Guest Nell Santucci Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Neil - are you doing buys for NWA / WCW events too? I plan on doing everything I listed, but it's a question of finding definitive numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 I don't get why WM IX was so high relative to VIII and even VII. Was it because Hogan was somehow fresh again? They had just lost Warrior and DBS. Were people so into Luger/Hennig, Doink/Crush, and Hart/Yoko? Michaels/Tatanka? Was there boost because of Raw's debut back in January? VIII was much more stacked card with Sid/Hogan, Flair/Savage, Piper/Hart, Jake/Taker, Diasters/Money Inc. And VII was super stacked relatively. Were just more houses PPV-ready in 93? I can buy that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Reckon it was the awesome job Sean Mooney did on the countdown show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 What was IX's number? It's not on the list here. Â IV being considerably higher than III surprised me. And the first Summerslam did an even bigger number. Does more houses being wired for PPV explain that? It's funny how WWE looks back on Wrestlemania III as their crowning glory, yet they never mention IV despite it being a larger success (or V's MUCH larger success). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Way more ppv homes for IV than III. III's buy rate was way higher--still the highest ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 I don't get why WM IX was so high relative to VIII and even VII. Was it because Hogan was somehow fresh again? They had just lost Warrior and DBS. Were people so into Luger/Hennig, Doink/Crush, and Hart/Yoko? Michaels/Tatanka? Was there boost because of Raw's debut back in January? VIII was much more stacked card with Sid/Hogan, Flair/Savage, Piper/Hart, Jake/Taker, Diasters/Money Inc. And VII was super stacked relatively. Were just more houses PPV-ready in 93? I can buy that. It does seem weird that Hogan vs. Sid would be over 200,000 buys less compelling than Hogan / Beefcake vs. Money Inc. Â Even more weird that Bret / Yoko should outdraw Savage / Flair. Â Has to be an external reason. Either that or Mike Rotunda is a bigger draw than Flair, Savage and Sid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmare007 Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 What was IX's number? It's not on the list here. JNLister posted it in this thread  I think you've probably got all this in the edited original post now, but here's a list I put together a few months back for the Mania shows. I think they all came directly or indirectly from the Observer:  o WrestleMania 1 - 398,000 (Closed Circuit Television) and literally a handful on PPV. o WrestleMania 2 - 319,000 (Closed Circuit Television) and Andre the Giant's handful on PPV. o WrestleMania III - 450,000 (Closed Circuit Television) and another 400,000 on PPV o WrestleMania IV - 175,000 (Closed Circuit Television), Approx 650,000 on PPV o WrestleMania V - 767,000 o WrestleMania VI - 550,000 o WrestleMania VII - 400,000 o WrestleMania VIII - 360,000 o WrestleMania IX - 430,000 o WrestleMania X - 420,000 o WrestleMania XI - 340,000 o WrestleMania XII - 290,000 o WrestleMania 13 - 237,000 o WrestleMania XIV - 730,000 o WrestleMania XV - 800,000 o WrestleMania 2000 - 824,000 o WrestleMania X-Seven - 1,040,000 (950,000 domestic) o WrestleMania X8 - 880,000 (domestic/intl split unknown) o WrestleMania XIX - 560,000 (north america only?) o WrestleMania XX - 885,000 (WWE figure, lower than that on the original version of this list) ( (domestic/intl split unknown) o WrestleMania 21 - 1,085,000 (approx 650,000 domestic) o WrestleMania 22 - 975,000 (approx 584,000 domestic) o WrestleMania 23 - 1,250,000 (825,000 domestic) o WrestleMania XXIV - 1,041,000 (697,000 domestic) o WrestleMania XXV - 960,000 (605,000 domestic) o WrestleMania XXVI - 885,000 (498,000 domestic) o WrestleMania XXVII - 1,042,000 (617,000 domestic)  For reference, 21 was the first show on PPV in the UK, which will have added a fair chunk to the international figure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Thanks. In hindsight, the original list should probably be amended to include buyrate percentages as well. You really need both numbers (along with how much the show cost) to understand how well any given PPV did compared to all the others. Â And it's also weird that X did better than VII and VIII, considering the traditional wisdom that the guys who followed Hogan couldn't draw better than him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Pretty sure we didn't have PPVs in the UK until surprisingly recently. We'd get them "free", essentially, if you had the right subscription channel. Â That accounts for the jump in the 00s if the same is true of other countries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Mania X was the first time you could order a PPV from home in Canada, or at least in the Calgary area. So that probably bumped the overall # up a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nell Santucci Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Thanks. In hindsight, the original list should probably be amended to include buyrate percentages as well. You really need both numbers (along with how much the show cost) to understand how well any given PPV did compared to all the others. Â And it's also weird that X did better than VII and VIII, considering the traditional wisdom that the guys who followed Hogan couldn't draw better than him. I have not included the buyrate number because, frankly, I don't think those numbers have much meaning when I did some naive, linear math on it. It's detailed in the first post. There is something a tad bit bizarre with how those numbers work. Maybe I'm missing something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 It's important because it shows how many people could have ordered the show and chose not to. A hundred thousand buys in 1987 is a lot more impressive than a hundred thousand buys today, because the total number of households that receive PPVs is so much higher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JNLister Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 In the UKFF thread we noticed the weirdness of IX bucking the trend. However, judging by the buyrate (the percentage figure) it seems there was a very significant increase in PPV availability between VIII. That would explain the sudden leap in raw number of buys and if you take that out, you're left with a consistent pattern of decline from 1989 to 1997, which certainly fits in with the popularity of the product as a whole. Â Why the PPV universe grew so much I'm not sure -- the only notable change I can find is Request TV adding satellite rather than just being cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 In the UKFF thread we noticed the weirdness of IX bucking the trend. However, judging by the buyrate (the percentage figure) it seems there was a very significant increase in PPV availability between VIII. That would explain the sudden leap in raw number of buys and if you take that out, you're left with a consistent pattern of decline from 1989 to 1997, which certainly fits in with the popularity of the product as a whole. Â Why the PPV universe grew so much I'm not sure -- the only notable change I can find is Request TV adding satellite rather than just being cable. Around that time, Cablevision made a pretty big change to their system in terms of adding a bunch of new channels and renting out new boxes...maybe it was an industry-wide thing that led a lot of customers to start renting the descrambler boxes? It's only in the last few years that the boxes became something that the CableCos required all customers to rent and thus the PPV universe stopped growing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmare007 Posted August 7, 2012 Report Share Posted August 7, 2012 It's important because it shows how many people could have ordered the show and chose not to. A hundred thousand buys in 1987 is a lot more impressive than a hundred thousand buys today, because the total number of households that receive PPVs is so much higher. yeah, but if we don't even know the estimate of how many households could get PPV, there's not a lot we can get from the buyrate percentages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nell Santucci Posted August 7, 2012 Report Share Posted August 7, 2012 It's important because it shows how many people could have ordered the show and chose not to. A hundred thousand buys in 1987 is a lot more impressive than a hundred thousand buys today, because the total number of households that receive PPVs is so much higher. Did you read my first post? I already go over this. I don't think the percentage is a percentage at all. I show reasons for this. There is something nonlinear at work because I don't believe the numbers vary that much. But it's not that interesting of a topic for now because I want people to see the absolute buys and not the relative buyrates, which is available. If we decide to unify all this, say a year from now, then we can do that then. But for now, I'm interesting in absolute buys, as are many other people. One reason for this is because those numbers simply aren't available outside of old Wrestling Observers. (I don't believe PWTorch ever released absolute numbers or even buyrates often.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted August 7, 2012 Report Share Posted August 7, 2012 I've looked through WONs from '89 trying to find the number of buys for some shows, and it's proven very difficult. My hope was to provide hard numbers for WCW/NWA, but they just aren't there. Dave didn't even always report on the buyrates, sometimes just mentioning it in passing 12-18 months later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted August 7, 2012 Report Share Posted August 7, 2012 I've looked through WONs from '89 trying to find the number of buys for some shows, and it's proven very difficult. My hope was to provide hard numbers for WCW/NWA, but they just aren't there. Dave didn't even always report on the buyrates, sometimes just mentioning it in passing 12-18 months later.This has been my experience looking. Or sometimes he gives the numbers but then gives different numbers for the same show a few weeks later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted August 7, 2012 Report Share Posted August 7, 2012 I'm sure if the feedback was given to Dave that this would be a great thing to put in a WON at some point, he would do it. Maybe worth making the suggestion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nell Santucci Posted August 7, 2012 Report Share Posted August 7, 2012 I'm sure if the feedback was given to Dave that this would be a great thing to put in a WON at some point, he would do it. Maybe worth making the suggestion. A lot of Meltzer's absolute buy numbers are estimations anyway. I might e-mail him. I'm curious to find out just how low SuperBrawl 2000 went under Russo's direction for comedy relief. (I'm tired of Russo marks saying that he drew big ratings for WCW.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted August 7, 2012 Report Share Posted August 7, 2012 By the way...Dave MUST have some kind of master list of business figures over the years and isn't just looking through old WONs, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Cooke Posted August 8, 2012 Report Share Posted August 8, 2012 Here is Dave's mid-decade buy rate article from the 2/14/05 WON Â https://www.dropbox.com/s/buuzq42b6s9r6in/2...9%20PARTIAL.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Nell Santucci Posted August 8, 2012 Report Share Posted August 8, 2012 Here is Dave's mid-decade buy rate article from the 2/14/05 WON Â https://www.dropbox.com/s/buuzq42b6s9r6in/2...9%20PARTIAL.pdf Wow, thanks a ton. The added interpretation of Meltzer makes this link so infinitely valuable because it helps me get a feel for the main event without relying on too much interpretation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmare007 Posted August 9, 2012 Report Share Posted August 9, 2012 Here is Dave's mid-decade buy rate article from the 2/14/05 WON Â https://www.dropbox.com/s/buuzq42b6s9r6in/2...9%20PARTIAL.pdf I'm amazed that Brock vs Taker in a HIAC match didn't mean a thing (it drew the same as Unforgiven 1 month prior) but Nash vs HHH in HIAC meant a 70k boost less than a year later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted August 9, 2012 Report Share Posted August 9, 2012 Mick Foley was the special referee after a long absence. That's what sold that main event. Plus, that show had Flair/Michaels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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