Well to me biggest indication of where WWE expects to go is Vince wanting to sell out now rather than retain the company longer term.

Apr 23, 2022 0:21:46 GMT c said:

Well to me biggest indication of where WWE expects to go is Vince wanting to sell out now rather than retain the company longer term.

A few issues here:

First, you assume Vince wants to sell and presumably the proof of this is releasing talent. I have my doubts about this because the roster is still huge, bigger than it needs to be, and those cuts were sensible business cuts to me. But let’s humour it and say they’re for sale, why does that indicate anything about how successful he thinks they’ll be? Do successful companies not get sold? Is Vince not a 76 year old man looking for an out?

You’re in a bubble mate, just because Reddit and PW thinks WWE sucks doesn’t mean people don’t enjoy it. You interact in places that oppose WWE so that’s what you’ll hear. It’s no different to McDonalds. Speak to your average internet person and they’ll tell you McDonalds do the worst burgers in the world and no one likes it. The internet, in particular the IWC, does not represent the views of a market as a whole.

Again, I don’t want to sound like a shill, but what part of WWE’s business is on a downtrend? The only worrying part to me is Google search. TV is down all around and this is reflected in record deals for WWE, and probably another one coming next time around. Attendance is good, with multiple stadium shows planned this year. Social media footprint and YouTube numbers are off the charts good. AEW is doing really well as well.

I assume Vince wants to sell because he brought in Nick Khan and this is what he does, shore up value to make sales. Bringing him on shot the stock price up as well. Nick does one thing very well, streamline companies to max value to sell.

And I do not think I am in a bubble as I do not believe there is this group of millions of fans watching WWE via non-tracked methods that also are Luddites and do not engage with social media. About 1.6 million people watch WWE these days, reddit with 600k wrestling fans likely make up 20% of that audience. Twitter you get a whole lot more people. And overall sentiment is negative. Searches are down and dropping.

Objectively WWE is not going as well as it was either. Stock down 35% post COVID and recovery is stalled. In the 20 years I been posted on wrestling boards hearing that the internet is the vocal minority ratings have dropped from 5's to struggling to get 2's. Viewership is down 70%. Attendance is still down even from the attitude era. And the content library while it has value, does have value that is declining. It is a library that needs heavy curation and editing given the complexity of rights involved given WWE does not own the rights to WWF or most of the music used. And the current library is not worth anything compared to that classic library that needs that curation.

Which leads back to Khan. Vince and his family know it is time to get out. Sure Steph and Shane could run the fed, but it is clear the best days are in the past and value will only drop. Then opened the markets they could and there is not much left to expand too.

Guessing I am just not seeing the phrase for the week to week WWE product that would counter that post. From what I seen for the past 15 years fans have been mostly negative on the week to week WWE product with more vocally disliking it than enjoying it and the vast majority of fans disengaging entirely with the product over that time.

Disdain? When has the WWE shown disdain to their audience? The audience is never satisfied and the response to AEW fans being dissatisfied with elements of their product is: what about WWE?

It's a Meltzer-esque deflection.

About 1.6 million people watch WWE c?

You kidding? On average 2 million people watch both RAW and Smackdown alone, and to prove the point further, the WWE has a world wide audience of 1 billion weekly. And get this, WWE has a reported combined 11 million viewers weekly just in the United States, tallying all its programming.

And the share price, its $60.99 USD. And has seen a significant share price rise of over 20% in the past couple of months on the NYSE.

And apart of that juggernaut of an increase in 2018/19, it's at one of highest points it's ever been at. Just google it, google something, anything before you spout off bullshit. Ten years ago it was below $10.

WWE is a monster.

Time to get out? As if TK is about to run them out of town? WWE posted record profits in 2021 - their best year ever.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/alfredkonuwa/2022/02/03/wwe-earnings-2021-news-and-notes-as-wwe-grosses-over-1-billion/amp/

- Revenue increased 12% to $1.095 billion, the highest in the Company’s history.

- Operating income increased 24% to $259.0 million.

And just to showcase the PPV model isn't dead - Royal Rumble’s viewership in 2022 was 45% higher than the Royal Rumble on Peacock in 2020. The 2022 Royal Rumble in St. Louis drew the second-highest gate in Royal Rumble history also.

You can pretend the sky is falling chicken little, but it ain't. By a long shot.

Wwe is basically in legends contract mode.

This basically shows c pulls numbers out of his ass. 1.6m total viewers? They have 80m YouTube subscribers. 😂

I planned a full response but nath’s was eloquent and on the money. The company that just set yearly revenue, yearly profit and single-event gate records is not dying, for the love of God.

Apr 23, 2022 0:03:17 GMT NATH45 said:

If you looked at professional wrestling, particularly WWE similarly to financial planning...

We're far beyond the 'Accumulation' stage - that being a time, when the business was in it's prime, not so much financially (for the sake of this post) but culturally. In terms of significance, innovation, historical moments, etc. However it builds the foundations for financial success.

We're in sort of a 'Preservation' stage or have been for a while. I'll rework the definition - we have the history to talk about now. Hence the rise of podcasts, older content is readily available, workers are talking and writing about their experiences, etc. It's about preserving the business, ensuring its value. Or adding to it. Content is big money in 2022.

Now WWE is entering something of a 'Distribution' stage, everything has paid off. It's more successful today, despite the contemporary content not being great.

But it's only really in that first stage is life really exciting.

Quoting to bump this to the current page. This is such a spot on explanation of WWE's evolution. And also largely why the content feels so "Netflixy" i.e., not as good as it was back in the OG days of content creation.

Vince be like I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve. Like streaming worked out really well for him. The idea of a channel was meh, but background content... that's good shit, pal!

Alright let’s move on from the super stagnant and boring as fuck borderline trolling ratings talk and do what we all came here to do: share hilarious memes.

I’ve been laughing at this for 10 minutes. It makes me so happy.

Apr 23, 2022 22:39:36 GMT RT said:

Alright let’s move on from the super stagnant and boring as fuck borderline trolling ratings talk and do what we all came here to do: share hilarious memes.

I’ve been laughing at this for 10 minutes. It makes me so happy.

This is my favorite wrestling-related thing from the 2020s.

Apr 23, 2022 22:39:36 GMT RT said:

Alright let’s move on from the super stagnant and boring as fuck borderline trolling ratings talk 

Ratings talk will never get old.

"Work smart not hard bro"

- Sting

Good news,

The live viewership numbers for AEW Rampage are in. Rampage drew 518,000 viewers and a 0.19 rating in the 18-49 demographic on TNT in the 10 pm ET time slot.

This is up from the previous week..

Oh wait..

This week’s live edition of WWE NXT 2.0 drew 569,000 viewers on the USA Network, according to Nielsen via Showbuzz Daily.

Ah well, atleast AEW tried. Participation Award I guess.

Ah, yes. They certainly did try to compete with... a different show. On a different night. In a different timeslot. That is on that different night because Dynamite stomped their dick into the dirt.

Tucker drew 3.5 million on Weds. 7 times what NXT drew. WWE needs to hire real men and stop being woke if they want to compete.

We can start comparing Rampage to Impact if that helps?

No idea why Tucker is getting brought up.

SmackDown dipped below 2m for the first time in months as the NBA play offs strangle wrestling. Rampage was somehow over 500k, that’s a really good showing against 2 NBA games.

Tucker is competition to WWE on during the same time slot as NXT. Figure comparing him to NXT is about as valid as comparing NXT to Rampage.

There have been plenty of comparisons in the past with Raw and Dynamite’s demo figures, so why is comparing the B shows any different?

Why is comparing WWE to its competition any different?

But Tucker, by that metric, is also beating AEW. It’s like bringing up the NFL. This is a wrestling war thread, who cares about Tucker :lol:

Tucker gives a baseline for what a top draw would look like.

Smackdown under 2 million this week. They are the last WWE show to routinely break the 2 million mark so this has got to send some shockwaves no matter how stiff the competition is. They repeat this next week may be in trouble.

We are comparing wrestling shows, hence and thus the name of the thread. I'm sure there's Saturday morning cartoons regularly out doing both Rampage and NXT 2.0 that we could talk about too.

Stay in the lane.


RAW saw a drop from last week, the episode drew an average of 1.613 million viewers on the USA Network, which is down from the 1.647 million viewers last week.

0.44 in the demo. RAW ranked #4 in the top 150 shows on cable for the night, which is down from #3 ranking last week. This week was the lowest total viewership and key demo since January 17th. The NBA Playoffs continued to dominate the ratings, which impacted RAW's ratings.

Apr 26, 2022 13:45:50 GMT c said:

Tucker gives a baseline for what a top draw would look like.

Smackdown under 2 million this week. They are the last WWE show to routinely break the 2 million mark so this has got to send some shockwaves no matter how stiff the competition is. They repeat this next week may be in trouble.

A newscaster is the arbitrary line at which we consider someone a draw? Christ you don’t half talk some utter shit.

Disappointing for SmackDown but the sky isn’t falling for any of these shows. SmackDown, Raw, and Dynamite will all get more money next time around which almost always happens despite ratings drops, because all of TV is dropping and wrestling is one of about four genres of TV left that draws good 18-49. I actually think there’s room for another big promotion. Might make a thread about it if I can be bothered.

The slide into obscurity continues...

Wednesday’s live edition of AEW Dynamite drew 921,000 viewers on TBS, according to Nielsen via Showbuzz Daily.

This is down from last week’s episode, which drew 930,000 viewers.

This week’s Dynamite drew a 0.33 rating in the key 18-49 demographic. This is down 10.81% from last week’s 0.37 rating.

----

Main rival, and fellow A-Show had a tough week also..

Monday’s live WWE RAW episode drew an average of 1.614 million viewers on the USA Network, according to Nielsen via Showbuzz Daily.

But, but, the demo you say?

Monday’s RAW drew a 0.44 rating in the 18-49 key demographic.

So, the news this week is : more young people watch WWE over AEW.

I think this thread has run its course.

Dynamite is going to fluctuate between 800k-1.2m for the foreseeable future. WWE is always going to be ahead of them because they’re bigger and have more access to homes than AEW does. None of that is going to change any time soon and the vast majority of fans don’t give a fuck as long as the product they’re watching is enjoyable.

Posting ratings while ignoring all the nuisances about said ratings after every show to try and get a rise out of certain posters is trolling at this point.

There’s no discussion to be had anymore and there hasn’t been for a while.

So AEW is in a comfy 1.1? Is that the max non WWE we can expect?

Apr 29, 2022 17:44:18 GMT RT said:

I think this thread has run its course.

Dynamite is going to fluctuate between 800k-1.2m for the foreseeable future. WWE is always going to be ahead of them because they’re bigger and have more access to homes than AEW does. None of that is going to change any time soon and the vast majority of fans don’t give a fuck as long as the product they’re watching is enjoyable.

Posting ratings while ignoring all the nuisances about said ratings after every show to try and get a rise out of certain posters is trolling at this point.

There’s no discussion to be had any more and there hasn’t been for a while.

There you have it! the king of Canada has brought common sense to those proceedings. This thread has been spinning its wheels since page 3. BURN IT DOWN!

Apr 29, 2022 18:05:16 GMT @ness said:

So AEW is in a comfy 1.1? Is that the max non WWE we can expect?

It's close. But I'll go with 1.3 as the magic number. Aside from TNA drawing one 1.5 for Hogan's debut, 1.3 has been the max for non WWE or WCW wrestling going back over twenty years to the ECW on TNN days. ECW on TNN peaked at 1.3. 2nd highest rated TNA Impact was a 1.35. I looked into it last year...

Oct 18, 2021 2:17:20 GMT Baker said:

Here is the complete list of ECW on TNN ratings oswreview.com/history/ecw-on-tnn-tv-ratings/

First thought was they look suspiciously similar to peak TNA ratings. And that got me to thinking there was only a maximum of a 1.3 tv rating worth of people willing to give non-WWF (or WCW) wrestling a chance between 1999-2014. 

ECW on TNN averaged a 0.94 rating over the span of 59 episodes from August 1999-October 2000.

Here is the yearly average for TNA on Spike...

2004-2006: Incomplete data
2007: 1.06
2008: 1.05
2009: 1.14
2010: 1.06
2011: 1.17
2012: 1.02
2013: 1.00
2014: 0.95
2015-Present: Data incomplete/very low

Just for shits and giggles I wanted to see how AEW Dynamite compared to ECW & TNA, but surprisingly couldn't find a good source. Most sites list the total viewer and key demo(!) numbers rather than the more traditional ratings point. This is the best source I could find...
www.itnwwe.com/wrestling/aew-ratings-viewership/#2-see-also

One interesting tidbit I discovered is the most watched episode of AEW Dynamite is still the inaugural episode on 10/2/19 with a little over 1.4 million viewers. Their best since then is 9/8/21 with a shade over 1.3 million viewers. To put those numbers into perspective, the most watched episodes of AEW are roughly equivalent to TNA's 2013 weekly average (1.00 rating).