Will TNA Ever Succeed?

[MB1025]

The thing is, I have NO idea why fans harp on this stuff. So what if DVR views get TNA over 2 million viewers? So what if the company makes money and who cares how much they actually make? It is a television show. I don't care how much money How I Met Your Mother makes but I watch it every week because I enjoy it. If this is a program that wrestling fans enjoy, cool. Keep enjoying it but who cares whether they are a financial success? If it's on the air then it's doing ok. Just be happy with that, that you have your alternative and you have one more wrestling show on TV.

Well it maters when you call someone a liar. I also wasn't using it as a means to say TNA is closer to the WWE. Someone said TNA gets 2 million viewers, you called them a liar, and I was backing up what he said.

 

[TheOneTheyCallOn]

To answer the original question with my opinion I think yes TNA will succeed, will they be as big as WWE or even WCW? Probably not, but they are establishing their global identity with Ring Ka Ring, they are bringing in notable names (much like WCW did in the mid to late 90's) plus the story-lines seem to have gotten better with Bruce Prichard on the team. They have been around, surviving for years now in the face of all the people who said they wouldn't make it year after year only to be bigger now then they ever have been. Their X division is a great alternative (or at least could be) for those longing for the cruiserweight or light heavyweight divisions, the knockouts (in my opinion) far outshine the WWE divas in terms of in ring skills and, dare I say it? Looks. All in all TNA has all the tools to be a very successful company, the only thing left is to educate Dixie Carter a bit on the ways of wrestling and they are pretty much set.

 

[JJYanks121]

Well it maters when you call someone a liar. I also wasn't using it as a means to say TNA is closer to the WWE. Someone said TNA gets 2 million viewers, you called them a liar, and I was backing up what he said.

You are interjecting on something with anger when none was intended. IDR and I go back and forth with this stuff all the time and my comment was meant in jest.

I stand by what I said. You can say all you want that it's just about whether the information was truthful. However, we get reports every week about how many viewers watch each televsion show. What is reported is that TNA brings in between 1.4-1.6 Live views. That's what is used in these stupid comparisons fans of both companies use. The only reason DVR numbers come out is because it makes TNA's number seem better. That's why I made mention of the fact that you've never heard what WWE's number is with DVR views. All it's used for is to make TNA seem better.

My argument is that it's unnecessary. Comparing numbers is what makes you seem worse. The company has a weekly television show, Pay Per Views, they just did wonderful numbers at their live event in England, and they are solidly the #2 promotion in the United States. That is a success whether they will ever come close to touching the WWE or not.

If I make enough money to support my family and I'm happy with what I do, I consider myself a success. If I think only in terms of money and I start comparing myself to Mark Cuban, I don't look nearly as successful. It's important only to understand where you want and need to be and be successful at that. That is where TNA is at now. The only people that will find them unsuccessful are those who define success only as a comparison to a larger entity in a similar field. That's stupid and so are the ratings comparisons. Having a show with consistent ratings in the first place and having a business that continually functions is a success.

 

[PlayTheGame]

You are interjecting on something with anger when none was intended. IDR and I go back and forth with this stuff all the time and my comment was meant in jest.

I stand by what I said. You can say all you want that it's just about whether the information was truthful. However, we get reports every week about how many viewers watch each televsion show. What is reported is that TNA brings in between 1.4-1.6 Live views. That's what is used in these stupid comparisons fans of both companies use. The only reason DVR numbers come out is because it makes TNA's number seem better. That's why I made mention of the fact that you've never heard what WWE's number is with DVR views. All it's used for is to make TNA seem better.

My argument is that it's unnecessary. Comparing numbers is what makes you seem worse. The company has a weekly television show, Pay Per Views, they just did wonderful numbers at their live event in England, and they are solidly the #2 promotion in the United States. That is a success whether they will ever come close to touching the WWE or not.

If I make enough money to support my family and I'm happy with what I do, I consider myself a success. If I think only in terms of money and I start comparing myself to Mark Cuban, I don't look nearly as successful. It's important only to understand where you want and need to be and be successful at that. That is where TNA is at now. The only people that will find them unsuccessful are those who define success only as a comparison to a larger entity in a similar field. That's stupid and so are the ratings comparisons. Having a show with consistent ratings in the first place and having a business that continually functions is a success.

You can really look at this one of two ways. If you look at TNA as a stand-alone company, sure, it is definitely successful. Having that many viewers is nothing to be ashamed of, it has grown since it's debut, and has a solid fan base. It sells merchandise, PPV's, and, like I said, gets respectable viewership numbers. So if you just look at it as a company, there's far worse companies out there, and many shows don't make it on the air for almost 10 years (which TNA is approaching). So, if you look at it from that angle, it is a successful company.

However, you can also look at it from a different angle. If you stress that it is a wrestling company, you immediately think of the WWE. And when you think of the WWE, you think about how far away TNA is from it. Now, obviously TNA is the closest thing to WWE in terms of another wrestling company, and other promotions, such as ROH, are even further away, but psychologically most people are going to hold TNA to a higher standard than they will ROH because TNA is on TV just like WWE is. In a way, they are "playing on the same field." It's sort of like if someone said "Tom Brady SUCKED at the Superbowl", and then saying "Jay Cutler had a GREAT year". They're knocking brady because he was on grander stage, thus more was expected from him. Cutler gets slack because not much was expected from him, and who wants to pick on guys on a lower stage (aka not even making the playoffs). So, as soon as you throw in that TNA is another wrestling company on TV, you immediately cannot help comparing to them to the WWE. And when you do that, you can't help but say that they aren't nearly as successful... which then makes you say... they're not very successful.

So it's all a matter of how you look at it, really. As for your example about you and Mark Cuban... No one is going to compare you, or me, or probably most of the WZ posters to Mark Cuban, because we are not in the same limelight or stage as he is. TNA (by their own choosing) is on the same stage as WWE, both having 2 hour wrestling shows and having a lot of old WWE talent. They even tried going head to head with WWE for a short time in the New Monday Night Wars. No one would compare you or I to Cuban for logical reasons. TNA wants to contest with WWE (and admirably so), but they just aren't there yet.

Now, as to what side I am on: I tend to lean toward the second angle, really for one main reason. I was spoiled by WCW. As people have already touched upon in this thread, WCW became a HUGE threat to WWE within about 5 years of it getting its TV deal from Turner. TNA, as I said, is approaching 10 years. So in almost double the time of WCW, they've had SIGNIFICANTLY less success, impact, and competitiveness than WCW had in a much shorter period of time. Is this fair of me? Maybe not, but WCW set the bar (and they set it high), so I expect more from TNA, and since we are not getting it, I view them as not being very successful.

And one last quick note in regard to if they will ever gain a higher level of success: I'm honestly not sure, and I don't think its fair for any of us to speculate because none of us (at least I don't think) have been on the business end of global wrestling companies, so I think it would be a bit silly of us to comment on if it will ever approach the WWE or not. Furthermore, so many things could happen that are unforseeable (for better or worse for TNA) in the future. But here's one thing I will say: In another 5-10 years from now, TNA will definitely be much different- it will either be gone, or it will be somewhere significantly closer to WWE, because not many companies sit around in an average position (where TNA currently is) for 20 years- they either go up, or they either go down. One way or the other, simple business acumen will tell you that something will have to give with TNA. But as I said, we really can't predict that right now.

 

[cmedge]

I would LOVE for TNA to succeed believe me I do. I used to be a big TNA fan 2008/2009 I used to watch it all the time then I stopped for awhile and I'm now getting back into it. I would love for TNA to beat the WWE in ratings one day and then have WWE work harder. Competition is good for business. I don't know whatever it is but I would like for TNA to do something HUGE to beat out WWE like WCW did with the NWO.

 

[Rayne]

However it isn't Spike TV or TNA Wrestling giving these numbers out. PWTorch gets them from the Nielsen ratings.

The bold part above this however doesn't give the entire story. A 1.1 and a 1.2 can have a large varying amount of people who watch the show. One week 1.6 million people could equal a 1.2 and the next week the same viewers could give you a 1.15. It depends on how many people are watching TV.

And the Nielsens aren't simple "ratings", but a series of numbers which mean very different things depending on how that number was reached. You don't request "the ratings" from Nielsen, you purchase a data set from Nielsen Media Research, and they send you all kinds of numbers broken down into every kind of demographic you could imagine. If you want to know what percentage of Asian housewives who smoke are watching your program, a number can be made to calculate that.

Now on to your point about ratings. OVER TIME, the value of a ratings point changes, because one ratings point is equal to one percent of all televisions in existence, on or off. So while comparing numbers from the Monday Night Wars directly to ratings today is off the mark; no, 1.6 million people don't equal a different ratings value from week to week.

What you are thinking of is "share", which is a percentage of all television sets currently in use. Share is good for determining a broad taste, but in my experience I've only seen share used as a cock-waving number. I'm sure it must have a legitimate use somewhere, but I've yet to see anyone use share ratings to make a compelling argument.