The greatest cons in wrestling history

[Jingus]

I only read TNA's spoilers and even those wear me out.

Ditto. I find the show painful in a nearly physical manner. Unless they do something particularly stupid even by their standards, or if I run into one of the few remaining defenders of that company, I don't even bother complaining about them anymore. What's left to say? TNA doesn't even make any new mistakes, they keep fucking up in the exact same ways over and over again.

[kjh]

TNA invites Spike TV executives to an ECW nostalgia show in all but name to blow them away with the crowd reactions and possibly prove that they don't need Paul Heyman.

[sek69]

TNA invites Spike TV executives to an ECW nostalgia show in all but name to blow them away with the crowd reactions and possibly prove that they don't need Paul Heyman.

 

TNA trying to prove they don't need Heyman is like breaking up with someone you already got dumped by.

 

 

 

Also it's kind of funny the Hammerstein show was the motivation for this, since RAW didn't really start to take off until they stopped taping there every week.

[rovert]

According to RBR, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker, Wall Street overreacted. In a note to clients, she said that "ROH is one of the three major wrestling franchises in the US (TNA and WWE are the other two), and was acquired by SBGI for what we believe to be an immaterial amount." She estimated that the purchase price was under $10 million. She added that "Based on our conversations, investors are not comfortable with an acquisition outside of SBGI's (or any TV company's) ‘core business' but we actually view ROH as a unique opportunity that could benefit SBGI's primary operations (i.e. advertising)." She also noted that new ROH COO "has hands-on experience managing wrestling content" according to a quote reworded by RBR.

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/5/24/218...to-roh-purchase

 

WCW was purchased for $4.3 million

 

Can we induct Cary?

[Bix]

Is $4.3m the official number for the assets, the total for the assets plus ads on TNT and TBS, or a different figure?

 

But yes, anything in the WCW range is worthy of this thread.

[rovert]

Copyrights and tape library.

 

Which makes for a decent comparison as it excludes contracts, ad deals, PPV revenue owed by cable companies etc.

[Bix]

Where is the $2.5m figure from? I've heard that a lot.

[rovert]

Where is the $2.5m figure from? I've heard that a lot.

The name & copyrights was $2.5 million and the entire tape library was $1.7 million.

[Ditch]

I thought it was clear at the time that WWF bought WCW at a too-low, fire-sale price.

[Bix]

I don't remember hearing before that they had itemized the deal like that. Was TBS considering holding onto the tape library?

[rovert]

Dave shot this one down:

 

 

It was purchased for well under what WWF paid for WCW.

[Cox]

That $10 million figure was probably put out there to make it seem like ROH was a much more valuable piece of property than it is, without being technically incorrect. I mean, if they paid $50 for ROH, that's still under $10 million.

[Bix]

What's "well under"?

[Bix]

That $10 million figure was probably put out there to make it seem like ROH was a much more valuable piece of property than it is, without being technically incorrect. I mean, if they paid $50 for ROH, that's still under $10 million.

That too.

[jdw]

It was probably not "bought", and instead they took over some of hist debts/obligations, which if he was smart enough he rolled into the company and just move over to SBGI. In turn, SBGI probably wipes off the ROH books money that ROH "owes" Cary either as loans or as shareholder equity, etc.

 

John

[jdw]

Where is the $2.5m figure from? I've heard that a lot.

The name & copyrights was $2.5 million and the entire tape library was $1.7 million.

 

I don't remember hearing before that they had itemized the deal like that. Was TBS considering holding onto the tape library?

From their 10-K for the year ended 04/30/01:

 

In March 2001, we acquired substantially all of the intellectual properties and certain other assets of World Championship Wrestling® (the "WCW®"), including the trade name, tape library and other intangible assets from a subsidiary of AOL Time Warner for $2.5 million. In addition, we incurred certain related costs to acquire these assets of approximately $1.8 million. The additional characters and storylines that we can develop opens new opportunities for growth in all aspects of our business. As a result of this acquisition, we are adding thousands of hours to our tape library that can be repurposed for home videos, television, Internet streaming and broadband applications.

$2.5M = Tape Library + Coyrights/IP + Other intangible assets

 

Another $1.8M in costs on the deal, which is where the $4.3M comes from.

 

The number in the Cash Flow Statement is -4,155, which is -$4.155M... so go figure.

 

On the costs, obviously some legal work... not sure what else they would have rung up. Since you can amortize acquisitions across 10 years, it's likely that the WWF wouldn't mind puffing up that $1.8M number on their books to include just about as much as possible: always cram as much as possible into this year's books to keep them clean going foward.

 

Basically, the WWF gave TW $2.5M. TW ate the biggest liabilities (wrestler contracts), and almost certainly all the outstanding accounts payable while getting whatever receivables were left.

 

$2.5M for the "assests", of which the tape library was the jewel, was cheap. I think at the time some of us thought it was dirt cheap. Hell, we should have passed around the hat to buy the tape library, then sell it to Vince for $10M.

 

John

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I don't remember hearing before that they had itemized the deal like that. Was TBS considering holding onto the tape library?

Since WWF didn't actually buy the company World Championship Wrestling - just the name, trademarks and IP, tape library, etc. - it makes sense that the deal was itemized that way. WWF got to pick and choose which wrestler contracts they wanted to pick up and didn't have to assume any of WCW's debt or litigation (Hogan, Onoo, etc.). After WWF bought all that, the company still remained with Time Warner under the name Universal Wrestling Corporation (the name it was originally incorporated under in 1988) and just paid the wrestlers still under contract.

[jdw]

I don't know if the WWF even picked any contracts. I think that those they wanted were encouraged to take buyouts from Turner, then sign WWF contracts. There's no way the WWF saw any of the contracts that WCW had as being "value". WCW was well known for overpaying.

 

Turner had a program of buying out contracts. Some took them, hoping to hook up with the WWF. Others, like Nash if I recall, were happy to sit on the sideline collecting 100% until they expired. My recollection is that Nash's would have run pretty close to when the nWo came into the WWF, so it was an easy move by him at that point to deal with a couple of months left than a full year.

 

Others in WCW had rolling contracts that were a bit easier for them to terminate sooner and get out of. Depended on the specific wrestler, and how smart they were in their contracts.

 

John

[Bix]

WWE took over the contracts of just about everyone from WCW who came in for the Invasion angle. The only buyouts were Booker T and Bagwell, I think.

 

Not sure if the associated costs include the ads they promised to buy on Turner networks for several years or if that was just accounted for under regular ad buy

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

DDP was also a buyout. Torrie Wilson came in as part of WCW but she had left the company late in 2000. There were 24 wrestlers (well, 23 wrestlers and Stacy Keibler) whose contracts WWF picked up with the buyout.

[Cox]

None of the contracts WWE brought over from WCW were high dollar figures at all - most were guys like Mike Sanders, Reno, etc, guys you wouldn't expect to be getting paid a ton. I'd bet most of the contracts they didn't take were under the Turner Home Entertainment umbrella (where Bischoff used to stash guys like Hall, Nash, Sting, etc) and not technically associated with the Universal Wrestling Corporation banner.

[Jingus]

$2.5M for the "assests", of which the tape library was the jewel, was cheap. I think at the time some of us thought it was dirt cheap. Hell, we should have passed around the hat to buy the tape library, then sell it to Vince for $10M.

WWF had that weird first-right-to-buy deal going on from the Razor/Diesel lawsuit, where if WCW were ever up for sale, WWF got automatic first crack at them. Which, in retrospect, seems like a really odd thing to ask for back in 1996; how was that even part of the settlement? But the strange thing there was the low price of the sale. Several of the top wrestlers have said that they'd gladly have purchased WCW themselves, if they knew it were going for such a ridiculously low price. Kevin Sullivan has implied that one of Turner's executives took some sort of bribe from the WWF in order to sell WCW for so bizarrely little money, fwiw.

[MikeCampbell]

The first right to buy thing wasn't established back in '96, it was part of the actual settlement of the suit, which I believe was in 2000.

[Johnny Sorrow]

From Dave's Savage Obit:

 

The ICW started in Paducah, KY, with Randy Savage and Leaping Lanny as the two top stars. At about the same time, Bob Roop, Bob Orton Jr., Boris Malenko and Ronnie Garvin had started opposition to the Fullers in the Knoxville area after a tournament for a boat that Garvin won. The boat was purchased by one of the Fullers, and whenever Ron Fuller bought an expensive car or boat, he’d use it to draw a house, have a tournament for it, which he’d invariably win, so it would make sense that people would always see him with the car or boat they saw on TV. Well, after doing that a few times, he was afraid it was getting predictable, so put Garvin over. Garvin then left the territory, with the boat, wouldn’t give it back and started opposition. This led to Fuller’s legal attempts to get it back, which made the local papers and exposed the business.

[El-P]

From Dave's Savage Obit:

 

The ICW started in Paducah, KY, with Randy Savage and Leaping Lanny as the two top stars. At about the same time, Bob Roop, Bob Orton Jr., Boris Malenko and Ronnie Garvin had started opposition to the Fullers in the Knoxville area after a tournament for a boat that Garvin won. The boat was purchased by one of the Fullers, and whenever Ron Fuller bought an expensive car or boat, he’d use it to draw a house, have a tournament for it, which he’d invariably win, so it would make sense that people would always see him with the car or boat they saw on TV. Well, after doing that a few times, he was afraid it was getting predictable, so put Garvin over. Garvin then left the territory, with the boat, wouldn’t give it back and started opposition. This led to Fuller’s legal attempts to get it back, which made the local papers and exposed the business.

Awesome story. That was wrestling people.