Wrestling Business May Change

[akrassikauda]

The most unlikely ally the wrestling business has right now is Dr. Phil

Today Dr. Phil McGraw has filed suit against Gawker Media(Deadspin) on the grounds that Gawker hurt his shows ratings by spoiling a highly anticipated interview with hoaxer in the Manti Te'o story here's the link.
http://gawker.com/dr-phil-lawsuit-blames-deadspin-for-his-ratings-succes-494422539

What does this have to do with wrestling?

McGraw is claiming that because Deadspin showed footage,audio or text about an upcoming episode of his show Deadspin took away viewers and recieved an added bump in page hits about the topic and guest on his show. Sound familiar.

The wrestling business has for long hated spoilers because some believe that it hurts ratings and why watch when you already know what happened. This is what McGraw is claiming happened to his show. If he can prove that harm was done to his product,Vince will be salivating at the oportunity to take a big part of wrestling websites like WZ away from their followers which would mean NO MORE SPOILERS.

The US justice system sometimes can be a coin flip so right now it's 50/50 IMO. I think if McGraw wins it will have a trickle down effect in the entire entertainment industry particularly wrestling.

What are your opinions on this lawsuit and will it change wrestling news back to the days before the internet explosion will the business have go back to the hotline days.

 

[ABMorales787]

I really doubt it'll do much. From WWE, Raw is live and they have little interest on Smackdown and even less for Main Event and Saturday Morning Slam. So going through legal issue for a small consolation sounds more like a waste of time.

As for TNA, it's the whole reason they were live last year and have one live show and a taped one. They're working for full live shows and because they want to eliminate the stigma of spoilers.

But in the end, spoilers don't really equal much harm to wrestling. Hell, one of WWE's biggest rating successes was because of a spoiler. When Tony Schiavone announced Mankind would win the WWF Championship.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The issue here is that WWE itself has used spoilers on occasion to spike a rating or to even "turn the tide" of the Monday Night Wars. So it would be hard for them to prove material damage to their business from spoilers. The sheets would come out in force to defend the action in terms of free speech and also that WWE themselves have been complicit in releasing info when it suits them. There were always spoilers, in the old days if you saw the match on a house show you knew how it was turning out on the PPV.

A casual fan is only gonna care about spoilers if it's a big return, and if it leaks it'll still spike the rating. Wrestling is a pretty generic product that has a certain number of outcomes - it isn't a twist laden drama.

For a show like Dr. Phil, spoilers could be damaging but since the dawn of the taped TV era some spoilers have been present.

If WWE was ever serious about this kind of thing then they'd hunt down the people who give the info to the sheets but by doing that shut down a crucial part of spreading word of mouth about their product and can you imagine the defense "Do you attribute the turning point in your ratings war to be when the competition spoiled a title win on your show? (Foley)" and they'd have to say yes, it was positive for them... no leg to stand on.