WM buyrate is shit???

[Mighty NorCal]

Apparently the WM buyrate fell far below what WWE expected, and didnt even beat out WM 23 for total buys, and revenue generated.

So how the fuck did this happen?? What do you guys think?? How could what ended up being one of the better shows of our time end up not outselling one of the worst WMs all time??

Personally I feel is attributable to the current overall lack of interest in wrestling, and what was absolutely the WORST build going into WM ive ever seen. Ratings have been very low, so its somewhat persumable that overall interest is down.

 

[shoe1985]

I can provide an easy answer for this. They charge way too much. I remember paying $30 for this, and sometimes there were specials to get it for around $25, if you buy a package of future ppvs. I don't see why they are charging so much? I used to order every Wrestlemania, but since the price keeps going up like crazy, forget it. I will just look up the results online, or wait to find out who won Monday.

 

[Danmen001]

I can provide an easy answer for this. They charge way too much. I remember paying $30 for this, and sometimes there were specials to get it for around $25, if you buy a package of future ppvs. I don't see why they are charging so much? I used to order every Wrestlemania, but since the price keeps going up like crazy, forget it. I will just look up the results online, or wait to find out who won Monday.

You are absolutely on the money with that one. THE MONEY. The problem is, although the fact that the quality of mania was pretty damn good, especially by the times standards. Peopl still are not willing to fork out, what $75 or $65 for HD. Especially after last years $40 or something. In Australia, if you have Austar its a cheap 6 dollars. But that is besides the point really.

If the WWE wants to make money, if they want to have high selling pay-per-veiws, they have to sell for much less than they do.

 

[twisterwrw929]

I agree with Norcals part, the build for Wrestlemania was awful. None of the feuds were built up that much. In past Wrestlemanias, the bigger matchups usually build up for quite a while. But this year instead of getting big feuds for a couple months, with the big match finally coming at Wrestlemania, but that didn't happen this year. Normally at least one of the title matches is set up in the following weeks after the Royal Rumble.

The WWE championship match wasn't set until the Raw after No Way Out once Cena got into the match with Orton and Triple H who had just won the chamber match the night before.

The World Championship match wasn't set until No Way Out when Taker won the smackdown elimination chamber.

The ECW title match had no build, they just held a battle royal before the show to find a number one contender.

Mayweather vs Big Show didn't start until No Way Out, and after that, quite a few of their raw segments were terrible, and we didn't even know what kind of match they were having until the week of Wrestlemania.

Ric Flair vs Shawn Michaels didn't start until the Raw after No Way Out. But these guys did do a good job building up this match in the time they had.

Finlay vs JBL didn't have a lot of time either, and I personally didn't like the storyline between the two, I'm glad that they finally ended the Hornswoggle/Vince thing but I think they could have ended it a little better than this.

So overall the build for Wrestlemania was the worst that I've ever seen, they should have and easily could have done a lot more to make the matchups bigger and more important. And I think this contributed to the lower buys.

Also, I don't think the price had a ton to do with the lower buys, of course if it was cheaper there would have been some more buys, but I don't think it would have made a huge difference, not enough to beat out Wrestlemania 23

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

Combination of things, in my opinion.

1. Cost
Every friend of mine said the same thing about Wrestlemania: "70 bucks? Fuck that." Instead of getting 70 bucks multiplied by myself and a bunch of my friends, instead, we all just watched it on the same TV and split the cost, so it only ended up being a few bucks a piece. I'm sure there were a lot of other people doing the same thing. If the ppvs were 20 bucks, I'd probably order 75% of them throughout the year...definitely the big four at the very least. If the big fans aren't willing to shell out that much money, rest assured the people that are marginal-at-best fans aren't going to.


2. Build/Booking
The championship matches were things we've seen before, although not at that level. HBK and Flair, we all knew Flair was going to lose. ECW title? Come on, it was Chavo...when's he proven that he can spotlight the biggest ppv of the year? Finlay versus JBL? Give me a break. Nobody cared about that match. Many of the matches didn't have a proper build, but on top of that, the ones that were being built up were mostly consisting of the same exact promos in an absolute bore of repetitiveness. How many times did we have to sit through the same exact Mayweather footage? It got to the point where I didn't want to see the match because I just got so tired of him in general. Couple that with the fact that they probably expected outsiders to buy the ppv to see it, but they wouldn't because of the high cost...trend is starting here.

Wrestlemania was fun to watch, but it wasn't being promoted as something that would be worthy of that much money being pissed away, especially when there are free streams, live updates, YouTube the next day, and full results with some footage within 24 hours on Raw. If they'd have even kept the buy rate at 40 bucks it probably would've made a lot more than it did.

 

[klunderbunker]

I agree with just about everything said so far. The price to me is the main thing that's holding it down. I like someone else already said, remember this being 30 dollars at one point. Now it's what, 50? That's just too much to pay when it'll be on youtube the next day. I'd actually consider paying the 30, and I haven't gotten a ppv in years. The other issue simply was the booking and the show itself. The biggest problem I see is that the main event was HHH, Cena and Orton for the WWE title. A 3 way dance just doesn't do it for me. Backlash was a 4-way, so if you look at it like that, Backlash was above Wrestlemania as there were more people involved? A Wrestlemania featured match should usuallly be a one on one match up. The perfect match could have been Cena vs. Orton in the climax of their feud, but this was rushed up for NWO. To me that's the main things, the price, and more importanly just a lack of a big match.

 

[Slyfox696]

All the people who say that this buy rate is terrible, must be out of their minds. This PPV possibly grossed more money than any other PPV in wrestling history.

Keeping in mind that this is just the original figure, 1,058,000 buys at a price of $54.95 comes to a total of $58,137,100 dollars. Compared to last year, Wrestlemania 23 did $59,340,000.

"OMG! Slyfox," you might say, "that clearly shows that WM 23 did more money than this year~LOL". And you'd be right. That is more money. Congratulations to you for passing 2nd grade. However...remember that the price for Wrestlemania in High Definition was $69.95.

Let's say for a moment that 20% of the Wrestlemania buys were in HD. This may be a high number, but let's just say for now. Adding the $69.95 buyers, and subtracting 20% of the $54.95 buyers, we're left with an additional $3,174,000 in gross revenue. Add that to the previous number and the final total is $61,311,100.

Which is more than WM 23.


Now, I don't know the number of HD buyers, but it is easy to see that it is possible that WM 24 drew more gross revenue.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

yea except for, it wasnt 69.95 for HD. I purchased it in HD, and it was 55$. Im not sure were the hell everyone is pulling this 70$ price tag down from, besides the WZ news site. Of everyone ive asked, the most expensive was direct TV, at 64.95$. So you would have to actually find the actual rates for every cable company in America to be able to prove your theory Sly.

 

[justinsayne]

I think we also need to wait for the DVD sales on this, I'm sure WM 24 will do decent on DVD, I think the biggest reason WM didn't have as many buyrates this year was because the card looked predictable, I sure everybody saw it and said "fuck that I already know what's gonna happen, why should I shell out $55 to see that", of course WWE kinda surprised people by changing things up a bit and not doing what people were expecting

And I think what Sly is saying is that it's not about the total number of buyrates, it's about the total revenue generated, and $58 million is by no means the flop everybody is making it out to be

 

[The Dungeon]

Well I'm guessing with the appearance of Mayweather, Vince was expecting a lot more. I think price has something to do with it, but it's a lot more than that!

Lets face it people, Mayweather is the most famous boxer in the sport, but I can see why he didn't generate the interest Trump did last year. Mayweather's fights do the best business for boxing these days, but it's also in large part to who he's facing!

Do I think brining Mayweather in was smart? Absoloutely! But did I think it was going to generate as much interest as last year? No I didn't.

But to say the buyrate is shit, isn't fair! Yes, it was below expectations, but I'm sure Vinny Mac is crying his way to the bank, it was still a really succesful show in the grand scheme of things. Wrestlemania always seems to be.

 

[Danmen001]

All the people who say that this buy rate is terrible, must be out of their minds. This PPV possibly grossed more money than any other PPV in wrestling history.

To be fair, would it hurt to wait until the final figures come out. Then again I like playing the guessing game too, so meh.

Keeping in mind that this is just the original figure, 1,058,000 buys at a price of $54.95 comes to a total of $58,137,100 dollars. Compared to last year, Wrestlemania 23 did $59,340,000.

The original figure, so we don't know for sure. But, yeah you are right here in 'theory'.

"OMG! Slyfox," you might say, "that clearly shows that WM 23 did more money than this year~LOL". And you'd be right. That is more money. Congratulations to you for passing 2nd grade. However...remember that the price for Wrestlemania in High Definition was $69.95.

I don't think a grade 2'er could figure those high numbers out so quickly, but thats beside the point lol. So by your theory 23 did higher revenues. Fair enough, but we are still remembering that some buys are in HD, although that $70, is apparantly not true.

Let's say for a moment that 20% of the Wrestlemania buys were in HD. This may be a high number, but let's just say for now. Adding the $69.95 buyers, and subtracting 20% of the $54.95 buyers, we're left with an additional $3,174,000 in gross revenue. Add that to the previous number and the final total is $61,311,100.

When estimating figures of a business, it is usually best to go worst case scenario. Buys in other countries like Australia for instance can cost as low as $6. (Which is good news for me.) Then your theory is fair enough, but I think you are looking too much into the best case scenario.

Which is more than WM 23.


Now, I don't know the number of HD buyers, but it is easy to see that it is possible that WM 24 drew more gross revenue.

I won't be convinced until I see the final figures, but I think your generally right.