jdw Posted July 9, 2013 Report Share Posted July 9, 2013 So you think Dan Rafael and the state commissions have been worked for years on premium TV boxing payouts? I think they're part of the work. Also suspect that a massive amount of the alleged "purse" never comes remotely close to the fighter. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 9, 2013 Report Share Posted July 9, 2013 Aside from status, part of the reason the NFL is so valuable to networks is that it allows them to promote the rest of their programming. The NFL is a demographic juggernaut. The advertising money, the eyeballs tuning in, and the ability to say "hey America, you like football? watch all this other stuff!" makes it profitable in a roundabout way. Sunday Night Football was the #1 show on TV last year, with terrific demos. In turn, the NFL is the highest rated show on Cable and has been a monster tool used by ESPN to get massive carriage deals out of the cable / dish / tv companies. Then there's the Fox and CBS deals, which draw more Sunday afternoon eyeballs than anything else. Oh... and Fox, NBC and CBS get to rotate around the biggest cash cow event in the US every third year, with the Conference Finals starting to draw larger and larger numbers as well. The NFL on TV is a cash cow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditch Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 ...which completely ignores how astronomically fast the broadcast rights price has gone up over the last 10-15 years. The ratings stuff was all true 20 years ago. And granted, advertisers now pay a higher premium for shows with certain ratings levels, but really, it's pretty clear that networks have bid the price up quite a lot and squeezed the straightforward profit out. Considering how worthless Sunday afternoons are to ABC and NBC at this point, if they knew they could have essentially free money from the "cash cows" by upping their bids a bit, they'd have done it already. I know I've seen articles in the Wall Street Journal about this but that was years ago and I'm too lazy to find them. So I'll just toss this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Foot...her_realignment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 I'm curious to see what happens when the NFL's agreement w/ DirecTV for the Sunday Ticket package runs out (I think it's after the 2014 season). DirecTV pays through the ass for that package, and there's already scuttle that DirecTV feels its not getting the return on its investment. Of course, that scuttle is probably the beginnings of negotiation tactics. I wonder if the next step for the NFL in getting more money out of its TV package is to ditch Sunday Ticket and just go to the networks and say, "You know that Sunday Ticket thing we do w/ DirecTV that you guys don't care for all that much? How about you pay us (insert ungodly amount of money) and we'll just put every game every Sunday on free TV?" Since every game would then be on free TV, perhaps the NFL would then move to feature a Sunday 3 pm game on NFL Network (upping the fees cable companies pay to carry the channel) and continue pimping the Red Zone channel. Just spit ballin' some thoughts that make somewhat sense, but probably won't happen.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilclown Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 So you think Dan Rafael and the state commissions have been worked for years on premium TV boxing payouts? I think they're part of the work. Also suspect that a massive amount of the alleged "purse" never comes remotely close to the fighter. John A typical boxer is paying out 30% of his purse to his manager and trainer. Which is fairly staggering. Then there is an astronomical built in price for their training camps. This is where other hangers on come with their hands out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slasher Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 I'm curious to see what happens when the NFL's agreement w/ DirecTV for the Sunday Ticket package runs out (I think it's after the 2014 season). DirecTV pays through the ass for that package, and there's already scuttle that DirecTV feels its not getting the return on its investment. Of course, that scuttle is probably the beginnings of negotiation tactics. I wonder if the next step for the NFL in getting more money out of its TV package is to ditch Sunday Ticket and just go to the networks and say, "You know that Sunday Ticket thing we do w/ DirecTV that you guys don't care for all that much? How about you pay us (insert ungodly amount of money) and we'll just put every game every Sunday on free TV?" Since every game would then be on free TV, perhaps the NFL would then move to feature a Sunday 3 pm game on NFL Network (upping the fees cable companies pay to carry the channel) and continue pimping the Red Zone channel. Just spit ballin' some thoughts that make somewhat sense, but probably won't happen.... I think the NFL has networks by the balls because they, unlike the WWE, are in a decent enough position that if contract talks for their programming breaks down with the networks, they have an established network of their own in place to put their games on. They will never do that though, because someone WILL pay them what they want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 I listened to the Cornette interview with Meltzer and Alvarez. Listening to this just now. Quite interesting. Had to pause it because Meltzer just said something that made me smile given the insane heated debate we had on here about it. "Watts had a great product but he couldn't draw with it because he was number 3 and people don't want number 3" I know this is different from the argument I adopted in that thread ("it was a combination of external factors"), but at least it's another guy who argees with me that it's not always "the product" that is to blame for the failure of any promotion. Wrestling was better in the past because it worked harder at giving off the illusion of being real, but I agree that I don't think the masses ever thought that. Because the performers, scenarios, customs and working style were more plausible, it was easier to suspend disbelief though, and most things had way more heat. Still, I think in some ways there is more delusion than ever among people within wrestling, primarily because the fan base has gotten smart and often works the performers into doing stupid things instead of the other way around. Here's a question just to play devil's advocate. Let's say we are right on the point of believability. Why is it so much harder to get a crowd hot than it used to be? Is it just a matter of changing culture, or have wrestlers gotten less sharp over time at manipulating emotions? More to say on this in a moment because for all his bluster and for all the things he gets wrong, I do think Cornette still talks sense on some things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 So reading on, everything I might have said has already been said by Loss and El-P. It almost didn't matter that no one really thought wrestling was real. Wrestling thought wrestling was real. To this day, there is a clear difference between wrestlers who are inspired and connected to the material and those who aren't. Quote of the month. My view, rather pessimistically, is that wrestling is irretrievably broken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 I'm curious to see what happens when the NFL's agreement w/ DirecTV for the Sunday Ticket package runs out (I think it's after the 2014 season). DirecTV pays through the ass for that package, and there's already scuttle that DirecTV feels its not getting the return on its investment. Of course, that scuttle is probably the beginnings of negotiation tactics. I wonder if the next step for the NFL in getting more money out of its TV package is to ditch Sunday Ticket and just go to the networks and say, "You know that Sunday Ticket thing we do w/ DirecTV that you guys don't care for all that much? How about you pay us (insert ungodly amount of money) and we'll just put every game every Sunday on free TV?" Since every game would then be on free TV, perhaps the NFL would then move to feature a Sunday 3 pm game on NFL Network (upping the fees cable companies pay to carry the channel) and continue pimping the Red Zone channel. Just spit ballin' some thoughts that make somewhat sense, but probably won't happen.... DirecTV will fight to keep the package exclusive, it's their main club they wield over the competition. They have a lot of subscribers just from football fanatics who want to watch every game. Not to mention all the bars and restaurants that use it as a selling point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 ...which completely ignores how astronomically fast the broadcast rights price has gone up over the last 10-15 years. The ratings stuff was all true 20 years ago. And granted, advertisers now pay a higher premium for shows with certain ratings levels, but really, it's pretty clear that networks have bid the price up quite a lot and squeezed the straightforward profit out. Considering how worthless Sunday afternoons are to ABC and NBC at this point, if they knew they could have essentially free money from the "cash cows" by upping their bids a bit, they'd have done it already. They aren't squeezing out the profits. Think technological innovation: dvr and other newer ways of watching stuff. Live Sports are one of the primary genres of television where a large % of viewers still feel the need to watch it "live". Watching a program "live" means you have a higher chance of watching a commercial. Watching it of the DVR means Fast Forward. Watching it via On Demand means fewer commercials - it use to mean just 1 at the beginning, but the last time I watch an episode of a show that I missed dvr'ing, I noted the "commercial breaks" now had an actually commercial, and they're making it harder to FF through all the On Demand programing. On the other hand, it was just 1 commercial in a break, and at times it was pimping other programing. Online viewing will have a commercial, but again fewer than on TV. This is a reason the networks have chased certain sporting rights, and bid up the fees: it's near-unique in current TV. It's likely to stay a "watch live" type of programing due to social media: in my feed, pretty much everyone had given up bitching about Spoilers on sporting events. Everyone seems to know that people are going to talk and post and tweet about them while they go on, and that if you want to avoid spoilers, you need to STFU and GTFO of online. In turn, advertisers are paying more for slots on sporting programing. Good demos. People will see the commercials at a higher rate than most programing. Easy to target you ad buys to different demos. None of that is getting into what ESPN does with sporting programing, especially the NFL, when it comes to carriage deals. In turn, it's highly likely that the other networks are starting to leverage their NFL programing (and other sporting programing) with respect to carriage fees... at a time when there's some push back on them going upward. Also, if we ever go Ala Carte (which I think is a wee bit less likely than most), sporting content is going to be a key driver in people making sure to retain ESPN/ABC, Fox, CBS, and NBC in their monthly order. Which will also make someone like TNT more desperate to retain the NBA: without it, a host of people wouldn't give two shits about keeping TNT in their Ala Carte package. Anyway, one can look at Disney's financial reports and see a picture of what a monster ESPN is in driving their revenue, and also in its profits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 I'm curious to see what happens when the NFL's agreement w/ DirecTV for the Sunday Ticket package runs out (I think it's after the 2014 season). DirecTV pays through the ass for that package, and there's already scuttle that DirecTV feels its not getting the return on its investment. Of course, that scuttle is probably the beginnings of negotiation tactics. I wonder if the next step for the NFL in getting more money out of its TV package is to ditch Sunday Ticket and just go to the networks and say, "You know that Sunday Ticket thing we do w/ DirecTV that you guys don't care for all that much? How about you pay us (insert ungodly amount of money) and we'll just put every game every Sunday on free TV?" Since every game would then be on free TV, perhaps the NFL would then move to feature a Sunday 3 pm game on NFL Network (upping the fees cable companies pay to carry the channel) and continue pimping the Red Zone channel. Just spit ballin' some thoughts that make somewhat sense, but probably won't happen.... The question out there is that DirecTV might not want to pay an "exclusive" premium (which is $1B a year) for the package. Instead, take a non-exclusive deal, with the NFL in turn being able to sell similar deals to the other major carriers: Households 22,802,000 Comcast Corporation 19,223,000 DirecTV 14,133,000 Dish Network Corporation 12,422,000 Time Warner Cable, Inc. 4,916,000 Cox Communications, Inc. 4,520,000 Charter Communications, Inc. 3,472,000 Verizon Communications, Inc. 3,314,000 Cablevision Systems Corporation 2,987,000 AT&T, Inc. 2,177,000 Bright House Networks LLC That was data I found last year... most of them other than Verizon and possibly AT&T are bleeding since then. Anyway... A non-exclusive would likely be in the form of the NFL getting a % of each subscription. DirecTV has 2M+ subs at $200+ per sub. Now the NFL is a driving reason a lot of those people are on DirecTV, but still... if it were on every major carrier and the NFL got 10M subs for it at $200 a pop, that's $2B. Give the carriers 25% (basically they have to take no risks and just carry it), and the NFL pockets $1.5B. 10M subs seems too high? Okay, a simple bump from 2M to 5M. That's $1B. And instead of a rather silly 25% cut for the cable compaines, many of whom will be happy that DirecTV no longer is using the NFL to suck subscribers away from them, how about 10%. That's still a cheap $100M that they divy up for doing next to nothing - they already have a load of "package" channels set aside high on the guide. So the NFL gets $900M, at a time when all their other packages have gone through the roof... and the potential to grow that 5M base. And also make all those carriers happy since they're getting some revenue they didn't before, while also eliminating DirecTV's major tool against them... hey, did the NFL just make those folks who carry the NFL Network happy? Of course it could go in another direction: Revenue $127.4B AT&T $115.8B Verizon $29.7B DirecTV Operating Income $13.1B Verizon $7.5B AT&T $5.0B DirecTV AT&T and Verizon are looking for wedges to drive viewer to them away from cable and dish. What was the tool that DirecTV used against the cable companies? The NFL. So what if AT&T and Verizon decided to join together on a package, each paying say $600M a year for it ($1B --> $1.2B), and used the NFL as a loss leader to not only steal that 2M+ DirecTV subs, but also some folks who had been thinking of leaving cable but didn't really want one of those dishes on their house/apartment? Verizon and AT&T have money to piss away. There is next to nothing they could get that would make as much of a splash for Fios and U-verse than getting the King of TV, the NFL. No matter how one looks at it, the NFL has all of these folks, networks and carries, by the balls on some level. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrickHithouse Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 Insane amount of money for a worked sport Sooner or later, one would think the bubble will burst. It has to eventually, doesn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 People have been expecting the bubble to burst for decades. Then you have insane things like NBC paying $200M a year for the NHL. EPL rights went up significantly, despite it only averaging about 300K viewers per game on ESPN, and less on Fox Soccer. Some of it is kooky. The NFL and NBA aren't, and perhaps if anything are "undervalued" if that makes sense. Though the NBA will get a big increase in the coming contract, probably Stern's final gift to the owners he's made so much money for over the years. That's not even getting into the Lakers having a $200M *local* tv deal, and the Dodgers in that range as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 Just when you think the bubble is about to burst, it not only doesn't burst, it gets bigger. Insane local TV contracts for non-NFL sports are the new bubble, or are adding to the current bubble, however you want to look at it. I wonder how many people actually pay for the NFL Sunday Ticket? I've had it since 2009 and I've paid a total of $40 for it. I've gotten it for free every year -- the first year as a promotion and every year after when I make my annual call to DirecTV to whine about how times are tough and I might need to cancel my service. I forked over $40 for it this year so I could upgrade to Sunday Ticket Max. What you said about possibly offering Sunday Ticket to other providers makes sense, John, but dammit, I don't want to have to begin actually paying for the damn thing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 Wasn't the Dodgers' deal closer to a billion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 The rights fees explosion is the main thing keeping WWE profitable, so if the bubble ever bursts, they're screwed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Liska Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 The rights fees explosion is the main thing keeping WWE profitable, so if the bubble ever bursts, they're screwed. I wouldn't say they're screwed, they would just have to scale back costs. A Randy Orton-level performer doesn't need to be making $300,000 a month in order for the wrestling industry to still attract talent. Any company that puts on an $80 million show should be able to pay it's bills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 Wasn't the Dodgers' deal closer to a billion? http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/eye-on-b...ith-tv-contract I agree that these deals are cash cows... for the teams involved. Which I suppose is the idea behind good promotion in the first place. TV is pretty much totally driven by sports at this point, whether people like it or not. The amount of money getting thrown around out there has reached hard to grasp amounts now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mookeighana Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 The rights fees explosion is the main thing keeping WWE profitable, so if the bubble ever bursts, they're screwed. I think it's more subtle than that. (Here are twelve month looks with a tiny gap between May 05-Dec 05).. FY1997: $81.9 TOTAL $26.6M PPV $16.4 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $20.9M LIVE EVENTS $4.0M LICENSING $14M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY1998: $131 TOTAL $43.7M PPV $24.3 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $28.9M LIVE EVENTS $7.8M LICENSING $26.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY1999: $254.1 TOTAL $80.8M PPV $42.2 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $49.7M LIVE EVENTS $25.6M LICENSING $55.8M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2000: $377.8 TOTAL $106.4M PPV $90 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $68.9M LIVE EVENTS $43.7M LICENSING $68.8M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2001: $438.2 TOTAL $128.2M PPV $125.5 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $82.0M LIVE EVENTS $37.4M LICENSING $65.1M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2002: $409.7 TOTAL $112M PPV $137 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $74.5M LIVE EVENTS $24.4M LICENSING $61.8M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2003: $374.3 TOTAL $91.1M PPV $131.4 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $72.9M LIVE EVENTS $22.5M LICENSING $56.4M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2004: $374.9 TOTAL $95.3M PPV $130.5 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $70.2M LIVE EVENTS $22.6M LICENSING $56.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) FY2005: $366.4 TOTAL $85.5M PPV $122.5 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $79.4M LIVE EVENTS $20.9M LICENSING $57.4M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2006: $415.3 TOTAL $93.6M PPV $96.5 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $84.4M LIVE EVENTS $32.0M LICENSING $108.8M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2007: $485.9 TOTAL $94.3M PPV $104.1 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $100.1M LIVE EVENTS $47.1M LICENSING $124.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2008: $526.5 TOTAL $91.4M PPV $115.9 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $107.0M LIVE EVENTS $60.5M LICENSING $127.2M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2009: $475.2 TOTAL $80.0M PPV $126.4 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $110.9M LIVE EVENTS $44.7M LICENSING $105.5M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2010: $477.6 TOTAL $70.2M PPV $138.6 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $107.1M LIVE EVENTS $51.7M LICENSING $90.4M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2011: $483.9 TOTAL $78.3M PPV $138.7 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $107.1M LIVE EVENTS $54.4M LICENSING $84.5M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) 2012: $484.0 TOTAL $83.6M PPV $147.7 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $106.2M LIVE EVENTS $46.3M LICENSING $92.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) Yes, they've grown TV Rights (really it was split between growing TV Rights and declining TV Ads until 2006 when TV ads went away and it was all just TV Rights) and if they were to go back to only getting $24M in Rights/Ads like they did in 1998, that would be disastrous. But, I don't think that's going to happen. But, it's not like that's their only source of revenue: * in 2012, WWE got 31% of their income from TV Rights ($146M in Rights), but that's balanced with Live Events (22%), Licensing & Merchandising (29%) and PPV (17%). * You can look back a decade and see in 2000, it was 23% TV ($78M Ads+$12M Rights), 18% Live Events, 30% Licensing & Merchandising and 28% PPV. They've managed to grow the contribution of Live Events and keep Licensing/Merchandise as a sizable portion of their income stream. PPV declined and UFC proved that you could have been stronger, but I for one applaud WWE for looking to a future past the PPV monthly world. Short of a second boom, that's not a surprise and they're still pulling in more money than ever per buy (which is down more than 50% from peak, but still) because of the HD upcharge/price increases. (Numbers are from me culling over a ton of annual reports to prep for a piece in my book, and converting all of the segments to a common terminology.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 Wasn't the Dodgers' deal closer to a billion? Not per year. It's allegedly $8B+ for 25 years, which is 320M+ on average. It's an oddly termed contract as the Dodgers were trying to scoot around the full revenue sharing requirements (somewhere in the range of 33% goes to the League). Some of the deal was for stuff other than TV "rights", though that was probably a lot of bullshit. The Dodgers and MLB settled for less than the full 33%, I think closer to 25%. If one buys the spin on that as the "real value" of the tv side of the deal, then the rights fees are valued at an average of 240M+ per year, with the rest for other bullshit. Anyway... 200M... 320M per year average... it's a sign that rights fees haven't leveled off. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 I wonder how many people actually pay for the NFL Sunday Ticket? Between 2-3M according to media reports. I took a look at DirecTV's recent 10-K to see if a full number was in there, but didn't see one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 2012: $484.0 TOTAL $83.6M PPV $147.7 TV (AD+RIGHTS) $106.2M LIVE EVENTS $46.3M LICENSING $92.3M OTHER (HOME VIDEO, VENUE MERCHANDISE, ONLINE SALES) But, it's not like that's their only source of revenue: * in 2012, WWE got 31% of their income from TV Rights ($146M in Rights), but that's balanced with Live Events (22%), Licensing & Merchandising (29%) and PPV (17%). You're adding in the "Other" item from the "Live and Televised Entertainment" Revenues bucket: 2012 $88,900 Domestic Fees $50,600 International Fees Which is $139.5M in fees. There is a $8,200 "other" bucket, but it's treated at the same level as Live events, Venue merchandise, Pay-per-view and Television rights fees. Looking elsewhere in the 10-K: Live and Televised Entertainment Revenues consist principally of ticket sales to live events, sales of merchandise at these live events, television rights fees, integrated sponsorships fees, and fees for viewing our pay-per-view and video-on-demand programming. It's likely the two bolded items, which really aren't TV Rights Fees. On my spreadsheet I just tend to treat it as "Other" as it's likely changed it's definition since 1998 and never has amounted to anything supper significant (it's been over $7M just three times). It does look like 24/7 may have been rolled into it the last two years - that was a line item from 2006-2010 then vanished, with Other going up in 2011. I don't treat 24/7 as a typical TV Rights Fee - it's somewhere between PPV and "Carriage Fees". On the profit contribution side, TV Fees are pretty high on the list: $57.3 TV Rights $46.0 Pay per view $29.2 Live events $36.0 Licensing $16.7 Home video $10.6 WWE.com $7.8 Venue merchandise $3.6 WWE Shop $0.7 Magazine publishing $0.4 Other Consumer Products -$3.6 WWE Studios -$5.1 Other Live and Televised Entertainment Not that's not entirely useful: it's not bottom line corporate profit, but kinda-sorta operating profits for those areas. But even that is only kinda-sorta useful: * it doesn't include that big 136.4M of SGA * there's the question of relative TV Rights: $57.3 profit contribution on $139.5M revenue PPV: $46.0 profit contribution on $83.6M revenue Licensing: $36.0 profit contribution on $46.3M revenue So it's Licensing where the profit % is! Except... * it's an integrated company We've talked before about the fact that Raw and SmackDown tapings have historically drawn larger crowds than a normal house show. So some of their value is over there in Live Events (i.e. tickets sold to them). Raw and SmackDown also sell more merch than normal house shows. So some of their value is over there in Venue Merch (i.e. crap sold at the tv tapings). In turn, PPV and Licensing would completely bomb if there was no TV. The reason there's all those hours of prime time TV is because they draw ratings, channels pay the WWE for them... they actually pay a lot more for multiple hours of them. It's tough to get a real value to the company of TV Programing in terms of the revenue impact to the company. It's the Rights Fees... and quite a bit more. The Revenue doesn't fully capture it, and the profit contribution under value it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditch Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 I don't see how it's a bubble. The #1 reason for the rights increase is the fragmentation of US audiences, so big advertisers struggle for a platform to get ads out that saturate the public (or at least a segment of the public). And despite my sentiment that ads don't account for the entirety of the broadcast rights increase, it's certainly MOST of the reason. Considering that prices weren't hurt by either of the last two recessions, and that ad money isn't reliant on a single industry, I see no reason why this won't continue unless sports ratings take a dive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrickHithouse Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 As a whole, I think the NFL is a bubble. It might still be expanding 20 years from now but will eventually burst. Somewhere, some time, paying fans will draw the line and stop paying so much to see games. Maybe when tickets reach $1500 for a upper deck corner seat for a September game, or maybe when owners dome all stadiums, remove the air and install coin-fed oxygen tanks in each seat (I bet Dan Snyder has already looked into this). You gotta think eventually people will reach their limit. Possibly? I don't know. The prices right now are already fuckin' obscene IMO, but 80,000 dumbasses per week per NFL city seem to really enjoy paying for the experience. Never underestimate the stupidity of the American public, though. The TV numbers alone should be kept in mind the next time an NFL owner cries poverty over player salaries, or needing a publicly funded billion $ stadium for their private profits, or what have you. Me bitter? Nah... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted July 11, 2013 Report Share Posted July 11, 2013 The bubble won't ever burst, at least not totally. We've seen this in other things besides TV. Smokers: "I'm going to quit when it hits $10 a pack. Okay, never mind. $15. Uh... $20... fuck it. I'm gonna quit when it's a bajillion dollars a pack. Promise." Hell, the WWE has sort of made this point themselves. Wrestlemania is now one of the most overpriced events of the PPV year (boxing aside, who have that market pretty well cornered), and the money just keeps rolling in. One of the things WWE has learned over the years is how to get closer to maximizing their revenue even when in theory the business hasn't been in a boom period for years. Live sports tickets are totally out of control at the highest levels, but that doesn't matter because for every mom and pop that get squeezed out, there's some law firm or corporate group willing to step in those seats. The Lakers can charge $10K for a courtside seat, although that's a far out example being as they have an abnormally high number of extremely dumb rich people to draw from in Hollywood. And at this point TV is radically more important to sports at almost all levels. Hell, the Canadian Football League just did a new deal this offseason that doubled their TV revenue in Canada that puts them in a spot where team's operating expenses are almost entirely covered by TV money and everything else is gravy. That's a clear B-league, albiet a very entertaining one, that is just capitalizing on its power in its only real market. NFL teams are doing the same on a much, much larger scale. Baseball is also trying hard to become a power unto itself, though it seems to have a big disparity between the Yankees and Dodgers of the world vs. the Pittburgh Pirates and it seems to be the sport with the most teams in business for themselves instead of the league taking an all-for-one approach, but we can't say it isn't working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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