WWE to Fans: "Alright, we'll give you less PPV's. But it's gonna cost you more."

[Ambiguous Turd]

UPDATE:

The following was a post provided by Wrestlezone Poster Y-2-Jay in another thread merged with this one as it discusses the topic of WWE eliminating PPV events. Apparently, it is more than originally planned.

Just read the PPV line up for 2010 in the WWE magazine and here is how it will go

Royal Rumble: January 31st
Elimination Chamber: Febuary 21st
WrestleMania XXVI: March 28th
Backlash: April 25th
Extreme Rules: May 23rd
SummerSlam: August 15th
Night Of Champions: September 19th
Hell In A Cell: October 3rd
Bragging Rights: October 24th
Survivor Series: November 21st
TLC: December 19th


Notice the changes?


No more Judgement Day, The Bash and Breaking Point
Night Of Champions is now in September
Huge gap from Extreme Rules to SummerSlam

What do you think about the changes?

Well, it appears that WWE is hearing its customers say that there are entirely too many WWE PPV's on the schedule, so it appears that they are doing something about it.

But ... there's a catch ...


A WWE memo sent out to various Pay-Per-View providers reveals that World Wrestling Entertainment will be eliminating one of its June PPV events in 2010, bringing the annual total down to 13. While this does seem like a step in the right direction, WWE will be making up for that lost PPV revenue by increasing the suggested retail price of its other PPV events (excluding WrestleMania), by $5.00, to $44.95. According to the memo, this will be the first price increase for non-WrestleMania events since 2006. The suggested retail price for WrestleMania will remain $54.95.

So essentially what that means is that those who have been purchasing the PPV's regularly or semi-regularly will now see your PPV prices for all the other monthly shows raised by an additional $5 a month to $45. So by the time you are done paying taxes and other fees to your Cable provider, you will be paying well over $50 a show.

How angry are WWE PPV customers going to be at this latest turn of events? Big deal, or no Big Deal?

Here apparently, is a copy of the actual memo that got sent out:

As part of our ongoing efforts to maximize the WWE pay-per-view business, we have made several changes to our branding strategy in 2009. A key priority was to rename and retheme several of our events to better describe those pay-per-views and to build interest for our fans through new “hooks” and stronger themes.

In contemplating the future of the pay-per-view business, we would like to make you aware of two important changes we are making to our pay-per-view strategy in 2010.

1. WWE will increase the suggested retail price of its pay-per-view events (excluding WrestleMania), by $5.00, to $44.95. This change in the SRP shall become effective commencing with Royal Rumble, which will be held on January 31, 2010. This will be the first price increase for non-WrestleMania events since 2006. Please note that the SRP for WrestleMania will remain $54.95.

2. WWE is eliminating one of our June pay-per-view events (actually Judgment Day, although the July PPV is still unknown) therefore reducing the number of pay-per-view events in 2010 to 13 events. Please find the preliminary 2010 WWE pay-per-view event schedule below and attached.

The strategy of reducing our pay-per-view calendar to one event per month (except for October) achieves both creative and business objectives for WWE. It allows us to better develop compelling storylines and arcs in order to motivate our fans to purchase more pay-per-views. This change also allows for increased marketing windows for each event, during which we can more effectively communicate our sales message.

My opinion? People will still pay. A couple people will become frustrated and order less shows. A few may get angry enough to stop paying Vince for a majority of the shows, except Mania. But Vince's base will still pay. They simply can not say "No" to Vince McMahon or WWE.

However, in the very least, I may have to request some assistance from the "WWE Universe Fans" out there. We are probably going to need your PR expertise to put the positive PR "customer-friendly" spin on this situation, here.

 

[latinoheat8979]

I really miss the old days of the "big four" yearly pay-per-views. At that time it was a huge thing and normally it was worth the price. A PPV back then meant so much more than it does now as there's way too many on top of too much wrestling on tv that it takes away that "special feel" to a PPV.

Today we have way too many PPV's and in today's economy not everyone can afford another $44.95 plus tax a month. WWE taking out 1 PPV doesn't mean much to me as we still have over a years worth at 13.

From a business standpoint it's a smart decision by increasing each PPV by $5 but from a customer standpoint it's just more money I'd have to shell out. I think I'll just stick to ordering the main PPV's: Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Survivor Series and Summerslam (although I didn;t order the last 2 years of SS since I thought they were garbage.

 

[Fuel The Fire]

I may get the next 3 pay per views regardless the cost because they all lead up to wrestlemania. But compared to tna prices ..tna is cheaper so if i like what they are doing on tv i may switch to watching their ppvs just because its cheaper. But i really think that 5 bucks more is not that big of a deal to me because im financial ok. But some other people i dont know what will happened to them. I really dont think its the price is going to effect what is going on with the ppvs. Its more tna that is going to affect and if people like that show and want to see that ppv instead for the month they will switch. Because its like we have more of a choice now and if we like tna more down the road and they are cheaper then why not get tna instead. I think that is whats going to hurt vince more then anything.

 

[WWEWrestleFest]

I really miss the old days of the "big four" yearly pay-per-views. At that time it was a huge thing and normally it was worth the price. A PPV back then meant so much more than it does now as there's way too many on top of too much wrestling on tv that it takes away that "special feel" to a PPV.

Today we have way too many PPV's and in today's economy not everyone can afford another $44.95 plus tax a month. WWE taking out 1 PPV doesn't mean much to me as we still have over a years worth at 13.

i agree. less ppv's also mean longer storylines. i too miss the "big four." then when they added king of the ring and made it 5, it was still ok. but after that, it just got ridiculous. ppv's don't feel special, anymore. back in the day, once a month they'd have card's with great matches for free on network tv (saturday night's main event) those were the days..

 

[Bowzer]

I think they should cut WAY back on the number of PPV's a year, but just going to the "Big 4" again wouldn't work. Could you imagine how horrible the RAWs would be in the 4 1/2 months between WM and Summerslam? They wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

I would propose having the Royal Rumble in Jan where it is now, then do WM either the end of March or beginning of April. Have Backlash like the second week of May, then have a gimmick PPV of some sort at the end of June. Leave a 2 month gap and have Summerslam at the end of Aug, Night of Champions the second week of Oct and wrap up the year with Survivor Series the Sunday before Thanksgiving. That gives you 7 a year, with 8 week gaps between the big ones (SS-Rumble, Rumble-WM, June PPV-Summerslam), and approx 6 weeks between the rest. Plenty of time to build up storylines, but not so much time that they're just twiddling their thumbs for a month.

Although they've shown that with 6 or 7 weeks time between TLC and this years Rumble, they still haven't even started promoting it yet. With only 3 RAW's left, the only match that's been announced is the ECW title match between Christian and whoever wins the Homecoming thing. That's pretty bad, people

 

[noriah47]

I honestly can't see the increase in price working for what they are trying to accomplish. They just recently announced that Survivor Series had a (in the words of one website) "disastrously" low buyrate. Yes, they can do their best to eliminate "alternate" forms of being able to watch the pay-per-views, but their buyers are getting fewer. All that comes out of raising the rates will be fewer purchasers.

I'd love to see them go the other way- charge less for one of their key PPV's, and see what happens to the buyrate. I believe that they would get a much higher buyrate, and consequently a higher profit. Yes, lower income per purchaser, but that would be offset by a higher number of purchasers. And when you have more people seeing the product, and liking said product, then you will have more viewers willing to purchase the product being offered.

 

[Blade]

That's unfair to fans, fans that are already finding it hard to watch WWE PPV's at the moment, as shown by the Survivor Series buys. If WWE are going to increase the price of the PPV's, they should at least drop more than 1. When the brand exclusive PPV's stopped, they dropped a few, like New Years Revolution, which was a good idea. But we still have far too many PPV's around at the moment. They should be dropping more than one.

Here's what I'm proposing. Drop the PPV before each of the "big" PPVs, apart from Wrestlemania. WWE wants to build up buy rates for the big PPVs again? Make the build up longer, simple as. Get rid of TLC, Hell in a Cell, The Bash and Bragging Rights. Rearrange the PPV schedule so that there's 6 weeks of build up before the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Summerslam and Survivor Series. Make people care again.

From a financial standpoint, logically, WWE should gain. They increase the PPV prices but drop the amount of PPVs, thus breaking even. But they have the extra few weeks of build up, people are more interested and more people buy the PPVs, so WWE make a profit.

It's good for the audience and it's good for WWE. It should happen, but it won't.

 

[bsager20018]

WWE definatly needs to drop a lot of their PPV's. A lot of them this year were crap. TLC was fine but HIAC was dreadful and killed the match concept of it being a dangerous style of match. It was as bad as TNA's Lockdown ppv has become. Yet I do like some PPV concepts like Bragging Rights and Night of Champions. But the "Bragging Rights" gimmick of brand against brand could be carried over to the survivor series. Man I could go all night with this topic, but I'll make a list of events WWE should keep and why, and some new ones too.

Jan-Royal Rumble:For obvious reasons, got to love tradition
March/April-Wrestlemania: No ppvs before the big dance. Just build. Elimination chamber match is old and the wrestlers don't even use the gimmick. It's all kept in the ring now. Kinda like HIAC, But anyway...
June-Night of Champions: Like I said I enjoy this concept and has had some interesting matchs before.
August-Summerslam: The night after Night of Champions do a King of the Ring tournament to determine the #1 contender for summerslam. Both brands involved. I liked that concept when they did it in 2002.
Mid Sept./Early Oct.- Wargames: WWE really needs to add this great match concept into their product. The build could be great.
Thanksgiving day- Survivor Series: Add the elimant of Bragging rights into this. Traditional survivor series matches with Raw VS. Smackdown. A big finale survivors match at the end like they did in 1990. Maybe the elimination chamber match can be used for the main event, again like in 2002. Traditonally again on Thanksgiving like it used to be. Have some turkey and watch the original old school concept of Survivor Series.

Well that's my take. Whatcha think?

 

[bsager20018]

WWE definatly needs to drop a lot of their PPV's. A lot of them this year were crap. TLC was fine but HIAC was dreadful and killed the match concept of it being a dangerous style of match. It was as bad as TNA's Lockdown ppv has become. Yet I do like some PPV concepts like Bragging Rights and Night of Champions. But the "Bragging Rights" gimmick of brand against brand could be carried over to the survivor series. Man I could go all night with this topic, but I'll make a list of events WWE should keep and why, and some new ones too.

Jan-Royal Rumble:For obvious reasons, got to love tradition
March/April-Wrestlemania: No ppvs before the big dance. Just build. Elimination chamber match is old and the wrestlers don't even use the gimmick. It's all kept in the ring now. Kinda like HIAC, But anyway...
June-Night of Champions: Like I said I enjoy this concept and has had some interesting matchs before.
August-Summerslam: The night after Night of Champions do a King of the Ring tournament to determine the #1 contender for summerslam. Both brands involved. I liked that concept when they did it in 2002.
Mid Sept./Early Oct.- Wargames: WWE really needs to add this great match concept into their product. The build could be great.
Thanksgiving day- Survivor Series: Add the elimant of Bragging rights into this. Traditional survivor series matches with Raw VS. Smackdown. Maybe the elimination chamber match can be used for the main event, again like in 2002. Traditonally again on Thanksgiving like it used to be. Have some turkey and watch the original old school concept of Survivor Series.

Well that's my take. Whatcha think?

 

[OutsiderDX]

I am fan of wrestling matches. I watch wrestling in order to witness a 5 star match. I dont understand why wrestling fans are calling for less wrestling. The only place we actually get decent matches are on PPV. Weekly Raw/Smackdown/ECW have never been a platform to showcase lengthy matches. Once every few years they will provide us with a gem like Angle vs Lesner Ironman.

We get about 7 matches per PPV. 14 PPVs per year. So basically we get 100 matches per year. Of those 100 i would say around 5 matches will be outstanding.

If the E goes down to 4 or 5 PPVs per year, count yourself lucky if 2 are outstanding.



The problem is not the amount of ppv's , but their lack of continual plot development. Use the 14 ppv's to tell your story. See Chris Jericho vs Shawn Michaels 2008.

Backlash 2008 - Shawn vs Batista- Jericho is the special ref and witnesses Shawn's possible fake knee injury.
Judgement Day 2008 - Shawn def Jericho- both shake hands at the end
Night of Champions 2008 - Shawn distracts Jericho and costs him the IC belt vs Kofi
Great American Bash 2008- Jericho destroys HBK and match ends when Shawn cant continue (my 2008 match of the year)
Summerslam - Shawn annouces retirement / jericho accidently punches HBK's wife.
Unforgiven 2008 - HBK vs Jericho in an unsanctioned match
No Mercy 2008 - they wrestle in their blow-off - World Title Ladder match.

PPV's should do 2 things. Give outstanding matches and further storylines. It's about the writers not the amount of ppv's.

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

Bad move I think. What are the more simplistic people going to take out of this? "Now I have to pay MORE for LESS?"

14 ppvs a year X $40 + $10 (WM) = over $570 as this doesn't include tax and any money you'd spend on food/drinks assuming you do.

13 ppvs X $45 + 10 (WM) = over 595!!

So yeah, you're paying more in the year and receiving less. One missing ppv isn't going to make them all have a better build. Hell, you could only have the "big four" again and it STILL has the potential to have a shitty build. The build is up to Creative, not time. If Creative was better, they'd be able to make people want to watch all 14 and pay for them. Back in the day, there was an In Your House between all the big ppvs and each one of them, for the most part, had a decent enough build that people paid for them.

WWE needs to realize that there are 2 reasons and 2 reasons alone that ppv buyrates have dropped:

1) People don't have the money to spend. If everyone had a surplus, people would spend more money, but that's not the case. We're basically in a new depression and when you're in such a situation, you don't spend 50+ bucks a month on a wrestling show that you can not only get the results from the next night but also watch free on illegal streams, or download the next day. You pinch your wallet and you spend it on the necessary things - one of which certainly isn't World Wrestling Entertainment.

2) The PPVS aren't worth spending what little money the public has on anyway. There's no bargaining. If you want a new TV, you've got options. You can spend more money on a more brand-name thing with more features or you can strip down to the bare minimum and pay less. With the WWE, the expense is the expense. You can't pick and choose your options. 50 bucks for everything or 0 for nothing. Since you can't say "I'll pay 3/8 of the bill to see 3 of the 8 matches", you're forced to spend money even on the things you don't want. For instance, if I want to see a ppv, I don't want to think that 5-10 bucks of my money went towards seeing recaps of what I've already seen on Raw, Smackdown, and ECW. Would you pay your 10 dollar ticket to the movies if your 190 minute run time included 15 minutes of commercial advertisements before important scenes? No, you'd say "it was worth 10 before, now that you have less, it's worth less".

WWE isn't going to drastically change, guys. They're stubborn about how they do things. All we're looking at because of this is that we'll have a few more weeks of build where Judgment Day was, the buyrates will go down as people won't want to spend more money, and that's IT. No marvelous increase in suspense towards the ppvs making you want it more, just more tag team main events on Raw and Smackdown.

 

[King Douche]

Why can;t they just have only 8 ppvs a year and they all cost 20 dollars like what they did in the attitude era? They still made money cause people would buy the ppvs and it was worth it. WWE cannot expect us the fans to pay 50 bucks every ppv or 40, whatever, for a shitty or average at best ppv. Its just insane man!

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

Why can;t they just have only 8 ppvs a year and they all cost 20 dollars like what they did in the attitude era? They still made money cause people would buy the ppvs and it was worth it. WWE cannot expect us the fans to pay 50 bucks every ppv or 40, whatever, for a shitty or average at best ppv. Its just insane man!

Exactly. There's a reason why Walmart is one of the only companies that is making a true profit in this economy - their prices are lower.

It's so simple that people just don't understand it sometimes. Less money = less spending = less frivolous spending. Lower price = more likelihood someone will spend money on it. Therefore, the lower price you have when people have less money, the more of a chance they'll give it to you instead of someone else. If the WWE really wanted to increase buyrates, they'd DECREASE their ppv price. This is being selfish of them, expecting to make 25 MORE dollars a person when they're hurting.

People round up. When they see 39.95, they think 40. When they see 44.95, they think 50. With a 5 dollar increase, you've just convinced people that they're spending 10 dollars more, not 5. WWE likes to say that they base their prices on it being cheaper to spend money on a ppv for the average family of 4 than to get 4 movie tickets, right? So why not drop your price down to 29.95? Then, people think 30 bucks = less than 10 bucks a piece per person in the house = good deal and are more likely to spend it. And if you're not in a family of 4 watching it, aren't you more likely to spend 30 bucks on yourself than 50?

I'm a saver AND I still have lots of money problems. I've purchased ONE ppv in the past 3 years - the 09 Royal Rumble - and I did it because I got a bunch of friends of mine to chip in money. In the end, with the cost of pizza and drinks and chips and such, I spent a grand total of 20 bucks (after deducting the money everyone else chipped in). To me, that was a fun night, and the equivalent to going out to eat with my friends and then seeing a movie. I was perfectly willing to spend 20 bucks for that and I'd be willing to do that on a more frequent basis. Now if you look at the numbers here, 20x14 = 280. They just made 280 more dollars off me than they did before, because they lowered their price. All my friends agreed that they thought it was a great idea. Add 280 bucks for each person. So what would you rather have...1 person gives you 600 bucks a year (=600), or 5-6 people give you 280 a year (=1400/1680)?

 

[klunderbunker]

Exactly. There's a reason why Walmart is one of the only companies that is making a true profit in this economy - their prices are lower.

It's so simple that people just don't understand it sometimes. Less money = less spending = less frivolous spending. Lower price = more likelihood someone will spend money on it. Therefore, the lower price you have when people have less money, the more of a chance they'll give it to you instead of someone else. If the WWE really wanted to increase buyrates, they'd DECREASE their ppv price. This is being selfish of them, expecting to make 25 MORE dollars a person when they're hurting.

People round up. When they see 39.95, they think 40. When they see 44.95, they think 50. With a 5 dollar increase, you've just convinced people that they're spending 10 dollars more, not 5. WWE likes to say that they base their prices on it being cheaper to spend money on a ppv for the average family of 4 than to get 4 movie tickets, right? So why not drop your price down to 29.95? Then, people think 30 bucks = less than 10 bucks a piece per person in the house = good deal and are more likely to spend it. And if you're not in a family of 4 watching it, aren't you more likely to spend 30 bucks on yourself than 50?

I'm a saver AND I still have lots of money problems. I've purchased ONE ppv in the past 3 years - the 09 Royal Rumble - and I did it because I got a bunch of friends of mine to chip in money. In the end, with the cost of pizza and drinks and chips and such, I spent a grand total of 20 bucks (after deducting the money everyone else chipped in). To me, that was a fun night, and the equivalent to going out to eat with my friends and then seeing a movie. I was perfectly willing to spend 20 bucks for that and I'd be willing to do that on a more frequent basis. Now if you look at the numbers here, 20x14 = 280. They just made 280 more dollars off me than they did before, because they lowered their price. All my friends agreed that they thought it was a great idea. Add 280 bucks for each person. So what would you rather have...1 person gives you 600 bucks a year (=600), or 5-6 people give you 280 a year (=1400/1680)?

I've been a fan of this for years. It worked with In Your House but WCW bumped it up to one a month at full price and Vince followed suit. The 20 dollar shows offer a bunch of perks. For one thing you can save your main events for later. Throw Miz or Kofi into the main event for a month and let them show off on PPV against Sheamus or Cena in a 2 hour PPV. You save the big main event, the young guy gets a chance to show off, the big name gets another win under his belt, and the fans don't ahve to pay a ton to see it. Also, you have the chance of getting a lot of first time fans. A new fan isn't going to spent 45 dollars for a test run. They might spend 20 though. That's a huge difference and WWE could make a lot more sales that way. Also, it opens doors for merchandise sales etc. You get two buys instead of one you might sell an extra shirt to one of them. Alas, Vince goes along with everyone not named Wal Mart and charges a ton and just thinks they'll keep selling. This is just idiotic.

 

[Budro5454]

It doesn't solve anything... One a month has always pushed it but to have 14? theres a reason why the buy rates are down Vince... i always thought that one every 6 weeks probably would have done the best... now it seems like there every 3 weeks. I just dont see how you can create an interest in that short of time. You can build anything in that short of time.

I just so irritating because just a few simple things would improve the wwe so much.

1. Have 9 PPV's a year and you can price them at $45 if you want.

2. Eliminate the scripted promos... it doesn't have to be scripted to keep it rated PG, these guys are human, I think they can go 2 min without swearing or not appealing to 6 year olds.

3.More wrestling, less promos... the only thing they have going for them is solid talent, let their wrestling... oh wait sorry...... their sports entertaing do the talking!

4 Guest hosts are a good concept but stick to people who actually watch it... not Jeremy Piven for crying out loud. I loved Summerfest by the way.

5. Fire Michael Cole, he's terrible and even Todd Grisham could call a match better.


I'm Budro and thats my opinion!

 

[jazzua]

Well, it appears that WWE is hearing its customers say that there are entirely too many WWE PPV's on the schedule, so it appears that they are doing something about it.

But ... there's a catch ...


A WWE memo sent out to various Pay-Per-View providers reveals that World Wrestling Entertainment will be eliminating one of its June PPV events in 2010, bringing the annual total down to 13. While this does seem like a step in the right direction, WWE will be making up for that lost PPV revenue by increasing the suggested retail price of its other PPV events (excluding WrestleMania), by $5.00, to $44.95. According to the memo, this will be the first price increase for non-WrestleMania events since 2006. The suggested retail price for WrestleMania will remain $54.95.

So essentially what that means is that those who have been purchasing the PPV's regularly or semi-regularly will now see your PPV prices for all the other monthly shows raised by an additional $5 a month to $45. So by the time you are done paying taxes and other fees to your Cable provider, you will be paying well over $50 a show.

How angry are WWE PPV customers going to be at this latest turn of events? Big deal, or no Big Deal?

Here apparently, is a copy of the actual memo that got sent out:




My opinion? People will still pay. A couple people will become frustrated and order less shows. A few may get angry enough to stop paying Vince for a majority of the shows, except Mania. But Vince's base will still pay. They simply can not say "No" to Vince McMahon or WWE.

However, in the very least, I may have to request some assistance from the "WWE Universe Fans" out there. We are probably going to need your PR expertise to put the positive PR "customer-friendly" spin on this situation, here.

I don't see why it's that big of a deal. If people have a problem with paying more for the ppvs than they shouldn't buy as many. WWE surely puts out a good amount of ppvs in a year that aren't worth the money anyway. I think people paying 40 and buying everyone are kind of silly in the first place. Truth is if the card looks strong and the build is good I'll have no problem spending 45. I typically split it between whoever comes to watch anyway. Normally, leaving me with about 5-10 dollars of the amount.

I would rather see them go down to 10 ppvs a year or so. If they want to improve they need more time between ppvs. Right now it seems like there are certain ppvs that are used like a regular tv show. Considering fans pay for ppvs they should at least work on building up to them. Thus, less ppvs equals more time to develope storylines.

 

[macksstream]

i can see why they've increased the price, because less ppvs means less money so in order to keep that balance you have to pay more for each one. But i agree, less ppv's would be better. some of the concepts last year were awful too. i mean the themed ppvs. TLC was ok but HIAC and breaking point weren't much chop. but yea, less ppvs, less themed ones, keep the traditional ones.

 

[ChristianRivers]

I agree that WWE should go down to 8 ppvs a year. That would give them plenty of build, and more time to give us back the quality that isn't there with the short build times. The vets understand the lack of quality so always try to give us that quality. But its very rare that you get that quality with Cena vs anybody on the Raw roster, or inter brand ppv. Even with the economy the way it is. Drop down to 8 and charge 34.95. And 44.95 for WM. I could see paying 35 dollars for quality. But the buy rate isn't going up until A. we get the price lowered to something affordable. and 2. We get some quality and not the cheap short cuts WWE has become accustomed to.

 

[Dagger Dias]

This is a step in the right direction, but a very small one. 13 PPV's a year is still too many. Now fans will be faced with the problem of "there's too many PPV's but now I have to pay MORE for them!?". This is likely going to make some people upset. A better solution would have been to go with even less PPV's. I'd go as far as to knock it down to 5. The "big 4" and Night of Champions. Seriously, do we really need any others? Some arguments could be made towards TLC and Bragging Rights, but that is it out of the new ones.

I mentioned the lack of proper buildup in another thread about this year's Survivor Series. If WWE had only 5 or so PPV's then they would have no choice but to build up the shows more, causing more interest from the fans, which in turn makes for more PPV buys.

When it comes down to it.... this will probably not have that big of an effect on the PPV buys or the fans themselves because most of them will still order a show that appeals to them and pay the extra 5 dollars, or skip it if they think "there's too many PPV's" until they find a show they'd like to order. Honestly, not much will change because "13 shows a year at 5 bucks extra" is not much different than 14 shows a year was.

 

[mvalley]

Honestly, because of the continually increasing cost of the PPV, I have not gotten a live PPV in years. Instead, I just wait to buy them on DVD...and many times I do that a few YEARS after they came out to get them at a bargain price.

They are raising PPVs to forty-five dollars. It is fairly obvious that it won't be long until they are fifty and Wrestlemania is sixty. When I came into wrestling, they were just starting to end the big five PPVs of the year. Those five were the Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, King of the Ring, Summerslam and Survivor Series. They each were worthy PPVs because:

1.) They each had a major concept. Mania and Summerslam represented the "big ones" with Summerslam being a bit smaller in importance but nonetheless was seen as the big PPV of the summer. The Royal Rumble, Survivor Series and King of the Ring each had a unique feel for the most part. You might see a tournament here or there, or a 20 man battle royal, but rarely.

2.) KOTR and Royal Rumble logically led into Summerslam and Wrestlemania by having the winners of each face the world champ. Or at LEAST they helped establish that star that would sooner or later lead them to world title matches.

3.) They had plenty of time to establish storylines so that the matches were huge. They didn't have to produce these huge matches over and over again, thereby making them more important and special. In addition, there were able to avoid having repetitive matches at PPVs a lot more because there were only so many PPVs to have per year. Even if they had the same main event, they were able to get around it because they had several months to promote a rematch.

4.) Title changes were less frequent. Face it, how often does the world title change hands on national TV? It was even LESS frequent back then. Heck, going from say 1994 to 1997, do you know the only title change during that time? Sid Vicious beating Bret Hart. Title changes happened on PPV and made them more exciting. However, there was that much bigger showdown regarding those title changes compared to Orton / Cena where they passed the title back and forth about four times.

5.) Easier on the pocketbook. I know prices and all have to go up but let's look at this realistically. Fifteen years ago the total price for WWE PPV's was 125 USD. That amount of money won't even cover three PPVs now. In fact, the total amount is 495 USD. That's over three times the cost from before. People are NOT making three times more per month / year.

As usual, the WWE has these type of deals that benefit them. If they drop a PPV but charge five dollars more, they ultimately are going to make twenty dollars more per year for those who buy all the PPVs. However, they are a business and so that is to be expected.

My feeling is I really don't care. I'll keep on buying the DVDs a few years after they are out at rock bottom prices. Sure, it's "old" wrestling, but it's stll enjoyable to jump back to the past (usually) and furthermore I have no control of the matches i will see when they are live. I do have some control over the matches I will see if they are already on a DVD.

 

[phemom]

Mostly good decisions here. No 3 weekquickbuildup PPV's! The buildup to summerslam is awesome, and will make SS seem bigger. I'd have a Saturday Night's Main Event in early July. Moving (and keeping) NoC and Bragging Rights are good decisions. Maybe with this type of schedule we can get New Year's Revolution back.

The only problem I have is still having 2 PPV's in the same month. I'd figure E's plan is to still have big matches since BR is about cross-promo, still don't like it.

 

[Tastycles]

On the one hand, it is obviously a welcome break to see that there will be fewer PPVs, especially considering that it should bring an end to the three week PPV build up schedule, which has never been desireable. Clearly, in doing so the WWE have got to be savvy. Cutting a PPV is removing a minimum of $4 million, but in actuality probably closer to $8 million. That is a huge amount of money to throw away.

Clearly, the only thing they can do is to increase the price, resulting in a $15 increase if someone bought each and every PPV. What the WWE must now do though is increase the quality. By giving people less product for more money, they have to make a commitment to improve the quality of what they do put out.

As for suggestions about lowering the price, I don't think it would work sufficiently to be honest with you. If they halved the price, they'd have to double the amount of viewers, and I just don't think the audience is there to get 600,000 people to spend money on a show like Extreme Rules.

Finally, the updated list is obviously taken from an unreliable source. The WWE isn't going to put no PPVs in June or July but have two in October.

 

[Sean Valjean]

Well, considering that I watch all ppv's online and only order the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania, this isn't a big deal for me. I get a discount on ppv's anyway since both my parents work for Comcast . I don't see the price raise as a big issue. If there are fans who can afford and are willing to spend 40 bucks every 3 weeks on ppv's, I doubt an extra 5 bucks is going to stop them.

I agree with Tastycles that this source does seem questionable. So no ppv's in June OR July? I highly doubt the WWE would go two straight months without a show (I don't think Vince's wallet could stand it). However, with that much time, Summerslam could be epic this year. Then again, the WWE had seven weeks to build up for the Rumble and wasted 4 of them.

I'm upset to see that we're going to get another HIAC ppv. I thought they'd learned their lesson the first time and the first HIAC was awful. If they had to drop another show, I'd scrap HIAC, bring back Armageddon to replace TLC, and fill June or July with King of the Ring. But that's just the dreamer in me.