WWE PPV results for 2009 are their worst ever

[Tastycles]

So, the WWE announced their fourth quarter results today, which means that the results for the year are in and they are bad. Assuming everyone paid the US retail price, they earned $182million through PPV, their worst return since 2004, but more distressingly the average PPV draw was just over 300,000, which makes it their worst year since they floated on the stock market.

Here are the results:

Royal Rumble 450,000
No Way Out 272,000
Wrestlemania 960,000
Backlash 182,000
Judgment Day 228,000
Extreme Rules 213,000
The Bash 178,000
Night of Champions 267,000
Summerslam 369,000
Breaking Point 169,000
Hell in a Cell 283,000
Bragging Rights 181,000
Survivor Series 235,000
TLC 228,000

There are two interesting quirks in the results though. The first is that all four of the big 4 lost over 80,000 buys, which is apalling. The second is a silver lining for the company, in that three of their four new gimmicky PPVs - Hell in a Cell, Bragging Rights and TLC - built on the equivalent audience from the year before. Extreme Rules was the fourth PPV that made viewers from 2008, and Night of Champions had almost exactly the same number of buyers. Breaking Point lost viewers on Unforgiven, but Unforgiven 2008 was a gimmick PPV with the Scramble matches.

So, this information poses a few questsions; namely:

1) Why was 2009 such a shit year for WWE in the PPV market?

2) Why were the big 4 bad draws in 2009?

3) Do these results prove that gimmick PPVs are draws?

4) Any other business?

 

[AnthonyM4]

1) I just think that the ppvs are too much damn money! The product is a joke and they expect people to pay to watch it($45 no less)? I'm glad the numbers are low and if the product remains like it is then I hope they keep going down.

2) Other than wrestlemania, the other 3 of the big 4 seem like just another ppv. They aren't special at all. For Summerslam they should have tried to get Shaq to wrestle the Big Show, that would have equaled buyrates. Oh and it didn't help that the main event was Orton vs Cena 1,000!

3) A lot of people hate the gimmick ppvs, but I don't think they are a bad idea. People used to say that Backlash and Judgement day were glorified raws and smackdowns. I think ppvs having a specialty match or two in them makes it better, but I hope this means that these matches will only happen on the ppvs. No Hell in a Cell matches on free tv! Just once a year on ppv in October.

I don't know what you mean by the 4th question, but if I did, I would give a thorough answer for sure

 

[RKOChamp]

1) I think it was a bad year because of the product. To me, it seemed like the PPV were alot of the same matches over and over, lots of roll over feuds.

2) Agree with Anthony, other than WM, none of the big PPVs seemed special.

3) I dont think it would be fair to say that the gimmick PPV works or not after one try for each.

4) Alot of people slam the product as being the reason the buy rates are down, but does it not occur to anyone that the economy could be a reason as well. Alot of people dont have extra money to spend and may only buy one or two of the PPVs rather than say 5 or 6. I know a family that usually would buy every PPV of the year, no matter the card. But last year they didnt order a few, because they were a little tight and couldnt justify buying it.

 

[psykohurricane]

1) Why was 2009 such a shit year for WWE in the PPV market?

Probably having to many PPV's had something to do with it plus the fact that the 3 weeks intervals between most of the PPV's didn'T help the build-up of these PPV's. Look at the results of the first 3 PPV, sure they drop from last years but compare to the rest of the year, they have pretty great numbers and that's because the wwe had time to build-up some of the feuds and peoples were interested in buying them. Also you got to consider that some wrestling would rather not pay for a PPV and watch it on the computer for free the next day instead of paying for it and watching it on tv.

2) Why were the big 4 bad draws in 2009?

I would'nt say they were bad draws, sure they drop a litte bit from last year but still outside of survivor series, which took a big drop in sells, the other did'nt do so badly. Royal Rumble is the third most bought PPV in 2009, Wrestlemania even with the lame card did pretty well and at 54,95 for the normal broadcast and 64,95 for the hd broadcast, it made them a lot of money. Summerslam did pretty well consisdering the main event was c.m punk vs jeff hardy. Survivor series did tank again this year that they decided to cancel it this year. So 3 out four did pretty well even if they drop.

3) Do these results prove that gimmick PPVs are draws?

Not really because if you look at the numbers out of there four new PPV's 2 of them made oveer 200 000 buys and 2 didn't. It just prove that certain gimmick work more then others. The real test will come this year when the number for Bragging Rights, Hell in a cell and TLC comes. Sadly,Bragging Point will not come back this year so i guess at less one gimmick ppv fail miserably.

4) Any other business?

Sadly, if you look at the PPV calender for the year 2010, just with wrestling along you got at less 40 PPV's on the schedule. WWE got 13 PPV unless the don't replace Survivor series with something else, TNA got 12, and the rest is seperate between Dragon gate's usa, Evolve and Woman'S erotic wrestling. So for a wrestling fan, that's a lot of wrestling PPV's during the year to choose from. That not even counting the MMA PPV'S and Boxing PPV'S. So sure PPV's buy are bad for the WWE, look how the build-up that some of the event had. For exemple look at survivor series, with the build-up the both main event have gotten, did i made you want to pay 39,95$ to see the event or would you rather wait and see it for free on the internet?

PPV's buys will always be down, especially for wrestling because a lot of the fans are internet savy and knows that there is a way to see these events for free, so if a show doesn'T look interesting enough to spend money on, they will just wait and watch it the next day. The solution would be to cut down on PPV's to be able to get more build-up time between ppv's but that never going to happen because they would probably lose a lot of money by doing that move. But that something to think about that instead of 3 weeks interval between PPV's maybe have 6 weeks between them that way you get more time to build some of the feuds up and create interest.

 

[Phoenix]

1) Why was 2009 such a shit year for WWE in the PPV market?

Firstly the main reason would be, the economy. The World is still in a bad state and not everyone is going to be buying PPVs when they want to be holding onto their savings. When 2009 started, we had only just been 5 months into the recession beginning, so that would be a first starter.

Second reason would be that the cards/concepts were not draws as they should be. Many complained that Wrestlemania was only decent for the Undertaker/HBK match and I think many were questioning whether to buy the PPV as the whole card seemed pretty poor on paper. Breaking Point was the worst for buys this year because the submission based matches were not popular due to a lack of superstars who don't use their finishers. Backlash suffered because people weren't interested in the matches because Wrestlemania didn't deliver as well as it should.

Third, too many PPVs on the card, some within the same month, for example Extreme Rules and The Bash were too close together, Extreme Rules did pretty well for buys, but The Bash was second bottom on buys. Same with HIAC and Bragging Rights, the earlier PPV had better buys while the latter had poor one dues to the fact that the second one came three weeks later.

Lastly, the rise in Streaming. Streaming has been a big thing of the past number of years, but no matter where you go, places that stream PPVs have about 200,000 (or more) streaming the PPVs all over the world. While WWE tries to cut down on them, people are getting more resourceful to getting their PPVs illegally.

So it's down to these elements, the economy, poor cards/booking, too many PPVs and streaming.

2) Why were the big 4 bad draws in 2009?

Again, the only reason is because of the economy and poor bookings. Less than half the people who brought Wrestlemania brought the Royal Rumble, which was the second highest for buys. Survivor Series suffered because they had no build and threw what they could yet Rumble, Mania and Summerslam had about 6-7 weeks of build. People probably didn't buy the Rumble because they couldn't afford it, they knew the winner already and the rest of the card was one that didn't interest them. Mania was the same, most of the matches were not watchable except for Taker/HBK. Summerslam was a different story, though 2008 was a better again, also given you had the World Champion Jeff Hardy leaving, people probably weren't up for seeing it when the result appeared predictable again.

3) Do these results prove that gimmick PPVs are draws?

Well here is the top 7 PPVs out of 14

1. Wrestlemania 960,000
2. Royal Rumble 450,000
3. Summerslam 369,000
4. Hell in a Cell 283,000
5. No Way Out 272,000
6. Night of Champions 267,000
7. Survivor Series 235,000

Only one of them was a new PPV that came in this year and proved that HIAC is a draw as a match because people love that match. But No Way Out was the same as the previous year, as was Night of Champions and the remainder are the Big Four. But as excluding Rumble and SS, 3 out of the 7 are gimmick PPVs that are newer in the stable, while 2 have been around a while, only one of the newer ones succeeded better than the others and even was 4th best for buys all year. So the newer PPVs seem hit and miss. Lets look at the bottom end.

1. Breaking Point 169,000
2. The Bash 178,000
3. Bragging Rights 181,000
4. Backlash 182,000
5. Extreme Rules 213,000
6. TLC 228,000
7. Judgment Day 228,000

Two of the bottom three are newer PPVs (unless you count the renaming of the Bash as well). It just shows that gimmick PPVs are hit and miss because of the simple fact that the bottom one now doesn't exist.

I think Vince does need to go back to the drawing board a bit in regards to the newer PPVs really.

4) Any other business?

Aside from the forementioned economy, poor booking, too many PPVs and streaming, naturally competition is the other key factor. Despite TNA's coverage increasing in 2010, they had some heavy advertising this year, Bound For Glory got interest because it was meant to be Sting's retirement and that was during October, where HIAC and Bragging Rights came in, so people need to spend money somewhere really. UFC has been on fire this year, definitely the hot topic and top promotion of the year, so the "real thing" gains more interest.

While the PPV buys have been poor, a lot has been against WWE this year, out of the five elements I named for their problems with buys, three of them are beyond their control and they can't do much to stop it. They seem to be picking up from their mistakes now and dropping a PPV or two which will be a benefit. The main key thing is now is to try and keep PPVs decently apart and provide enough for people to buy them rather than stream, the other element is TNA, while UFC are still doing well, TNA are trying to step up their game, but given how they're going so far, it does feel like WWE won't be under too much threat. So while it is a bad year, given what was against them, they should feel some positives about it.

 

[Kliq]

I love that Breaking Point was their lowest. Hopefully that will teach them a lesson. Furthermore, this is what happens when you target your product to kids. No parent is going to pay $50+ so their kid can watch wrestling. I really think they've made a mistake here.

 

[Tastycles]

Well here is the top 7 PPVs out of 14

1. Wrestlemania 960,000
2. Royal Rumble 450,000
3. Summerslam 369,000
4. Hell in a Cell 283,000
5. No Way Out 272,000
6. Night of Champions 267,000
7. Survivor Series 235,000

Only one of them was a new PPV that came in this year and proved that HIAC is a draw as a match because people love that match. But No Way Out was the same as the previous year, as was Night of Champions and the remainder are the Big Four. But as excluding Rumble and SS, 3 out of the 7 are gimmick PPVs that are newer in the stable, while 2 have been around a while, only one of the newer ones succeeded better than the others and even was 4th best for buys all year. So the newer PPVs seem hit and miss. Lets look at the bottom end.

1. Breaking Point 169,000
2. The Bash 178,000
3. Bragging Rights 181,000
4. Backlash 182,000
5. Extreme Rules 213,000
6. TLC 228,000
7. Judgment Day 228,000

Two of the bottom three are newer PPVs (unless you count the renaming of the Bash as well). It just shows that gimmick PPVs are hit and miss because of the simple fact that the bottom one now doesn't exist.

I think Vince does need to go back to the drawing board a bit in regards to the newer PPVs really.

Your post has raised a lot of interesting points, but unfortunately I don't have the time to get into them all. I would just say this though, while the raw numbers aren't there for the new gimmicky PPVs, they are all in poor performing slots. Bragging Rights is three weeks after the previous PPV, and it outdrew its predecessor Cyber Sunday by 20%. TLC comes at an unpopular time of the year when nobody has any money, and it managed another roughly 20% increase on Armageddon. Breaking Point was the only one that performed worse than it's predecessor in real terms.

In short, there were 7 gimmick PPVs - No Way Out, Extreme Rules, Night of Champions, Breaking Point, Hell in a Cell, Bragging Rights & TLC. 4 of them did better than the equivalent PPV the year before, NoC had a negligable change, and while Breaking Point and NWO were down, there were gimmicked PPVs in their spots the year before.

There were 7 non-gimmick PPVs, and they were all down on the previous year in the same slot.

 

[blackmetalbuick]

PPVs should be 20 bucks. I'd order every single one instead of finding alternative ways to watch or find out the results. Cut the price in half and you'll probably double the amount of viewers. There's a lot more important things to do with $45 in today's economy, especially when you can just watch Raw the next night and get an idea of what happened.

WWE just seems to be grasping at straws lately, all these reports lately about changing PPV names, asking fans for new gimmick ideas, etc. The problem is simple, charging a lot for a product that sucks. We're seeing the same main event feuds over and over. A few young guys are getting a chance to rise a few steps on the ladder but they need to do that more often.

Overall I'm glad the numbers are reporting a bad year for them, because that's exactly what they deserve. In all the years I've watched wrestling I have never cared less than I do now. For a while SmackDown was a really great show and I was able to enjoy that, but even that has gone down hill.

 

[theHeadliner]

There are a lot of factors that fall into this. First, there are too many PPVs, and with the economy like it is, the casual fan simply can't afford to pay for all of them, I being one of them. Second, the product is stale and repetitive. Only in the last few weeks has RAW intrigued me to wonder what's going to happen next. They have been recycling matches and story lines a lot over the last year or 2. People can blame the PG rating, but if the product was more interesting and exciting from an overall standpoint then it shouldn't matter what the rating is. The WWE has seemed like a generic form of itself, with the new superstars having barely any personality to the angles. Its like the WWE is existing just to exist and to show the fact that they are the big bad monopoly and no matter what they do they will still have fans.

 

[Ghost of Benoit]

You also have to keep in mind that in today's modern age of technology many and i mean MANY people now watch ppvs all over the world FOR FREE via internet streaming sites like justin tv, rage streams, kgs tv and many many more. Also, many people especially from what I understand go to sports bars to watch these PPVS. You may have about 50-100 people at a Barnacles Grill in Norcross, GA there to watch a PPV, but it only counts as ONE BUY.

It's not like 10 years ago when you actually had to buy a PPV or have an illegal black box to watch. Times have changed. So these PPV buyrates, are COMPLETELY SKEWED and I wouldn't pay much attention to them at all.

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

Should this honestly come as a big shock to anyone?


A) The product is absolutely stale and utterly horrendous

B) He tries to let feuds go on for 3-4 months, and wants people to pay $45 a month to see the same matches 3-4 months in a row. Different stipulations isn't necessarily a good enough selling point.

C) We've seen the same matches on his PPV's done for 5 years now

D) He raises the prices by $5 additional from $40 - $45

E) And he is still trying to do more than a PPV a month on 2 months, by having a total of 14 events on a yearly basis

F) He gives the same matches away for free on weekly TV that he has on the PPV

G) There is not enough time from one PPV to the next to properly build up PPV matches

H) The economy is still in the process of recovering



And after all that, people are in disbelief that his number of PPV buys in 2009 were awful?

Unbelievable. None of this is anything new that hasn't been covered before. Hell, we talk about it on a daily basis on here.

Apparently, though, WWE is very happy and feel their gimmick PPV's are a draw. I think they are definitely more interesting than the regular B PPV shows filled with whatever. So I think the themed PPV's are a much better strategy, as at least they offer something unique unlike the B PPV's, which are often just repeat matches from the month prior.

Even though it's the same wrestlers feuding, at least there is a theme to it. Although for many people, this may not be enough.

Tastycles, all of those questions should be answered in my comments above. The same reason the Big 4 PPV's was down, was the same reason the other PPV's were down.

Plain and simply:

- The product is stale and awful

- There are too many PPV's

- The PPV's cost too damn much money

 

[twentytwo]

The product is stale and awful...?

Sure it is.

The numbers are down for two reasons and two reasons only. The economy number one, by far.

Number two is the streaming. That's the new thing with kids, plain and simple.

The WWE still makes TONS of money. Some people here are acting like the WWE is supposed to be killing it in this economy where people are foreclosing on thier houses by the hundreds of thousands a month across the country, while remaining unemployed.

Look...hate on Vince all you want, but don't spin this into the WWE is a stale and awful product, because it's clearly not. They still pack all the shows, sells tons of merch, don't need *financial backing* to pay their wrestlers, and still make loads of cash on the PPV's.

It's one thing to just blindy hate - but to take your own personal opinion and try to spin it on why the PPV's are down a little, well, it makes you look like a fucking ******.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I think that the economy does play at least some part in it of course. Things are pretty tough all over right now and I'm sure there are some people that're pinching their pennies pretty hard. There are a lot of people that really don't have $40 or $50 to spend on a wrestling ppv.

Another problem I think is that the WWE was pretty lazy in the first half of 2009. Everything in the first half of the year was just the same old same old, the same old matches we always saw featuring the same people. The main event scene was drab overall, there seemed to be absolutely no new stars on the horizon and the WWE was focusing on things other than wrestling. For instance, Kid Rock put on a 20+ minute concert and WrestleMania while a Unified WWE Tag Team Championship match was a dark match.

Creatively, the WWE was not at its best in the first half of 2009. Let's face it, there were a lot of times during 2009 that WWE Creative was just plain lazy. However, it did start to improve in the second half of the year and things, at least to me, seem to have picked up and improved considerably over the course of the past few months. I was anticipating the Royal Rumble more than any ppv that's been on in a long time, probably all the shows of last year included. Raw was and is the WWE for a lot of the WWE's audience. For some of them, it's the only wrestling show they watch and what they saw of Raw throughout at least half of 2009 was a wrestling show that put cornball comedy skits that not only brought nothing to the show but had no point whatsoever, sometimes had very very little actual wrestling content, featured the same people in the main event wrestling the same matches, there were no new stars being built on Raw and there didn't seem to be any on the horizon.

 

[Travaje]

I believe, that if the product was really, really good, and the WWE was at their absolute peak, that the numbers would be the same, maybe slightly better....but SLIGHTLY. I have to believe that the UFC, as popular as it is, is experiencing a lot of the same problems. Their last PPV, while better than WWE's numbers for most of these PPV's, probably didn't draw the way they wanted it to and from what I understand, Dana White didn't expect it to draw very well.

I think the day of the PPV is coming to an end. It's time for the WWE to come up with a different way to generate revenue, and if they depend on that PPV money to survive, they just might not.

 

[Zeedeevel]

The other reason they were down is because with this economy u have a lot more ppl gathering in one place and splitting the cost of an event. We had 25 ppl at a house for the royal rumble this year and about 15 of them had ordered it last year. That is a loss of 14 buys. This just happened in my town that i know about but I'm sure it happened many other places. You figure if 1000 of these happen all across america which is highly possible, thats 14,000 buys lost. Factor that in with all the streaming and people who just cant afford it and I'm sure you can make up the numbers

 

[pessimism101]

I'll keep my responses brief and to the point

So, this information poses a few questsions; namely:

Q1) Why was 2009 such a shit year for WWE in the PPV market?

Q2) Why were the big 4 bad draws in 2009?

Q3) Do these results prove that gimmick PPVs are draws?

Q4) Any other business?

A1) It's already been said, but WWE has way too many pay-per-views annually. As if that's not bad enough, most of the PPV's feature the same matches that have been done a million times over, including on free tv. WWE tried to mask this issue by creating gimmick PPV's, but I'll have more on that later. A bombardment of a stale and predictible product is ultimately the cause for this. (The PG rating thing most likely is a big factor as well.)

A2) I'm going to contribute the top 4 being bad draws to two key reasons. 1) The state of the economy; 2) the hideously high price tag for these events. This, in addition to my answer to question 1, is what I believe to be the reasons.

A3) No, these results do NOT prove that gimmick PPV's are good draws. The main reason being, people will be willing to check them out once to see how it goes, but I would bet that those same people wouldn't be so inclined for the second, third, fourth, etc installments. There's nothing really new to offer customers except for different participants. In addition, the buyers saw how "TV-PG" has affected some of these matches and that could turn them off in the future.

A4) Plain and simple, WWE needs to cut their PPV's from what they have now to 8/annum. January: Royal Rumble (both brands); March: Wrestlemania (both brands); April/May: Raw/Smackdown exclusive PPV's; July: Night of Champions (both brands); August: SummerSlam (both brands); October/November: Raw/Smackdown exlusive PPV's. NOTE: This excludes NXT. I believe that going to this format could prove profitable.

 

[Ambiguous Turd]

The product is stale and awful...?

Sure it is.

The numbers are down for two reasons and two reasons only. The economy number one, by far.

Number two is the streaming. That's the new thing with kids, plain and simple.

The WWE still makes TONS of money. Some people here are acting like the WWE is supposed to be killing it in this economy where people are foreclosing on thier houses by the hundreds of thousands a month across the country, while remaining unemployed.

Look...hate on Vince all you want, but don't spin this into the WWE is a stale and awful product, because it's clearly not. They still pack all the shows, sells tons of merch, don't need *financial backing* to pay their wrestlers, and still make loads of cash on the PPV's.

It's one thing to just blindy hate - but to take your own personal opinion and try to spin it on why the PPV's are down a little, well, it makes you look like a fucking ******.

Yes, you heard me correctly, dumbass. I said the WWE product is stale and yes, it is horrendous. And yes, that played a part in the buyrates being down.

And no that isn't blind hate. Quit being a fucking loyalist mark and start telling it like it is ... like you see others on here besides myself doing.

The two main event triple threat matches that had absolutely zero build to them, and trying to do shit like that which nobody cares about only 3 weeks after the last PPV was a horrendous decision.

If the streaming was the end-all, be-all issue like you claim it is, then why is Vince not necessarily upset at the other PPV broadcasts, and why just this one in particular is he ending?

Evidently, not even Vince agrees with you that the streams and the economy were the primary issues because if he did, then he wouldn't eliminate Survivor Series, altogether.

I'll tell you one thing, when you are new, you need to learn some fucking manners around here when you address people.

 

[emerald phoenix]

I believe, that if the product was really, really good, and the WWE was at their absolute peak, that the numbers would be the same, maybe slightly better....but SLIGHTLY. I have to believe that the UFC, as popular as it is, is experiencing a lot of the same problems. Their last PPV, while better than WWE's numbers for most of these PPV's, probably didn't draw the way they wanted it to and from what I understand, Dana White didn't expect it to draw very well.

I think the day of the PPV is coming to an end. It's time for the WWE to come up with a different way to generate revenue, and if they depend on that PPV money to survive, they just might not.

ding ding ding ding... we have a winner, well sort of..ill explain....... the reason why wwe's ppv's are down is bc of mma......wrestling fans like it or not mma is here to stay and their literally taking the wrestling fans with them. the older fans are growing out of wrestling and making the switch(i see it everyday on mma forums)........ most people cant afford 2 44.95 ppvs a month and numbers r showing ppl are choosing mma over wrestling. pretty much every ufc card beats the 09 wwes cards except wm their biggest show....even then ufc had about 4-5 ppvs that did that number or more...ufcs biggest card last year did 1.7 million.. almost double of WM. Lesnar , liddell,gsp, penn are all guareenteed 700k+ ppv buys...... you say ufc is struggling but there really not....whats happen is ufc 106-109 has suffered from injuries and this has made less intrest in buying, people will wait to see it on the web or go to a bar......starting with ufc110 the cards will pick up with atleast ufc110-114 to be high numbers in ppv bc there all huge headliners......... this is why wrestling buys r down

vinces own son left the company to buy into zuffa....... which likely wont happen now as the shiek of abu daubi has bought 10 percent in zuffa...... this makes it 40/40(the brothers) 10 dana white, 10 shiek........shane wont be able to buy into the company he will have to settle for just working for them if he decides....

to ghost of benoit:

yes people go to bars to watch wwe,ufc,boxing but your wrong about the buys....its not 1 buy per bar......bars have to pay a certain amount according to the maximium amount of capacity.......there paying ALOT more than 44.95......if anything bars are INCREASING the buys. due to the fact bars r getting charged there holding capacity so each person counts as a buy

Royal Rumble 450,000
No Way Out 272,000
Wrestlemania
960,000
Backlash 182,000
Judgment Day 228,000
Extreme Rules 213,000
The Bash 178,000
Night of Champions 267,000
Summerslam 369,000
Breaking Point 169,000
Hell in a Cell 283,000
Bragging Rights 181,000
Survivor Series 235,000
TLC 228,000

after doing research ufcs 2 lowest cards this past year 2009- last month , pulled in 375,000 and 300,000 which would put them over every wwe ppv cept the now big 3 ......these cards were highly unsuccessful due to injuries and last minute swaps....ufc 106(375k) had lesnar pull out last minute which dropped peoples intrest........ ufcs next lowest was ufc 104 which say vitor vs franklin which still did around 450k....this ppv was hurt by being on the same night at mayweather who pulled 1 mill in ppv(which both mma and boxing fans that did order afterwards said they regret ordering mayweather and wished they ordered the ufc card)

 

[Dagger Dias]

I'm not really surprised that the PPV buys were so bad. 2009 was a terrible year for WWE PPV's.... I watched all of them (either ordered them or looked up matches online later on) and most of them were bad. Wrestlemania was great. Rumble, Summerslam, Night of Champions, Bragging Rights, and TLC were good.... the rest weren't great, over half of the PPV's. There are a lot of issues that could have led to the year being so bad for PPV buys. Streams, bad storylines, similar matches on one show then the next, product becoming stale, bad "themes", people not being able to afford to order every show, and the fact that 14 a year is too many. All of these are reasons why the year was bad for WWE PPV's.

The big 4 shouldn't be bad draws, they are referred to as "The Big 4" for a reason. Royal Rumble often gets ordered for the Rumble match itself but then we have been getting bad feuds for the world titles like Cena VS JBL or Taker VS Rey. Wrestlemania wasn't a bad draw this year, it has been doing 900,000+ for a few years now. Summerslam was good, but I don't know why it didn't do as well as it usually does. I honestly liked it and the only thing I would have changed was to include a divas match. With all the name changes coming to PPV's and Piven's infamous mistake, maybe some of the newer fans didn't buy it because they were too busy looking for "Summerfest" lol.... in all seriousness though, I have no idea why Summerslam's buys were lower this year because other than the Edge/Taker match, this year's card was a lot better than last year's. Survivor Series.... they keep randomly putting teams together. What do they do, bring up the WWE roster as a list and use a random number generator to form the teams? The random teams and bad feuds for the world titles are why Survivor Series did bad.

The gimmick PPV's aren't exactly bad draws.... they are hit and miss. Some themes appeal to some fans, while other themes appeal to others. For example, I thought Bragging Rights was awesome, others might disagree with me. Breaking Point deserves the lowest buyrate for this year and I'm not surprised. They advertise a submissions show, and barely any matches were submissions matches. Not to mention the terrible fake screwjob. I have NO clue why Hell In a Cell did so well, as its card didn't appeal to me whatsoever. Bragging Rights and TLC were good though and I'd like to see them both become permanent shows.

Basically what it comes down to is that WWE is in a lose-lose situation. They have WAY too many PPV's but they for some reason "cannot afford to get rid of any". They keep feuds going on too long, make us pay for shows that are similar matches with a different gimmick to go along with that show's "theme". I've said it a few times before and most people would agree with me, that they need to drop most of the PPV's. One per month is the absolute most they should do, 14 a year is ridiculous. Less shows mean longer feuds, and longer feuds mean more fan interest in seeing the show! Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, and Wrestlemania should stay as they are.... then get rid of the summer shows other than Summerslam, and move Night of Champions to where Survivor Series was since it appears that Survivor Series has been ended. Maybe bring King of the Ring back (hey, we can dream right?). Suggestions like this are made all the time, but it seems WWE is intent on having far too many shows per year with most of them having the new "themes". Hopefully they will come to their senses at some point and reduce their shows to a reasonable number. No more than one per month, preferably less.