A Demand for a Comprehensive PPV Buyrate List

[Jmare007]

Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

 

According to new data released by WWE, the 2012 SummerSlam pay-per-view was a huge success with 350,000 worldwide pay-per-view buys. This breaks down to 264,000 North American buys but just 86,000 international. This is the most successful SummerSlam since 2008.

 

75% of the buys coming from North America indicates that Brock Lesnar vs. Triple H was the reason. Lesnar's main drawing power from his UFC days was big in the US and Canada but little international.

 

In comparison, the 2011 SummerSlam pay-per-view did 180,000 North American buys and 131,000 international buys for a total of 311,000. Last year was headlined by CM Punk vs. John Cena with Triple H as referee and Randy Orton vs. Christian

[Jmare007]

The 2012 Night Of Champion garnered 189,000 worldwide pay-per-view buys. The event did 100,000 buys in North America and 89,000 internationally.

 

This year's card was headlined by WWE Champion CM Punk and John Cena fighting to a draw.

 

For the third quarter of 2012, WWE averaged 245K pay-per-buys (158K in North America, 87K international), up 13% from the same quarter last year which averaged 217K buys (140K from North America, 77K international).

 

2011 NOC: 161,000

Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter

WWE's WrestleMania 28 pay-per-view did end up being the single most purchased pro wrestling pay-per-view event in history, based on new data that are likely the final numbers for the event.

 

These updated numbers include late recorded buys and have WrestleMania 28 doing 1,253,000 buys - 733,000 domestic and 520,000 internationally. The international number would beat the all-time record by a significant amount. There have been several events over the years that have topped the domestic number.

 

The 1,253,000 buys for WrestleMania 28 beats out the 1,250,000 buys for WrestleMania 23 in 2007 with Donald Trump. Technically, when it's all said and done WWE is able to round up to 1.3 million buys and claim the biggest pay-per-view of all-time.

Source: PWInsider

- According to updated numbers from WWE, the 2012 Money in the Bank pay-per-view did just over 200,000 buys, slightly up from 2010 and 2011.

[Jmare007]

I guess Nell gave up on this?

 

Anyways, here's the results from WWE's latest quarter earnings conference call

 

The details for the number of buys (in 000s) for each pay-per-view in the quarter are as follows:

 

---------------------------2012----2011

 

WWE Hell in a Cell --199---------182

 

Survivor Series---------208------281

 

TLC----------------------175--------179

 

 

WWE released their financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012 this morning. Pay-Per-View revenues for the quarter were $13.0 million, as compared to $14.6 million in the prior-year quarter. However the company produced three pay-per-view events in the quarter in 2012, as compared to four in the prior-year quarter.

 

Revenue and buys were also effected by their television partnership in the U.K., as they selected one fewer event in the current quarter to distribute on pay-per-view. On a comparable basis for the events produced in the quarter, revenue increased approximately 4% as the 3% decline in buys was offset by a 7% increase in the average revenue per buy due in part to an increased number of high-definition buys, which are generally charged at a higher prices.

 

For the year, revenues from pay-per-view were $83.6 million, as opposed to $78.3 million in 2011.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

I've been working on an ongoing project to compile a database of buyrates for WWF and WCW PPVs (among others) going back to the 1980s.

 

It has been brought to my attention that there are issues with many of figures for these shows that have popped up in the Wrestling Observer and such over the years and I'd like to try to arrive at some more pinpointed numbers as there is a lot of misinformation going on over the internet about this topic.

 

Also, I'm hoping to get the attention of another member here, as I know he's working on a similar project and I thought we spitball and compare some numbers.

 

At any rate, my eventual plan is to develop some sort of website or web application with the data so that there is a central and comprehensive source for accurate numbers -- or in the case where hard numbers don't exist or cannot be agreed upon, a place to gather all of the different speculated numbers for a show.

 

I'd like to offer some help with this project, as this is a topic I've been studying for many years. Around the summer of 1997, I became quite interested in buyrates in general and began collecting a lot of the available data online and simultaneously became intrigued with the sheer amount of inconsistency that seemed to exist in the numbers depending on who was reporting them.

Okay, so you came to the right thread.

 

 

As you know, most of the numbers found online for calculated buys are simply not reliable for pre-WWE era shows. Many of them have been pulled from an older incarnation of the “Wrestling Information Archive†website several years ago. The person who ran that site failed to account for the expanding and contracting size of the PPV universe and thus overestimated the number of buys for pretty much all shows before 2002 or so. That is a huge source for a lot of misinformation about buyrates and buys, as I'm sure many of you are aware. Other sites have tried hard to report just the facts as they have come from sources, most notably the Pro Wrestling History website, which has been keeping track of the buyrates since 1996 or so. Most of their numbers seem to come directly from the old Observer Newsletter.

It's not only a source for error, but counterexamples prove its absurdity. For example, we know that around 10% of the PPV Universe purchased Wrestlemania III. (One can't think of that in proportions either as obviously the bigger markets got PPV first and thus, there would have been a diminishing return had the size of the PPV Universe increased with respect to the total number of buys.) At 10% of the PPV Universe and at around the fixed 400,000 homes per 1% of the PPV Universe, that implies 4,000,000 people would have purchased Wrestlemania III. Obviously that's false. Even modern UFC PPVs headlined by Brock Lesnar never came close to those numbers (1.6 million at his best, with GSP on top of the card, and they're both bigger stars than Hogan ever was). Mike Tyson's return bout against Holyfield did around 1.6 million buys, and their return bout after the ear-biting controversy drew 2 million. So the thought that Wrestlemania III did double that is only true in the minds of the WWE's most gullible marks.

 

In fact, The Wrestling Observer is just about the most prominent source of the information on wrestling buyrate information online. It is a helpful and important source for information on this topic, and I've read through many years of them extensively, but there are some problems with Dave's numbers that will have to be worked out. This is why I wanted to alert Nell Santucci, as I believe he is using Meltzer's audience estimates to come up with a PPV audience growth rate formula. Meltzer's PPV universe numbers seem to be quite unreliable.

Everything seems to be settled. Yes, Meltzer is vital.

 

I'd break-down the issues with Dave Meltzer's numbers in the Observers into the following areas:

 

1. Often times, he is given the actual buyrate for a show from a rep and calculates the number of buys himself. This is clear in many of his 1980s entries. The problem with this method is that from almost all of the figures I've been able to find, the pay-per-view audience size he uses in his calculations is usually off, sometimes by quite a bit. In many cases it's because he's basing them on the numbers for the previous year's PPV universe. For a couple of years he inexplicably used 20 million as a base audience figure (which Herb Kunze often repeated in good faith, but I believe he called some question to the practice as well in some of his RSPW posts) despite a substantial growth in the size of the PPV universe over the period in question. At times, there is a lack of consistency in his numbers regarding the audience size as well, often within the same year or even the same month. For example, for WCW Mayhem 1999 he states that it "did 0.43 buyrate or 168,000 buys". For Survivor Series 1999, which occurred in the same month, he reports that it "did a 1.14 or 425,000 buys". The first number suggests a potential PPV universe of 39 million homes, while the second suggest a PPV universe of around 37 million homes. The PPV audience is ever expanding and contracting, but not that at that rapid of a rate. Whatever factors may be at fault here (miscalculations, mistakes, wrong estimates, shady promoters) the numbers are not accurate.

I'm not sure how much any of that matters. I've tested out my formula, and it seems to be accurate with respect to time. Basically, let B = buys, R = revenue generated from buys, P = price of PPV, and .46 as the constant. B = T / (.46 x R). I'd rather have .46 = c, since the constant might have changed; but IIRC, Bix said that the constant has always been that. In other words, the buyrate is totally irrelevant except as a fixed metric for the size of the PPV Universe. (As attractive as that fixed metric sounds, obviously the PPV Universe will be greater in key markets than elsewhere, so expanding the size of the PPV universe in rural and suburban areas will likely result in diminishing returns. In other words, a fixed buyrate won't necessarily give absolute meaning.) The primary determinant is the PPV revenue.

 

2. Conversely at other times he is given the # of buys themselves (which we can only hope come from an independent industry source, although his sources are not always divulged) and calculates the buyrate himself based on what he believes to be the size of the audience. Once again, you run into a similar problem with the audience size. Furthermore this has caused inaccurate buyrate %s to be repeated and published subsequently. I think in these instances as long as the source is deemed reliable, that it would be better to use the buys given to him and recalculate the buyrate % based on those numbers, as his buyrate percentages are not likely accurate in those situations.

 

3. Satellite and cable companies often take months to get all of the reported buys in, which affects the buyrate % and Meltzer does not always follow up on those shows down the line and update the numbers, although he's usually been pretty good about it. Just FYI, historically buyrates are given as an average of the reporting markets. The buyrate is a simply a percentage of the average of each individual cable systems ratio of purchases to customers. Initial reports are often high -- for example, if the initial buyrate report comes back for a show including cable companies in wrestling hotbeds like Los Angeles and New York first, then the rate will normally come in artificially high, since those tend to have a higher percentage of orders than other areas. The same is true for the stated number of buys -- those numbers are only an estimate in preliminary reports, as it takes up to a year before all of the individual buys are actually counted and tabulated. As you'd expect, they often come out lower than the initial estimates, as we've seen even this year with the WWE's WrestleMania buys being revised several times, vacillating between 1.1 and 1.3 million buys. This is probably the biggest obstacle in pinning down numbers -- and if you could find an independent source with the *final* buys or buyrates for pre WWE era shows, then you'd have much more accurate information to work with. There are a few sources out there with some of this information that I'm trying to get my hands on it, but they are not easy to come by. What I've got so far has been via interlibrary loans – some publications that would come in especially handy are the following ones: The Pay TV Newsletter and the Cable TV Financial Databook Annual. Both of these publications include research by the media firm Paul Kagan and Associates, who I have found has offered the most consistent data on the size of PPV audiences over the years and are frequently sourced in discussions regarding it. I'm hoping some of these publications have information on specific shows as well, since they routinely published lists of the highest grossing PPVs when called upon for that information.

That's very good, though I don't think the size of the PPV Universe matters except only to derive buyrates, where buyrates themselves aren't factored into the formula (just total revenue, a constant, and the price of PPV, so two variables).

 

4. The growth of satellite TV creates a little bit of confusion with some of the numbers as well. Historically PPV availability was reported by the cable industry only, with satellite PPV audience size access presumably lumped in with cable. This changed in 1997, when the cable industry began to stagnate in terms of subscriber growth, but PPV grew tremendously anyway due to the proliferation of satellite TV subscriptions. This helped get PPV to areas that were previously unreachable due to their remoteness. At any rate, around this time a lot of reports on PPV audience size began to not include satellite subscriptions, which I've found were reported separately or not at all for some years. Cracking this one is going to be especially tricky for the period of 1999 to 2002, as there is still some missing data to gather on satellite availability.

Okay, it's something worth considering, I suppose, but I'm worried about diminishing returns here. For example, the more important consideration in all this is standard deviation of PPV buys within some varied time frame or across promotions than absolute buys. For example, does it make a big difference that WWF's Cold Day in Hell (May 1997) might have gotten 175,000 instead of 178,000 buys? If that number were to differ by 20,000, then that can be significant, but its significance would depend on how much that number would vary from other WWF B-show PPVs and WCW PPVs, if your interest was to compare the two promotions. The general point I'm making is that rather than getting caught up in details, we want a better sketch of the general PPV buys history first. For now, we have nothing to work on; the data don't exist in the e-world.

 

3. Contradictory data appearing or mistakes made over time -- the Summer Slam 1998 buyrate is one of the most notable, inflating from about 500,000 buys in 1998 up to 700,000 buys. I would guess it was in 2003, but Meltzer suddenly began reporting the 700k number when it was previously reported by just about everyone (including himself and several independent sources) that the show did between 500k and 530k buys. Not sure what has led to the revision.

I would e-mail Dave about that. I might do it myself if I remember to. That's very significant.

 

4. Wrestling companies often lie about the number of buys and the buyrates. I'm sure you've heard this or likely seen it yourself. It's remarked upon in the Observer at multiple points as well, and there are several of Multichannel News Articles that quote WWE spokesperson Skip Desjardin, where you can track the lies from year to year. See his reports on the buyrates for SummerSlam 1993 and 1994 – as the math makes no sense given what he is saying. It does seem to be more notable in the WWF than WCW once you get to the 1990s for some reason (not so in the 1980s though) but WCW had a few shows where they tried to pull a fast one too -- most notably Bash at the Beach 1997, although that was later verified. The WrestleMania 14 buyrate is a bit suspect too in my opinion -- as the “final†numbers for the show came out unusually far over the preliminary estimated buyrate of 1.78 (farther than any reported show has over a preliminary estimate and by a large margin based on what I've seen for preliminary figures for other shows). The number seems to have never been corroborated by a non- WWF source either, so the 2.2 or 2.3% reported might be pure fantasy. Personally I'd make the case that this sort of makes sense too, given the WWF was much more popular in 1999 than mid-1998 – and yet the WrestleMania 15 buyrate was just about the same. It doesn't make a lot of sense that they would convert so many normally non-buying customers into buyers for one show and by such a substantial margin. The "Tyson" effect is usually cited, but I think his impact may be overstated outside the arena, as most of Tyson's fights after the 2nd Holyfield fight in 1997 did poor buyrates until his Lennox Lewis fight in 2002, so I'm not sure he was really the draw people thought he was in 1998. One other notable discrepancy is with the WrestleMania 4 and 5 buyrates -- with Meltzer noting that they did very similar numbers in terms of buys, and at one point that WrestleMania 4 had done more buys, but he's obviously revised that figure to push WM5 much higher. I'm not sure why the change was made, because it doesn't seem to hold up in the math. WrestleMania III has also been reported as high as 10.2 and as low as 8.

Fortunately, the buyrates aren't a consideration in the formula.

 

5. Getting reliable figures on the size of the PPV audience is difficult, which makes establishing a month to month rate of growth difficult as well. The size of the PPV universe does vary from month to month, but the updated figure is normally published only once a year by media sources, leading me to believe the previous year's shows are often either underestimated (based on the previous years average audience) or over-estimated (based on the growth estimates of the next years PPV universe). This is where establishing some sort of formula would come in handy, based on the PPV universe data for each year, to calculate a growth rate from month to month that would make recalculating buys for each event easier.

The problem with disseminating accurate information on PPV buys is this false and absurd notion that 1.0 buy corresponds to around 400,000 buys. Rather than get fixated on an ever-varying number, it seems more important to qualify that the PPV universe is always changing, that buyrates reflect that ever-changing universe, that buyrate reports conflict between Meltzer's sources, the promotions who want to work their numbers, and Meltzer himself; and, that buyrates don't factor into the formula, as only total revenue does.

 

6. As far as calculating a formula, it should also be noted that the growth in the PPV universe is not likely to be strictly linear -- there were a few key events that occurred along the way to cause spikes and contractions in the PPV available universe. I'm not a mathematician, so I'm not sure if the spikes deviate enough from the averages for the function to be considered non-linear, but the PPV universe certainly has not always expanded upwards.

It's not a factor at all.

 

7. Yet another commonly missed issue is that of traps and addressability. For those not aware, a lot of data reported on the size of the PPV universe only count addressable homes (i.e. homes that can receive PPV via a bi-directional box, typically orders taken by phone, remote, or set top box menus) but some cable systems sold PPV via contract with customers using descrambler units rented out directly to the subscriber. This was because of the high cost of converting to an addressable cable system which allowed PPV to be deployed (or “addressedâ€) remotely. Many mid-sized cable companies could not afford this, didn't want to pass on the expense of the boxes to the customers, or did not have the channel capacity to include a full-time PPV network, so they strictly offered selected events, carried over a channel that normally hosted some other type of programming (typically leased access or paid programming). One way around having an addressable system was to use positive traps on the boxes instead, similar to those used to prevent viewers from watching premium channels on non-addressable boxes. You see this reference in old movies and TV a lot, where the tenant pays the cable employee $50 for all the premium channels – it's the same idea. These traps were placed on the cable line or within the box itself to filter out particular ranges of channels, but they can be removed or descrambled with an external device. There were a few significant drives to get cable companies to use this system in order to get a chunk of the PPV pie when the going was good, but for whatever reason these figures seem to be excluded from estimates of the PPV audience, perhaps due to the difficulty of gathering the data. I've seen it referred to just a few times in the literature I've read, but I have personally experienced it and it seems to have been substantial in some cases. This article from the LA Times in 1992 makes reference to it (http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-20/business/fi-281_1_cable-operators/2) and suggests as many as 10 million potential customers used traps -- which is a substantial portion of the PPV universe in 1992. This is much less of an issue from about 1995 on as most systems were addressable by that point, but prior to that there may be a substantial portion of the audience that is unaccounted for or is accounted for in an inconsistent manner.

That is quite a concern and is worth e-mailing Dave about.

 

6. Dave Meltzer himself stated in an April 1991 edition of the Observer that there was some over-counting going on in his own calculations of the audience size -- because he was presumably using the combined reported PPV universe sizes stated by the two major PPV companies (Request and Viewer's choice) who both distributed WWF and NWA/WCW PPVs for his calculations. There is some overlap between the customer bases however. As an example, Request and Viewer's choice combined may have had access to let's say 10 million customers at one point, but some cable networks carried both channels on their systems, which means that those are not necessarily going be 10 million unique customers. This may be a major issue, especially with the 1980s shows where he seems unaware of this fact. The actual reported buys themselves are likely too high.

That's very interesting. How can we resolve this?

 

7. Not all WWF and WCW PPVs were offered every month, in every market, before about 1990 or so and even after that in some areas. I'm sure we'll have some user confirmations of this, but many cable companies in the late 1980s would often pick and choose what PPVs they would carry, limiting them to just a few events, which has an impact upon the size of the calculated PPV audience, and therefore the actual buyrate. Meltzer occasionally identifies this issue, most notably in reference to Starrcade 1987 and also the WWE's dispute with DirecTV that caused them to drop coverage for a few PPV shows. There is probably no way to acquire information on this, so we'll just have to assume it was not substantial, although I'd hypothesize that it particularly impacts the early NWA/WCW buyrates the most since they did not have the market saturation the WWF did.

That sounds fair.

 

8. One other issue I'll mention briefly as far as calculating the amount of money generated by a PPV -- the price of a PPV was not always a standard thing before the 1990s -- some markets charged slightly more and slightly less for the same show until PPV went national. Furthermore complicating it is that for certain shows, you received a discount for the event if you ordered early, but paid full price for a day-of-the-event buy. Lastly there may be special situations that need to be identified, such as Starrcade 1991, where WCW charged $19.99 instead of the usual $19.95, but did not pocket the four cents, it was instead donated to the Starlight Foundation. At any rate, I'm happy to give whatever price data I saved once the prices became standardized.

That sounds negligible in the sense that the standard deviation wouldn't be that wide because of it. Besides, most PPV buys are impulse buys.

 

So at any rate, those are the issues as I see it. I guess my ultimate goal is to help come up with something to display all of the known information – information for a show if it is available or a notation for a show where it is not, along with the various estimates that can be cobbled together. It would be nice to have a line for each show that is a recalculation of the buyrate and audience size based on known data, if for no other reason than comparison purposes to see how feasible a particular reported number is.

Sounds fair.

I'll make a quick sketch about the formula.

1.) I found out that the PPV Universe size varied a lot by using a proportion. You could see that by calculating the difference between WCW and WWF PPV buys in 1997, where those shows were held within 30 days of each other, and the WWF PPVs of “This Tuesday in Texas†and the 1991 Survivor Series, as we can see that the size of the PPV Universe varied erratically.

2.) I read in some Observer, I think in 1995, that McMahon got around 45% of the cut of the PPV price. We have the total revenue. So 45% of the PPV price in the denominator, divided into the much larger numerator, makes dimensional sense because (a) the currency unit cancels out, and ( the numbers are within close approximation of what we know of the markets at the time (namely that a B-show WWF PPV in 1995 would do around 200k and not around 350k, like Wrestlemania did), and the numbers fit.

3.) The buyrate itself depends on the PPV universe, and as such, neither would be factored in the formula.

 

That's largely it.

 

So the total number of buys "B" = Total revenue "T" divided by (the price of PPV "P" x some .45 constant "c").

 

I use .46 instead of .45 because the numbers tend to match the actual buys better for some reason. Either way, the difference isn't that substantial.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

I guess Nell gave up on this?

 

Anyways, here's the results from WWE's latest quarter earnings conference call

 

The details for the number of buys (in 000s) for each pay-per-view in the quarter are as follows:

 

---------------------------2012----2011

 

WWE Hell in a Cell --199---------182

 

Survivor Series---------208------281

 

TLC----------------------175--------179

 

 

WWE released their financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012 this morning. Pay-Per-View revenues for the quarter were $13.0 million, as compared to $14.6 million in the prior-year quarter. However the company produced three pay-per-view events in the quarter in 2012, as compared to four in the prior-year quarter.

 

Revenue and buys were also effected by their television partnership in the U.K., as they selected one fewer event in the current quarter to distribute on pay-per-view. On a comparable basis for the events produced in the quarter, revenue increased approximately 4% as the 3% decline in buys was offset by a 7% increase in the average revenue per buy due in part to an increased number of high-definition buys, which are generally charged at a higher prices.

 

For the year, revenues from pay-per-view were $83.6 million, as opposed to $78.3 million in 2011.

How utterly bizarre. No. I just had time to update stuff today and to calculate it. As normal, I made it more complicated than it had to be.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

I'm going to try and do all the PPVs from 1995, but I need help with finding the prices.

[goc]

Superbrawl V - Baltimore Arena; Baltimore, MD 2/19/1995 - $24.95

Uncensored - $27.50 ($32.50 for day of the event orders (which Dave says is most of them and I'm sure screws up your formula)

Slamboree - $27.50 ($32.50)

Great American Bash - $27.50($32.50)

Bash at the Beach - $27.50 ($32.50)

Fall Brawl - $27.50 ($32.50)

Halloween Havoc - $27.50 ($32.50)

World War 3 - $27.50 ($32.50)

Starrcade - $27.50 ($32.50)

 

 

WWF

Royal Rumble - $24.95

WrestleMania - $29.95

In Your House -$14.95

King of The Ring $24.95

IYH 2: $14.95

SummerSlam - $27.50

IYH 3 - $14.95

Survivor Series - $24.95

IYH 4 - $14.95

IYH 5 - $14.95

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Superbrawl V - Baltimore Arena; Baltimore, MD 2/19/1995 - $24.95

Uncensored - $27.50 ($32.50 for day of the event orders (which Dave says is most of them and I'm sure screws up your formula)

Slamboree - $27.50 ($32.50)

Great American Bash - $27.50($32.50)

Bash at the Beach - $27.50 ($32.50)

Fall Brawl - $27.50 ($32.50)

Halloween Havoc - $27.50 ($32.50)

World War 3 - $27.50 ($32.50)

Starrcade - $27.50 ($32.50)

 

 

WWF

Royal Rumble - $24.95

WrestleMania - $29.95

In Your House -$14.95

King of The Ring $24.95

IYH 2: $14.95

SummerSlam - $27.50

IYH 3 - $14.95

Survivor Series - $24.95

IYH 4 - $14.95

IYH 5 - $14.95

Wow, thanks a ton. That saves me hours, if not days, of technical research.

 

No, the WCW PPV price range won't affect my formula. Let $27.50 = p1, and let $32.50 = p2. So we have

 

B1 = T / (P1 x .46) and B2 = T / (P2 x .46)

 

where B1 and B2 are PPV buys with respect to some fixed price. Since there is an inverse relationship between price of the PPV for some fixed revenue T, i.e. cheaper prices imply more buys,

 

B2 < B < B1

 

where B is the theoretical number of buys, B2 is reflected by the more expensive price tag for some fixed revenue T, and B1 is reflected by the more expensive price tag for some fixed revenue T. On a technical issue, the variance between B1 and B2 won't be that significant, but it will be significant enough to change its ranking by a few points if one were to rank PPV buys in a here.

 

 

 

Now, here is the more arbitrary component to all this. We know by the empirical record that most PPV buys are impulse buys, i.e. most will happen on the day of the show and hence the buyer will be charged the price p2. Let's take some arbitrary percentage k for the number of buys on Sunday. Then, we have

 

B = [b1 x (1 - k)] + (B2 x k), where B1 are the pre-Sunday buys (and will be significantly less than k since PPV buys are mostly impulse buys) and B2 are the Sunday and replay buys. So that fact lets us derive that

 

k >> 1 - k for all 0 < k ≤ 1.

 

 

I suppose the difficult part is determining what k is. I have no clue what k is, but the advantage of our formula is that there shouldn't be a huge deviation between B1 and B2, i.e. by more than 40,000 buys, if that's even possible in the applied sense. But here are some facts:

 

1.) If we choose a reasonable k and fix for k for all WCW PPVs, then if there exists variance, it'll be for a fixed variance for all those PPVs,

2.) Since the difference between B1 and B2 isn't that great to begin with, a reasonable k will put B closer to B1 than to B2,

3.) Finally, we're rounding anyway, as expecting exact numbers is a fool's errand. So say if B1 is 83,323 and B2 is 97,477 with k being .75, that gives B as 93,939. Rounding down by a few thousand, we get 90,000 buys (roughly).

 

 

What's important is to not get bogged down in autistic technicalities; rather, we just want a reasonable list to tell us what was selling that year and what wasn't.

 

Alas, I have decided to make k = .75. If anyone has a better number, then k can be changed. But for now, I'm sticking to .75, though I doubt it'll make a difference due to rounding error.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Two things so far that really stand out to me:

 

1.) Hogan and Vader drew really well on PPV, so much so that not only did all their matches draw within a neighborhood of 200,000 buys but that they practically doubled nearly all other cards including Savage/Flair (which was outdrawn by a Hogan/Vader tag team match anyway). Eric Bischoff was really dumb to let Vader go, but I suppose that's one strike amongst many showing Bischoff to have no practical intuition concerning his pocket book.

 

2.) British Bulldog was a really shitty draw, I mean to the extent that he was the WWF's anti-Vader. Now, I don't have the Dec. 1995 IYH number, but I do know that their buyrate is the lowest in company history, so I'm expecting around 80,000 buys.

[goc]

Two things so far that really stand out to me:

 

1.) Hogan and Vader drew really well on PPV, so much so that not only did all their matches draw within a neighborhood of 200,000 buys but that they practically doubled nearly all other cards including Savage/Flair (which was outdrawn by a Hogan/Vader tag team match anyway). Eric Bischoff was really dumb to let Vader go, but I suppose that's one strike amongst many showing Bischoff to have no practical intuition concerning his pocket book.

 

2.) British Bulldog was a really shitty draw, I mean to the extent that he was the WWF's anti-Vader. Now, I don't have the Dec. 1995 IYH number, but I do know that their buyrate is the lowest in company history, so I'm expecting around 80,000 buys.

I kind of think the Vader drawing power had been pretty hurt by all the jobs to Hogan, especially Hogan popping up from the Powerbomb. They were planning on turning him face anyway, and if he wouldn't have been programmed against Hogan anymore, then he would no longer be put in a position to draw anyway.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Two things so far that really stand out to me:

 

1.) Hogan and Vader drew really well on PPV, so much so that not only did all their matches draw within a neighborhood of 200,000 buys but that they practically doubled nearly all other cards including Savage/Flair (which was outdrawn by a Hogan/Vader tag team match anyway). Eric Bischoff was really dumb to let Vader go, but I suppose that's one strike amongst many showing Bischoff to have no practical intuition concerning his pocket book.

 

2.) British Bulldog was a really shitty draw, I mean to the extent that he was the WWF's anti-Vader. Now, I don't have the Dec. 1995 IYH number, but I do know that their buyrate is the lowest in company history, so I'm expecting around 80,000 buys.

I kind of think the Vader drawing power had been pretty hurt by all the jobs to Hogan, especially Hogan popping up from the Powerbomb. They were planning on turning him face anyway, and if he wouldn't have been programmed against Hogan anymore, then he would no longer be put in a position to draw anyway.

 

That is true, but it only speaks to the dichotomy of Hogan being essential for the company's survival and Hogan being a major contributing factor to the company's downfall.

 

Do you have the 1994 PPV prices? I'm sure it'll be easier to calculate. Only WCW would make my formula more involved than it had to be.

[goc]

They changed all the prices after Superbrawl to account for Hogan's take. Seeing as Superbrawl was $24.95 ($27.50) I would guess that's the price for all the 1994 PPVs.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

They changed all the prices after Superbrawl to account for Hogan's take. Seeing as Superbrawl was $24.95 ($27.50) I would guess that's the price for all the 1994 PPVs.

That would be my guess too, but I don't want to asterik all my numbers and say that I guessed because there are just so many other events to worry about, frankly. I must say that I've been tracking WCW PPV preview shows to see if I can get a price and, unlike WWF, WCW wouldn't even announce a price for the PPV many times. Only WCW. . .where Southerners and not bureaucratic incompetence get scapegoated for being bush league.

 

I have the 1994 numbers, so all I need are the prices. I'll find what I can.

 

Thanks so much for your help. You are a saint.

 

Almost all the 1995 numbers are up. What's notable is that the Royal Rumble outdrew SummerSlam. Was that its first time in history? Maybe. I judge that by the fact that SummerSlam had a higher price tag, so the internal WWF perception was that SummerSlam > Royal Rumble. So Bret Hart v. Diesel and the Royal Rumble match outdrew Diesel v. Mabel and Shawn Michaels v. Razor Ramon in a ladder match. Très interessant !

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Correction on a number: WWF cut the SummerSlam 1995 price from $27.50 to $24.95. So I'll correct that buy right now.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Using some slick searching skills, it seems like the first WCW PPV to go $24.95 was the 1992 Starrcade. Before that, the prices were $19.99.

 

Research question: Were WCW PPV prices ever lower than $19.99?

[Jmare007]

This is awesome Nell. I would have thought the numbers for 1995 were even worse than that. Although I guess shit really hit the fan in 96' and 97'.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

1994 WCW numbers are up. It's crazy to see just how good of a draw Hogan was in 1994. I mean, the guy literally doubled buys.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

1993 WCW PPV numbers are up.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

1994 WWF PPV numbers are up. I just need a citation for Wrestlemania X and virtually any other buyrate that Meltzer has talked about in the past few years, so I won't have to use my formula (which ranges from spot-on to being off by, at most, 15,000 buys).

[Jmare007]

Don't know how useful this info is but there is a "Misc ECW/TNA/ROH etc" part so..

 

Here's what I've got for iPPVs

 

ROH:

 

2010:

 

The Big Bang - 900 aprox.

Death Before Dishonor VIII - 1,100 aprox.

Glory By Honor IX - 1,300 aprox.

Final Battle - 1,750 aprox.

 

2011:

 

9th Anniversary Show - 1,500 aprox.

Honor Takes Center Stage - 1,725 aprox. (each show drew similarly)

Best in the World - 2,100 prox.

Final Battle - 2,000 aprox.

 

2012:

 

10th Anniversary show - 2,000 buys aprox.

Boiling Point - 650 aprox.

Glory By Honor XI - 1,500 aprox.

Final Battle - 2,000 aprox.

CHIKARA:

2012:

 

Under the Hood - 1,025 buys aprox.

New Japan:

2012:

 

G-1 Climax, Day 4 (8/5) - 20,000 buys aprox.

King Of Pro Wrestling - 55,000 aprox.

Power Struggle -???

World Tag League, Final Day (12/2) - ???

 

2013:

 

Wrestle Kingdom VII - 100,000 buys aprox.

New Beginning - 91,000 aprox.

 

I have no idea how legit this TNA numbers are, just stumbled across a big list of estimates on "tnawrestling101.com" but no clue if Meltzer is the source:

Victory Road 2004 20-25,000

Turning Point 2004 15-20,000

 

Final Resolution 2005 15-20,000

Against All Odds 2005 15-20,000

Destination X 2005 15-20,000

Lockdown 2005 25-30,000

Hard Justice 2005 15-20,000

Slammiversary 2005 15-20,000

No Surrender 2005 10-15,000

Sacrifice 2005 10-15,000

Unbreakable 2005 10-15,000

Bound For Glory 2005 30-35,000

Genesis 2005 15-20,000

Turning Point 2005 25-30,000

2005 Average 17-22,000

 

Final Resolution 2006 40-45,000

Against All Odds 2006 30-35,000

Destination X 2006 25-30,000

Lockdown 2006 40-45,000

Sacrifice 2006 20-25,000

Slammiversary 2006 30-35,000

Victory Road 2006 20-25,000

Hard Justice 2006 30-35,000

No Surrender 2006 25-30,000

Bound For Glory 2006 55-60,000

Genesis 2006 55-60,000

Turning Point 2006 30-35,000

 

Final Resolution 2007 30-35,000

Against All Odds 2007 20-25,000

Destination X 2007 25-30,000

Lockdown 2007 30-35,000

Sacrifice 2007 20-25,000

Slammiversary 2007 20-25,000

Victory Road 2007 15-20,000

Hard Justice 2007 20-25,000

No Surrender 2007 15-20,000

Bound For Glory 2007 35-40,000

Genesis 2007 20-25,000

Turning Point 2007 15-20,000

 

Final Resolution 2008 20-25,000

Against All Odds 2008 20-25,000

Destination X 2008 15-20,000

Lockdown 2008 50-55,000

Sacrifice 2008 20-25,000

Slammiversary 2008 25-30,000

Victory Road 2008 20-25,000

Hard Justice 2008 30-35,000

No Surrender 2008 15-20,000

Bound For Glory 2008 35-40,000

Turning Point 2008 30-35,000

 

Genesis 2009 25-30,000

Against All Odds 2009 15-20,000

Destination X 2009 25-30,000

Lockdown 2009 35-40,000

Sacrifice 2009 15-20,000

Slammiversary 2009 30-35,000

[Guest Nell Santucci]

Don't know how useful this info is but there is a "Misc ECW/TNA/ROH etc" part so..

 

Here's what I've got for iPPVs

 

ROH:

 

2010:

 

The Big Bang - 900 aprox.

Death Before Dishonor VIII - 1,100 aprox.

Glory By Honor IX - 1,300 aprox.

Final Battle - 1,750 aprox.

 

2011:

 

9th Anniversary Show - 1,500 aprox.

Honor Takes Center Stage - 1,725 aprox. (each show drew similarly)

Best in the World - 2,100 prox.

Final Battle - 2,000 aprox.

 

2012:

 

10th Anniversary show - 2,000 buys aprox.

Boiling Point - 650 aprox.

Glory By Honor XI - 1,500 aprox.

Final Battle - 2,000 aprox.

CHIKARA:

2012:

 

Under the Hood - 1,025 buys aprox.

New Japan:

2012:

 

G-1 Climax, Day 4 (8/5) - 20,000 buys aprox.

King Of Pro Wrestling - 55,000 aprox.

Power Struggle -???

World Tag League, Final Day (12/2) - ???

 

2013:

 

Wrestle Kingdom VII - 100,000 buys aprox.

New Beginning - 91,000 aprox.

 

I have no idea how legit this TNA numbers are, just stumbled across a big list of estimates on "tnawrestling101.com" but no clue if Meltzer is the source:

Victory Road 2004 20-25,000

Turning Point 2004 15-20,000

 

Final Resolution 2005 15-20,000

Against All Odds 2005 15-20,000

Destination X 2005 15-20,000

Lockdown 2005 25-30,000

Hard Justice 2005 15-20,000

Slammiversary 2005 15-20,000

No Surrender 2005 10-15,000

Sacrifice 2005 10-15,000

Unbreakable 2005 10-15,000

Bound For Glory 2005 30-35,000

Genesis 2005 15-20,000

Turning Point 2005 25-30,000

2005 Average 17-22,000

 

Final Resolution 2006 40-45,000

Against All Odds 2006 30-35,000

Destination X 2006 25-30,000

Lockdown 2006 40-45,000

Sacrifice 2006 20-25,000

Slammiversary 2006 30-35,000

Victory Road 2006 20-25,000

Hard Justice 2006 30-35,000

No Surrender 2006 25-30,000

Bound For Glory 2006 55-60,000

Genesis 2006 55-60,000

Turning Point 2006 30-35,000

 

Final Resolution 2007 30-35,000

Against All Odds 2007 20-25,000

Destination X 2007 25-30,000

Lockdown 2007 30-35,000

Sacrifice 2007 20-25,000

Slammiversary 2007 20-25,000

Victory Road 2007 15-20,000

Hard Justice 2007 20-25,000

No Surrender 2007 15-20,000

Bound For Glory 2007 35-40,000

Genesis 2007 20-25,000

Turning Point 2007 15-20,000

 

Final Resolution 2008 20-25,000

Against All Odds 2008 20-25,000

Destination X 2008 15-20,000

Lockdown 2008 50-55,000

Sacrifice 2008 20-25,000

Slammiversary 2008 25-30,000

Victory Road 2008 20-25,000

Hard Justice 2008 30-35,000

No Surrender 2008 15-20,000

Bound For Glory 2008 35-40,000

Turning Point 2008 30-35,000

 

Genesis 2009 25-30,000

Against All Odds 2009 15-20,000

Destination X 2009 25-30,000

Lockdown 2009 35-40,000

Sacrifice 2009 15-20,000

Slammiversary 2009 30-35,000

Thanks. It'll be useful in the long-term should we want to expand. But for now, we have our work cut out for us. I will say, and I'll share this story later, that I've done a test that basically proves the formula to be tremendously accurate. Anyway, just make sure you cite where you got these numbers from as it makes me want to scream when I see conflicting numbers.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

I must admit to having been worried when I got the SummerSlam 1992 numbers. First, my formula said the event did 285,000 buys. Second, a source said it did 200,000, which is way too wide of a deviation. Then I checked Sean Liska's buys, and it matched. For the record, 1993's match as well.

 

*chipping away*

[Guest Nell Santucci]

The initial numbers I got had to be really off. The 1992 SummerSlam was said to have done 200,000. My formula shows it did 285,000, which agreed with Meltzer's numbers. Also, the 1992 Survivor Series was said to have done 190,000, but my formula says it did around 250,000. I don't even know where these numbers came from. Citations are a life-saver.

[Guest Nell Santucci]

I'm really struck by how well SummerSlam 1994 drew (300,000). That means it outdrew 1992 when average business in 1994 was much worse (and therefore fewer potential buyers). Was the Undertaker v. Undertaker match the draw? Bret/Owen in the cage?

[goc]

I don't have 94 Observers but I would guess it was the Taker vs Taker match. While the match sucked, it was a very unique build and I'm guessing it was different enough that people wanted to see which was the "real" Taker.