WWE to move Wrestlemania off of PPV?

[Cox]

According to Dave Meltzer, WWE sent out a survey for ideas for the WWE Network that included the idea of moving the "big" PPVs (Wrestlemania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Survivor Series) off of PPV and onto the WWE Network. The B-shows like Night of the Legends, Over The Limit, etc. would remain on PPV.

 

I'm kind of baffled about this, to be honest. I mean, I can understand moving to a system where the B-shows that nobody buys anyway are WWE Network-exclusive and they just run the four big PPVs every year and try to make as much money as possible that way. I can even understand if, instead of running Wrestlemania on PPV, they tried to sell the rights to another network and tried to make more money on rights fees than they're currently making on PPV (which I don't think is necessarily crazy; look at how they manage to get cities to bid against themselves to host Wrestlemania). But running the major PPVs on the WWE Network while still trying to get people to buy the bullshit PPVs? I don't get that at all, unless this is Step 1 of a multi-step plan to move WWE off of PPV because they don't think it's going to be successful long-term.

 

What does everybody else think?

[Matt D]

Maybe they foresee pirating getting a lot worse?

[rovert]

Instead of one hoop (ordering from a PPV provider) buyers will have to jump through two hoops (WWE Network subscription plus a PPV premium). They are going to kill the causal/impulse buyer. Good luck getting 1m+ buys again WWE.

[Loss]

Seems like if they're going to toy with this, they've got it backwards. The Big 4 should be PPV, while the B-shows could move to the WWE Network. I'm not even sold on that, but the buys are so much higher for these shows, so there's no reason to muck it up. I can see taking some risks with the B-shows to see how they pay off, but I'd leave the Big 4 alone.

[Al]

Thinking outside the box on this. Wrestlemania is a premier event at this point that draws a different crowd than the typical WWE audience (more nostalgia type fans). How many people would watch Wrestlemania if it were on a cable channel as opposed to PPV? 5x? 10x? Depending on ad rates they could lose some money on the show itself. But what if these shows on cable led to a revived interest in WWE/wrestling, with more fans watching who typically don't order PPVs? I've only ordered two PPVs in five years. But I'd damn sure watch Wrestlemania. And I can't be the only one.

[Cox]

Thinking outside the box on this. Wrestlemania is a premier event at this point that draws a different crowd than the typical WWE audience (more nostalgia type fans). How many people would watch Wrestlemania if it were on a cable channel as opposed to PPV? 5x? 10x? Depending on ad rates they could lose some money on the show itself. But what if these shows on cable led to a revived interest in WWE/wrestling, with more fans watching who typically don't order PPVs? I've only ordered two PPVs in five years. But I'd damn sure watch Wrestlemania. And I can't be the only one.

That's why I think there might be something to WWE selling the rights fees to Wrestlemania. What if they included the rights to air Wrestlemania live in their next cable TV contract for Raw and Smackdown? Wouldn't that significantly boost the value of that contract, perhaps more than they could make putting the event on PPV? With the explosion in the sports TV rights industry, couldn't Wrestlemania be a pretty valuable bargaining chip for a network? Maybe I'm crazy, but I think they could make some serious coin putting that up for bidding. That said, it would probably have more value to another, established cable network than it would for WWE's.

[Ricky Jackson]

Yeah, it seems like running the B-show PPVs on the network would be the more logical choice. I have no idea how the cable industry works, though. Maybe the plan is to get a ton of subscribers right off the bat by dangling the major shows as incentive, and with more subscribers be able to charge the cable companies and advertisers more money (is that even how it works?), or something. What would be considered a resonable number of subscribers for a start-up cable channel anyway? And how many subscribers, cable fees and ad dollars would they need to equal 1 million buys?

 

This is going to be an interesting story to follow going forward. Who knows, maybe we'll look back at the launch of the network as major turning point. At the very least we should have a lot to post about in the coming months.

[FLIK]

I'm pretty much taking a "won't believe it till I see it" stance on this. The leap from this being an idea they float around via a small survery and something they realisticly do is a big one.

 

Seems like if they're going to toy with this, they've got it backwards. The Big 4 should be PPV, while the B-shows could move to the WWE Network. I'm not even sold on that, but the buys are so much higher for these shows, so there's no reason to muck it up.

Don't know what kind of #'s they pull but this is pretty much what they do in England and a few other foreign countries allready so i'd think the company would have some idea as to how that approach would work by now.

[Ditch]

It would be hilarious if they did WM on a network, because the temptation to have a bunch of screwy finishes to set up the following B-PPV would be overwhelming.

[Sean Liska]

I'm sure there will be cable and dish systems that won't offer the WWE Network. People go crazy when they can't watch a crummy Thursday night regular season NFL game because they don't get the NFL Network, imagine how pissed wrestling fans would be if they didn't have WrestleMania. I can't imagine this happening.

[jdw]

he direction they are talking about is it would be a monthly pay network, similar to HBO or Showtime, priced at between $7 and $12 per month. The fee would be part of a package that would include a number of stations including the NFL Network, NBA Network and Fuel TV (which will have a heavy dose of UFC live preliminary coverage next year).

That's some funny shit.

 

The word is "tier", not "package". And the WWE's cut of that package would be extremely small relative to others in it like the NFL... sidebar here for a season.

 

The NFL is likely to increase their Thursday Night schedule to either leverage:

 

* more games on the NFL to make more fans hammer carriers to add the NFL Network

* sell the new "1st half of the season" slate of games to TimeWarner to... incent them to carry the NFL Net

 

The other key thing: the NFL Net and NBA Net *don't* want to be on a sports tier. They want to be basic so that they get a cut of ALL subs of TimeWarner, not just a cut of those who pay for the tier that the NFL Net is on. That's ESPN's deal: they're not on a special sports tier, and instead on basic... and get a hefty $$$ per total subscriber to TW or Comcast or Direct.

 

The WWE trying to get on a tier is a... pretty fucked up business model. Lots of people just aren't going to sub to the tier. What they want to do is get on basic, like dumbass shit such as the Golf Channel is, and then create a schedule of programing that draw eyeballs.

 

I think we've seen how well the subscriber model has worked for the WWE: 24/7 and the web.

 

I'm pretty stunned that after 10 years of looking at this shit, this is the dumbass idea that the WWE comes up with. Fucking idiots.

 

John

[Kostka]

So basically, fans can't watch WM unless they have a WWE Network subscription? That doesn't seem like the best idea. That'll decimate buyrates. I can see WWE Network featuring like... Hell In A Cell, but fucking Wrestlemania shouldn't be apart of this "experiment". Talk about jumping the shark.

[El-P]

Retards.

[cm funk]

It won't happen.

 

If it were me, I'd cut down on the PPV schedule. It makes sense to have monthly shows on the cable channel, and having like 8 PPVs a year instead of 13 or 14 probably wouldn't lose them money, and it would absolutely help the creative process. It's not like it's TNA where they do monthly PPV because that's what you're supposed to do......WWE can make shitloads of cash with well promoted shows

 

Focus specifically on 5 or 6 shows, have a couple of throwaway gimmick PPVs, and then do the "b show" stuff on the channel, where it would be a monthly glorified house show type of thing

[Coffey]

No matter what they decide, stealing the premium channel will be just as easy as stealing the PPV's now, so if they're looking at it from a piracy standpoint, they're confused to start with.

[Bob Morris]

Agreed with those who say that putting the Big 4 PPVs on the WWE Network is a bad idea. I agree with cm funk that it would make more sense to cut the total PPVs down and go with what amounts to special shows on WWE Network. They could take the same approach TBS did with Clash of the Champions, in which they air a special show to pop a good rating and perhaps lure some people into buying the PPVs offered.

[NintendoLogic]

Agreed with those who say that putting the Big 4 PPVs on the WWE Network is a bad idea. I agree with cm funk that it would make more sense to cut the total PPVs down and go with what amounts to special shows on WWE Network. They could take the same approach TBS did with Clash of the Champions, in which they air a special show to pop a good rating and perhaps lure some people into buying the PPVs offered.

SNME was a huge flop on a major broadcast network. I don't see a Clash-type show on a c-tier subscription network doing any better.

[FLIK]

he direction they are talking about is it would be a monthly pay network, similar to HBO or Showtime, priced at between $7 and $12 per month. The fee would be part of a package that would include a number of stations including the NFL Network, NBA Network and Fuel TV (which will have a heavy dose of UFC live preliminary coverage next year).

That's some funny shit.

 

The word is "tier", not "package". And the WWE's cut of that package would be extremely small relative to others in it like the NFL... sidebar here for a season.

 

The NFL is likely to increase their Thursday Night schedule to either leverage:

 

* more games on the NFL to make more fans hammer carriers to add the NFL Network

* sell the new "1st half of the season" slate of games to TimeWarner to... incent them to carry the NFL Net

 

The other key thing: the NFL Net and NBA Net *don't* want to be on a sports tier. They want to be basic so that they get a cut of ALL subs of TimeWarner, not just a cut of those who pay for the tier that the NFL Net is on. That's ESPN's deal: they're not on a special sports tier, and instead on basic... and get a hefty $$$ per total subscriber to TW or Comcast or Direct.

 

The WWE trying to get on a tier is a... pretty fucked up business model. Lots of people just aren't going to sub to the tier. What they want to do is get on basic, like dumbass shit such as the Golf Channel is, and then create a schedule of programing that draw eyeballs.

 

I think we've seen how well the subscriber model has worked for the WWE: 24/7 and the web.

 

I'm pretty stunned that after 10 years of looking at this shit, this is the dumbass idea that the WWE comes up with. Fucking idiots.

 

John

 

On one of the recent audio shows, Meltzer had the theory that the WWE put this out thear so that they could come back with the positive feedback of al their fans that aswered saying they'd get the cannel which would look nice when it came time to negotiate.

 

He threw out a bunch of hypothetical #'s along the lines of if the "tier" made 400 million a month and all the WWE got was 50 cents per subscriber that'd still be a large chunk of cash, like several hundred million a year which might be worth giving up a few ppvs a year

[kjh]

I think Meltzer is right when he speculated that this was an intentionally misleading question to make it look like their Network will be more popular than it actually is. According to former WWE creative team member Court Bauer, the idea is that the big 4 PPVs would be shown on the WWE Network a couple of weeks after they happen, like HBO and Showtime do with major boxing PPVs. He also said that they hadn't even got a business plan for the WWE Network in place at last word. Yeah, this is likely to be a major clusterf***.

[jdw]

Here's what channels get per sub. It's a 2010 article, so the data is from 2009:

 

Hate Paying for Cable? Here’s Why

 

Clearer look at the image is here:

 

http://consumerist.com/3-9-2010%202-23-31%20PM.jpg

 

Average at the time was $0.20 per channel. Eyeball the channels and ponder where the WWE fits in, not just interms of the viewers their channel could bring to the table, but the "type" of viewers (i.e. ones who actually pay the bills to subscribe and/or force their parents to). As in the WWE Net would be a "must" for them.

 

Also think it terms of the leverage some of the owners of these channels have compared to the WWE. In the sense of either a major player behind them, or in terms of being able to bundle a lot of channels that add up. ESPN is an anchor, which in turn is able to get a chunk for some of its more marginal properties.

 

Also keep in mind that some of the ones that have fees far above what you'd think (MGM HD / HDNet) compared to ones that are shockingly low (Food) is because of tiers:

 

* MGM and HDNet are on a specific tier

* Food busts their ass to be on Basic

 

Dirty secret of MGM & HDNet? No one really subs to them. They were part of a package I had, and as things like ESPN drove up my cable bill and had me looking for ways to bring it back down, the jobber tier that had MGM was one of the easiest to pitch. It was like a tier of 4-5 useless channels.

 

There's no way in hell that the WWE is going to be able to piggy back on a tier that the NFL Network and NBA Network are on. Those two want to be on the HD equiv of "Basic" and get a major cut like off of ALL subscribers, not just a tier.

 

From Wiki:

 

NFL Network has insisted that it be placed on basic service and wish to charge the cable companies a monthly rate of $0.61 per subscriber, while Time Warner and other major cable companies wishes to place it on a sports tier. Cable companies feel that a channel with such marginal interest and few live games with filler programming would be tough to sell during non-football season months. NFL Network's position is that demands are unreasonable and many other providers place NFL Network on a basic tier without subscriber backlashes.

In the long run, the NFL will win this one. They will have Comcast in the bag now: continuing to give NBC the Sunday Night Football will draw them in. They *may* suck TimeWarner into the bag as well: there has been a lot of talk to expand the Thursday Night package from half the season to the full season, with the other half potentially going up for bids rather than being placed on NFL Net. Either one works to the rather smart NFL in terms of leverage:

 

* 8 more games on NFL net to get NFL Fans to pressure TW

* 8 games to TW to get TW to roll over on the TWC carriage deal

 

NBA TV also moved to get on the basic tier level as well. Comcast put them on their Digital Classics, which is a basic HD tier. Of course the NBA has TimeWarner in the bag due to the NBA on TNT.

 

Those two leagues look at the WWE and laugh. They will *never* agree to be on a tier with the WWE, and instead have moved light years beyond that.

 

On the other hand:

 

$0.08 per month * 50,000,000 homes * 12 months = $48,000,000

 

FoodNetwork and Travel Channel make $0.08 a month per sub. They're on basic, so it's for _every_ home on the carrier. Travel is actually in roughly 95M homes, so one would guess Food is as well. That's a shade under 100M from just the carriers, before looking at the advertising $$.

 

The WWE is going to have a tough time getting on basic, but they're also going to have a tough time finding the right tier. It's an uphill struggle, which is why they should have been working on this for the past decade. Look at the freaking Golf Channel.

 

There is revenue to be made here. I don't have a ton of confidence that the WWE fully grasps how to make it work, or where the market is headed.

 

John

[jdw]

I think Meltzer is right when he speculated that this was an intentionally misleading question to make it look like their Network will be more popular than it actually is. According to former WWE creative team member Court Bauer, the idea is that the big 4 PPVs would be shown on the WWE Network a couple of weeks after they happen, like HBO and Showtime do with major boxing PPVs. He also said that they hadn't even got a business plan for the WWE Network in place at last word. Yeah, this is likely to be a major clusterf***.

Classic... no business plan. For fucks sake.

 

John

[shawmic]

Not saying it's not true....but we believe Court Bauer knows exactly what's going on because..? He worked for WWE 4 1/2 years ago?

[Guest Slickster]

He says he checks in at Titan Towers once a year and has plenty of friends who still work for the company.

[artDDP]

He says he checks in at Titan Towers once a year and has plenty of friends who still work for the company.

"Sources close to McMahon tell Pro Wrestling Illustrated that..."

[shawmic]

I just listened to it and it sounds like he had a meeting with WWE in April about the network launch and at the time the plan was to broadcast the PPVs on a week delay. So it's obviously very possible that idea changed in the past 6 months especially since the huge push for the network just started in the past few months.