Hey man.
Is it too simplistic to suggest that PPV buys are down in WWE due to the level of matches that we get for free on RAW, especially with the change to 3 hours. This past RAW, we had:
Punk/Mysterio, Orton/Big Show, Kane/Miz, Del Rio/Christian and Cena/Bryan
Throw in a Sheamus match (Ziggler maybe) and you have a card that could EASILY constitute a regular PPV. Hell, add HHH/Lesnar and this card wouldn't look out of place as a Summerslam!
It is very simplistic, yes, because they were doing the same thing from the start of the Monday Night Wars until PPV buyrates started to die off, so you can't really do any causal thing there. I personally think it's a combination of raising the prices, oversaturation of the product, and just not creating stars that people want to pay money for. In 2011 I paid money, real money out of my own pocket, because I wanted to see CM Punk both at a house show and on a couple of PPVs, so if even a jaded super-smark like me can still be sold, then others can as well. And I WANT to be sold! That's why I harp on PPV builds so much, because I WANT them to talk me into spending money on the product!
Holy shit bynum to lakers in 4 team trade
ReplyDeleteI saw that. F'ing Lakers lol
ReplyDeleteNow that the Lakers have the Big 4, it's just going to be a battle at SF.
ReplyDeleteEnter The Artist Formally Known as Meta World Peace (TAFKAMWP).
They always come out on top. Definitely the favorites for the title now. Bet we finally get kobe v lebron in the final.
ReplyDeleteHe was playing great at the end of last seasons. They have the best starting 5 and hill and Jameson off the bench.
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
ReplyDeleteIf you want to increase PPV buys, they need to
ReplyDelete1) keep the world/wwe champion and any top face/heel from wrestling except for house shows, special tv episodes (like Raw 1000) and ppv
2) make the ppv special matches mean something like I don't need to have a Hell in a Cell PPV; just give me hell in a cell or any special match when it warrants it
3) make matches we haven't seen 500 times (Yay Cena vs Big Show again)
4) build up the midcard to make the fans care about it. If I am on the fence between buying and not buying a ppv, many times the midcard decides it for me.
5) make the consequences of a match mean something. Best examples: at wrestlemania, teddy long and johnny ace were fighting over the right to be gm, but 3 months later, johnny is not gm anymore. 2 years ago, Cena was forced to be in nexus and later he was fired; he wasn't even gone one week, he was only in Nexus for 2 months and he didn't change one bit.
Wow yeah basketball, woo. That Howard he can really shoot the basketball. Whatever team he came from sure lost or gained something.
ReplyDeleteI'm not ready to appoint the Lakers the favorite. You have to consider Nash's age and Kobe and Howard's physical state, plus the Heat did add Ray Allen. Yeah, he's old too, but he just has to stand there and shoot 3's.
ReplyDeleteI still wouldn't be surprised if OKC ran the Lakers outta the bulding. Durant and Westbrook are only going to get better where Gasol, Nash and Kobe are past their prime.
In the infamous words of this blog, let's wait and see how this plays out.
I've seen good ppvs, this year in fact, and RAW is far from being a ppv quality show.
ReplyDeleteYeah, everyone seems to always be looking for a simple explanation to explain the decline in PPV buys -- or at least one that doesn't implicate the WWE in the decline. I think Scott is right on the money when he says it is mostly due to them not selling their product correctly -- people buy WrestleMania because they've done a good job making that one event more important than any one guy, but you have to make them want to see the wrestlers on their own merits too.
ReplyDeleteYes, surely some things are behind their control -- the number of media options available to people has increased which likely causes some fragmentation of the overall audience.
Illegal streaming does some damage I'm sure -- but you have to keep in mind that only a % of people who stream would actually buy the show if given no other option. Many people who stream do it only because they can easily -- they wouldn't otherwise watch at all. The video and audio quality of many of the easy to stream sites is pretty putrid as well. You also have to figure in the number of people who illegally descrambled PPV in the analog days -- it is not like pirating a WWE PPV signal is a new phenomena -- people have been doing it since 1987.
Furthermore, the audience with PPV availability has almost always continually increased -- In 1999 over 39 million homes had PPV access -- today over 75 million have access to it. They just haven't captured a larger piece of an ever expanding pie.
hey a canadian invented basketball.
ReplyDeleteamericans just perfected it.
Yeah it's definitely way too early to declare them the favorites. Health is always an issue with the Lakers and possibly even Howard this year.
ReplyDeletei just hate that they always find a way to pull off these deals haha. I'd just like 5-7 years again where the Lakers are out of the picture and we can watch someone else lol
There are 4-5 markets that are blessed by geography and size, which in turn makes them richer than anyone else and thus gives them an advantage in sports that aren't regulated as tightly as the NFL. NY, LA, CHI and BOS all have the glitz of the big city and the $$ to sign anyone and be way over the cap, no problem. MIA is a smaller market, but it's South Beach and the culture of athletes just love being here. Oh yeah, and no state tax is pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteSo, when LA or Boston or Miami pulls this kind of stunt off, it's not that they're great at it, it's because players want to be there and will do anything to get there. Look at how Howard has been acting just to get to LA or NY. The Yankees or the Red Sox just throw a bunch of money in people's faces. It's unfair, but that's the way it is.
It's pretty simple for me - give me something I want to watch and I will watch it, even pay money to see it. I just don't find the current product to be "must see". I mean, what ever happens? The same guys do the same thing, over and over. Oh, John Cena might be fired? Yeah, he's not going to be, at least not for longer than two weeks, and he'll be on the show for those two weeks like nothing happened until he's re-hired to continue on as usual. Will he win the title? Does it matter? He either main events the next month with or without the title. A lot of it comes down to them just not having characters or stories that I care about. I knew Steve Austin would win in the end but I'd still pay money to see it happen. I'd still follow every twist and turn of the story.
ReplyDeleteEvery pay per view is available for free. All I have to do is sit down and watch it, and I don't even bother doing that. To be honest taking the time to watch a pay per view on the internet is the new "buying" for me, I don't find it to be worth the time it takes to watch it, let alone $60. I paid for MITB last year, first time I paid for a wrestling pay per view in years. Yeah, I know, a "internet" fan paying because CM Punk got a push, typical, right? Only I wasn't a CM Punk fan. I didn't care for him until he turned heel. Then I appreciated his work and talent but I wasn't into him enough to really care what he did. I thought he was funny on commentary but CM Punk wasn't a guy I was championing for all along...but he was a guy legitimately on the verge of leaving, allowed to shoot off about what was bothering him, and I was sucked in. It felt like something special that I had to see. It felt like a new era was coming, change was happening....it was fun for a month or two, but again, back to the usual. Ultimately I don't enjoy the product enough to pay for it, or take the time to watch it, and after all these years I've come to accept that what I want to see happen won't and the guys I do want to watch will play second fiddle to the guys they like - and I can tell you now, I've never paid to see John Cena, unless you could paying to see if HBK could beat him, and I can't imagine paying to see Sheamus either.
It's a touching story. See, Howard was being played millions to play for the Magic, which of course is tragic because all of the cool kids are playing in big markets with their friends now. So the poor guy had to play in Orlando while everyone else got to play for New York or LA. On top of that, Orlando didn't let him decide who else played on the team or who the coach was. Finally he's out of that misery and off to LA where he can make millions playing with other star players, compete for championships and get all the attention that LA has to offer. Good for him, he's earned it.
ReplyDeleteHaha silly Canadians. Howard plays center. He doesn't really shoot. If he scores it's either a dunk or a lay-up/put-back from within 8 feet of the hoop. He's goin' to the Lakers which gain a lot and leavin' the Orlando Magic which lose nothing. That sounds contradictory, but it's really not. He's been a headache down there.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the whole Dwight thing would make for an interesting rasslin' character. A person who thinks he's good (morality wise) and tries everything to convey that he's a nice happy fellow. But then he does bad things. Like undermine authority, sit out matches pretending to be more injured than he really is, and selfishly tryin' to protect his "brand".
I'd watch that guy. Hell get the Dwight himself to do it, he's 7'0 and chiseled like he was made of stone. Nash and Vince would love him! He's got charisma too! It'll put asses in the seats!
True on all accounts.
ReplyDeleteI just miss the mid to late 1990s and the mid 2000s when we got a little break from the Lakers being in the Finals. The Knicks and Bulls haven't been to the finals in ages -- either of them would be refreshing in itself.
I was really digging OKC this year and still pulling for Boston, but it was really cool to see OKC in the Finals -- I was hoping that evolve into a little bit of a trend instead of just a anomaly. We'll see how history is written though, I suppose.
That's a deeper connection to wrestling than I came up with. I just thought he was like John Cena: Superman as smirking, unlikeable twat.
ReplyDeleteAren't PPV buys up from last year?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think the decline in PPV buys is due to 2 main factors: the shitty economy, and WWE mostly marketing their products to kids. Kids can't buy PPVs, and while parents might not mind shelling out the cash for a live event once or twice a year, not too many are willing to spend $50 a month for a PPV. There's a good reason the Attitude Era made so much cash, they were marketing the product to people that actually have money. Streaming is having a bit of an effect too, I know a few people that just hook their computer to the HDTV and watch all the PPVs for free. Yeah, the VQ isn't as good, but it's still watchable.
Yeah they are up a bit so far. Up to this point last year they had a median of about 204k buys, this year its 228k. It'll be interesting to see how the next few PPVs after Summer Slam do as those are traditionally some of the more poorly bought shows.
ReplyDeleteI think both of those are factors -- they certainly don't help -- but there are certainly precedents for the family oriented approach working (i.e. all business indicators very high) the late 1980s.
One could counter that by saying the late 1980s WWF was actually just that -- friendly for the whole family, where today it is strictly kids stuff. Hard to say -- as I know many people felt the WWF was way too cartoony at that point, but at any rate they had their finger on the pulse of the culture more then than now.
This might sound like serious sour grapes to anyone who lives somewhere that never sniffs a title, but Boston has a reasonably tough time attracting players in basketball. Rondo and Pierce were drafted by the Celtics, and KG and Allen were acquired via trade. The Celtics have virtually never signed a max-level free agent, because it's just not their first choice. It's a cold weather city in a winter sport, and still carries a 50 year old reputation amongst NBA players as a racist city (despite having the first all-black starting five, and the first black coach in professional sports history). I think the racist reputation is on the way out, but it might take another ten years for word of mouth to completely take hold. It's now a majority-minority city, and the black players who do end up here love it. But they can't do anything about the weather. Still, once the racist reputation completely disappears, the money and mystique should somewhat level the playing field.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, what you said about Boston holds true for every other professional sport. I just thought it was worth clarifying the nuance of the NBA.
Oh, and don't sleep on the Celtics. I'd rather have Courtney Lee than Ray Allen in 2012-13. Jet is just a straight upgrade off the bench. A healthy Avery Bradley, Jeff Green, and Chris Wilcox are difference makers. And Jared Sullinger was a steal in the draft. You heard it here first. See you in June, Flair.
Well plus it's not like we've even seen that much of Boston in the Finals in the last 20 years either. If we could get a 10 year moratorium on the Spurs and Lakers in the Finals, I'd be a happy camper.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I like their team --- I just hope age doesn't finally catch up with them, but the East seems notably weaker this year (except Miami), so I think their path to the Finals (if healthy) is easier than last year given their improvements and the outlook. I don't think Derrick Rose will end up playing at all this year, so I don't think Chicago
Yeah, but in the late 80's PPV barely existed, and even up until 1995 there were 4 (5 in 93/94) PPVs, not 12. I honestly think that cutting down to 6 PPVs would be a good idea. PPVs used to be a big event where big things happened, now they don't mean shit, except for the Rumble and Wrestlemania, because they have them every month. 4 weeks isn't long enough to drum up a good build, either. I'm positive that the money lost from killing 6 PPVs would be more than made up by increased buyrates for the ones that are kept.
ReplyDeleteScott nailed it. Higher prices, oversaturation of the product and pushing people I don't care to see or shunting people I do want to see down the card are all of the reasons I simply don't watch wrestling anymore.
ReplyDeletePPVs are up from last year, but last year was one of the lowest years in WWE history for PPV if you discount Wrestlemania. It's not exactly setting a gold standard to brag about the last two shows being up from two of the biggest flops in WWE history or anything.
ReplyDeleteThey were that bad last year? I don't normally keep up with these sort of things, I only remember that they were up from last year because I saw it in the financial report you posted last week.
ReplyDeleteIf PPVs were $30-35, I'd probably pay for most of them. But for $45-50, that's only a once-in-a-lifetime commitment like MITB 11 or Mania (and the Rumble, because that shit is fun every year).
ReplyDeleteI will say, I would rather pay money for a WWE show than a boxing/MMA PPV, since I find 3 hours of scripted entertainment that fills all hours with basically non-stop action more bang for the buck than boxing/MMA, which while legit, is disappointing when a fight you're paying for doesn't go a round. It's nice that a KO is memorable, but I'd like to stretch out my money if I'm paying that much, and that favors the scripted show more.
True, but it's not just PPV, it's the other business indicators as well.
ReplyDeleteAs far as PPV, to make a more fair comparison, think of it this way -- for 2002 the median number of buys was about 360,000 in a market where about 50 million people had PPV access -- they are on pace for about a median of 200,000 buys in an audience of around 75 million this year.
When you put it that way it's not good...
ReplyDeleteAnd apparently, Kevin Nash agrees:
ReplyDelete"...just like anything else, you buy a $60 fight, it goes a minute and 12 seconds, [and] you're not that apt to buy another $60 fight the next month. This is where I'll always say pro wrestling will always have a great advantage. If it's The Rock vs. Cena at WrestleMania, you know it's not going a minute and a half. You know it's going to go 20-25 minutes. You go to a movie and you know the action on the movie is not real [and] yet you're enthralled, you have complete escapism. I think that's what pro wrestling gives you, it gives you that escapism. It gives you that ability to watch a main event for 30 minutes and feel like you've got your money's worth."
Before the MNW the PPVs were something special, because it was nearly the only tv show, where you've got no jobber matches and only "star" vs "star".
ReplyDeleteThen came the MNW and Bischoff brought the star vs star formula to the free tv shows. Only with shorter matches, but nonetheless.
So it's natural, that you will sell less PPVs, because they were not so special anymore.
BUT before the MNW you didn't needed much storylines, because the star vs star formula was enough to get us spend money for an event.
NOW you've had to change your shows to get people buy for matches which they could saw for free on tv. And that's where the WWF was much better with Vince Russo compared to Bischoff and the WCW, because the WWF didn't showed that many actual PPV matches on RAW - at least in 1998/99. The matches were very short and sometimes were only announced, but not actually showd (Austin vs Vince e.g. where Dude Love turned).
The other way around is, that your Roster is SO big, that you can show interesting and long matches during the weekly shows and OTHER interesting big matches on PPV. That was the WCW style.
Today the WWE stories are more or less non existent. AND the roster is relatively thin. Anyone wondering, why the PPV buys are low?
Going back to Scott's original point, I paid money once, to see CM Punk at MITB 2011. Because they created a compelling storyline that made me want to see what happens live on my TV screen, not on a computer monitor. But then the writing/Clique kicked in after that to ruin what they had again.
ReplyDeleteThey could've done Mysterio/Cena for the title at Summerslam, with Del Rio waiting to cash in , along with Punk sending video messages that he'd be there. That's a compelling main event. Then they could've went back to Punk/Cena if they needed to. They also could've stretched out Awesome Truth to another PPV rather than just feeding them to Rock and Cena afterboth AND HHH had already beaten them up.
Sorry, just venting.
Truth: Bird was more ghetto than Magic could have ever thought of being.
ReplyDeleteApparently you never seen Starrcade 90 or GAB 91.
ReplyDeleteThose were jobberific.
Yeah, the big matches on Raw are the least of their concerns when it comes to buyrates. If you look at 2000 WWF, they put awesome matches on free TV -- and still did insane number, likes 650k for Backlash, 600k for the Sept. PPV (forget the name). DIfferent, obviously, since they were so red-hot but quality matches on TV have no impact on PPV buys.
ReplyDeleteo yea i raged the pirate box until fucking digital cable had to ruin it for everyone!
ReplyDeleteI didn't see any WCW stuff until 1993, so no. ;) But in the WWF you saw Bret Hart vs Reno Riggins and Mr Perfect vs Jobber No1 at RAW or Superstars or Challenge, and then at the PPV you've got Bret Hart vs Mr Perfect.
ReplyDeleteToday you would get Hart vs Perfect at RAW. And at the next RAW. And at the next RAW. And at the next PPV. And a rematch at RAW. Maybe a Tag match at SD. Then another Rematch at the next PPV...;)
Kobe scored 43 pts in the last game vs okc. Lakers are going to be big trouble
ReplyDeleteKobe sucked in that series, bad. He shot 42.69% vs. OKC. He's past his prime, age does that to you.
ReplyDelete