, meaning the company brings in 50 dollars instead of 40, meaning they make more money.

You can keep the number of PPVs, just alter how they're made and sold.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

KB, two problems bud.

1. your still cutting the revenue in half.

2. those shows will draw horrendous buyrates. Those are nothing MEs. You think anyone would have the least bit of doubt in their head that orton would be going over? no, none. Your selling cheaper shows, that no one would spend money on anyway. WWE still loses tons of money. itll never happen.

 

[Shocky]

I'd like to see the WWE possibly blow up their pay per view schedule and start over again. The Big Four are fine, even though I would tend to move Summerslam up to a July Pay Per View.

Are there too many pay per views, yes. This whole nonsense of 3 weeks in between pay per views is just silly, and really does nothing but cheapen the product with rushed storyliens that people really aren't interested in. If the WWE simply knocked the pay per views down to 12, one a month, people would be fine. Honestly, what purpose does Judgment Day and No Mercy honestly serve? Both are slammed in the middle of B pay per views, with gimmick pay per views that follow them (Extreme Rules and Cyber Sunday). If you drop those two, it would have a much more natural feel to it.

Also, charge more for A pay per views, charge less for B pay per views, it's really that simple. I'm not sure how logical it is, because i'm not sure how much say the cable companies have over the situation, but very rarely are B pay per views great. It just doesn't happen that often where the B pay per view blows you away, and the trackr ecord proves it. There's a reason ther is a bump in the big four, because those pay per views usually do so much more for excitment and match quality.

 

[wbuqed]

The WWE has screwed up its PPV schedule in so many ways, i'll try to list possible remedies and problems:

1. They completely blew off the month of March and while they were still trying to hype up the main events if you think about it Orton/HHH just got monotonous each week on Raw and even the triple threat couldnt get enough steam to make it to Houston without fans praying that the feud could just end. Why did the WWE insist on changing Wrestlemania to April on what seems like a permanent basis?

2. I find it ironic that the WWE can't find 20 mins per title match for its smaller titles in a 4 hour PPV (wrestlemania) yet dedicates a full PPV to nothing but title matches that seem incredibly forced. If you do give 5-6 weeks pre-wrestlemania you should be able to dredge up a decent title feud, instead you give probably 3 weeks following a full specialty match PPV (extreme rules, one night stand, or watever the hell you call it) to give a believable PPV? Give me a break, there is no actual story going after 3 weeks. The Attitude Era took 4 weeks between PPVs or even 2 back to back PPVs to give good drama, instead now we get a WWE that takes 3 weeks, creates fakeass tension, and a mediocre blow off match.

3. Does the WWE really need a PPV based on "fan voting" between a middle PPV and a traditional PPV? (no mercy-survivor series). Its like Vince has the attention span of a moth, he cant go more than 3 seconds without a PPV.

4. My number one suggestion- drop Extreme Rules (it mocks the already beaten and broken shell of ECW), drop Night of Champions (fake title feuds are an abomination) and drop Cyber Sunday (no title match or PPV match should be thrown together with alleged fan participation), and give each remaining PPV a full month to breathe.

 

[FreyguyHHH]

ithink they should cut it back and instead of all this PPVs has TV Specials like Clash of the Champions. like maybe 5 or 6 a year just to give it the big time feel of a ppv cause i mean face it ECW isnt working Superstars isnt working when half of the people you watch wrestling cant get the damn channel SNME are basically and joke anymore because the main events suck. right now the wwe needs to come up with a way that somebody out of the blue upsets Orton and runs with the title. same way on smackdown edge drops the belt to hardy I would really enjoy seeing Hardy vs CM Punk or Hardy vs. morrison those matches if done right will sell. they have to find something for Edge that does not put him even close to the title because to be honest Edge is terrible. he has never truely deserved a title shot anyway you look at it

 

[Muffin Top Merkley]

The solution to everyones problems (From what they are saying here) is to go back to when RAW and Smackdown had seperate PPVs.

This would allow the WWE to continue with 12 (or more PPVs) and it would also allow both brands to build more of a storyline revolving around the matches at the PPVs.

The only problem would be where ECW fits in.

And of course the 'big 4' would have to remain tri-branded.

 

[bioshock]

Mighty Norcal you have no clue. Your not losing money just because the price drops from $50 to $25 a ppv. You drop the price to $25 hoping at least a 50% more orders that ppv making up for the lost money. As it is not alot of people buy PPV's other then the big 4. And even the big 4's buy rates have been bad, like this years Rumble, it was one of the worst in many years.

With how bad the econ is WWE would be smart to lower the PPV prices, at least for non major ppv's.

And its gone to show, WWE's buyrates this year have been terrible. WM25 drew 1million million, while 24 drew 2.6million, Royal Rumble 09 drew 4.5k and the 08 drew 5.3k, No Way Out 09 drew 2.7k while the 08 drew 3.2k

 

[wbuqed]

The solution to everyones problems (From what they are saying here) is to go back to when RAW and Smackdown had seperate PPVs.

This would allow the WWE to continue with 12 (or more PPVs) and it would also allow both brands to build more of a storyline revolving around the matches at the PPVs.

The only problem would be where ECW fits in.

And of course the 'big 4' would have to remain tri-branded.

The problem is that Vince is trying so hard to make ECW work that he's too stubborn to disband the ECW brand so that is a big problem but I think you have it right with seperate brand PPVs

 

[MrMcCool]

I have to agree that the number of PPVs have to be decreased. I have been watching wrestling for about 22 years, so I have been around before the In Your House PPVs. You cant say people wont buy the lower cheaper PPVs because they always did for IYH PPVs. Wrestling quality has went down, and the PPVs are not much bigger than the TV time, so I only buy Wrestlemania because of what it means. No way am I paying $40 for a Raw quality PPV, however, if you are bored on a sunday, and the PPV is $20, sure why not, its something to do and watch. Right there you are making less money per PPV, but increasing buyrates. Now this all depends on one thing, THE SHOWS HAVE TO BE GOOD ENOUGH THAT PEOPLE WANT TO WATCH!!! Make PPVs better quality, problem solved. There should be 9 PPVs a year, no less so most of the revenue is still there, it might be less revenue because of those shows, but it will make the product better by not rushing, which will make people actually wanna watch the other 9 PPVs.

 

[Age of Orton]

Personally I believe bring back the King of the Ring tournament as a PPV (maybe have the Draft held on the PPV as well) and have a PPV like the early 90s one every say 2-3 months but on the alternative months have the In Your House series return, 2 hour show, with one main event and 2 or 3 under bouts with smaller feuds, that wouldn't amount to much, ie Kane, Morrison, Miz, Shelton, Matt Hardy, Rey basically the guys who are often missed off some PPV's, and have the headline match like Edge/Hardy (last night) something that entises the customer to want to pay a small fee for it but cheaper then normal and also it means fans look forward to the big 4 or 5 again.

the PPV scene is to clustered up at the moment.