IF it's legit, I suppose you might have to look at it from the perspective of how much money ROH is making for Sinclair. That's not public information so there's no way of knowing for certain exactly how successful ROH is. My guess is that in terms of revenue, ROH isn't setting the world on fire; I've read reports stating that New Japan's revenue is in the mid $20 million range and New Japan's a lot bigger than ROH, so it's not at all impractical to consider the possibility that ROH only brings in a fraction of that. As I said in a different thread, when it comes to revenue, WWE may very well pull in more money in a 5 day tour of Australia or the UK than Ring of Honor brings in for the entire year.
ROH isn't really competition for NXT when it comes to how many people watch. ROH is syndicated, so it airs on different days & times in different markets. With NXT, you can watch it at your own convenience if something happens to where you can't watch it on Wednesday nights or if you simply prefer to watch it another time during the week. Again, IF this is legit and the deal does go through, then WWE has to decide what to do in terms of content. Ring of Honor is a company who's key audience is made up of internet fans, or the "IWC" as some like to say; the style of ROH matches is that they usually work a relentlessly quick pace that, a good deal of the time, results in a good deal less selling & storytelling and quite a few heavily choreographed spots, especially tag team matches. WWE may want to keep that formula as a means of keeping ROH an alternative or, and this is very true when it comes to Vince, he may decide that he wants it to be more like WWE which, in my opinion, may make purchasing the company a bit of a waste.
Other things to consider are what they'd be doing in regards to ROH ppvs and its working relationship with New Japan.
Yeah, these are things that'll only be revealed as time goes by and if the deal, if this report is legit, goes through. ROH has a roster of like 50 or so when you include male and female wrestlers and a lot of these wrestlers work other indy shows as well. If WWE purchases ROH, that'll almost certainly come to an end and my guess is that there'll be some significant cuts to the roster. ROH, like NXT, could become another separate WWE brand and, frankly, I've little doubt that ROH shows under a WWE banner would draw much bigger than usual crowds.
In the long run, this could also be part of a strategy in which WWE eventually initiates different price settings for the network. Everything is $10 right now but as more content becomes available including if WWE comes to agreements with other indy companies both here and in the UK to air their programs on the network, the eventual TV show taped in the UK centered around the UK Championship, the additional few thousand hours of content with the ROH tape library and weekly ROH shows on the network, then different price packages are probably a thing of the future.
