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3.25.2008

A New Take On An Old Idea

With WWE’s contract with NBC Universal and the 3-hour “extravaganza” shows they are contractually obligated to do, why not do something a little different? Instead of pumping out three hour free shows that are just more of the same, give a product that resembles a pay-per-view.

What you are probably asking yourself is why do that when you broadcast 14 events a year on pay-per-view. That itself is the problem. The WWE is trying to increase revenue, and it’s working, but it makes everything else seem less valuable.

The following idea has been discussed before, but I intend on taking it more in depth.

New Years Revolution, Royal Rumble, No Way Out, WrestleMania, Backlash, Judgment Day, Vengeance, ECW One Night Stand, SummerSlam, Unforgiven, No Mercy, Survivor Series, Armageddon and one terrible blemish on the ass of wrestling called December to Dismember.

Do any of those sound familiar? Those are pay-per-view events that some or all of us paid $40.00 for. I’m not a math genius like Brian Plunkett, er, Christopher Casur, but something tells me that’s around $520 not including WrestleMania, and with the $50 to $60 for WrestleMania that’s $570 to $580 USD.

Instead of broadcasting all those pay-per-views broadcast your big four with the addition of one or two well placed pay-per-views that will assist in the blowing off, starting up or continuation of a feud that the WWE is trying to build.

You put three-hour events on that you advertise as pay-per-view “quality,” but instead they are mediocre at best. The word “shitacular” has been thrown around here on Tha O Show. It’s quite fitting. What I’m proposing is, instead of billing them as PPV quality, make them free pay-per-views.

Have your championships defended, have your special guests, make one centered around that particular years “Draft Lottery.” All three brands show up on the regular shows anyway, but make this time mean more, and that way they can stay exclusive to their brands the rest of the year.

Instead of having CM Punk and Carlito taking each other on in“Money in the Bank” hype match, keep them on their shows until a three hour show. Have the three hour shows around once a month, but don’t have them so often that they too lose value.

There is one thing that makes the WWE less bearable in the eyes of at least us, and that’s overkill. You saw earlier that I proposed dropping a few of the $40 PPV events, and I’m sure that you’re wondering what in the world would help the WWE supplement that income.

You may not immediately like this idea, but over the long haul this would be beneficial. Raise the prices of your pay-per-view events $10-20 and be done with it. Immediately you think $60 for a PPV are you a retard? So you pay $360-$380 for all the pay-per-views the E puts out in the entire year. That’s $200 less than you did earlier.

It saves money. It makes the PPV’s actually mean more, and gives WWE a new modus operandi as far as PPV’s go. Instead of just slopping cards together, including WrestleMania, they’ll have time to plan them out, let them build and make a payoff for the event.

Titles would mean more because they’d be defended more on PPV’s and reigns would extend making the title more prestigious. The E isn’t going to throw around the title on regular “Raw”, “SmackDown!” and ECW shows when they’ll have three hour shows and more important PPV’s.

Maybe a pipe-dream with absolutely no possibility of happening, but at least to me it makes sense. The Pay-per-view schedule would go something like this:
January-Royal Rumble
February-3 hour “Raw”
Late March/Early April-WrestleMania
May-3 hour “Raw”
Late May/Early June-Vengeance or Judgment Day
July-3 hour “Raw”
August-SummerSlam
September-3 hour “Raw”
October-3 hour “Raw”
November-Survivor Series
December-3 hour “Raw”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic.


6 comments: on "A New Take On An Old Idea"

nyknicks said...

new years revolution isnt a ppv any more.

D.J.B. said...

Neither is December Dismember. I was naming all the PPV's that people bought in one calender year. Thanks for the input.

Anonymous said...

That actually sounds like a pretty good idea and in my opinion the only really really good raw in a while was the 15th anniversary one and the other 3 hours one had pretty good ideas but was still decent

Anonymous said...

pyro said...
Ny Knicks is right, there is no NYR, but there is a Cyber Sunday/Taboo Tuesday, so you were right anyway.

I love the idea, I really do, but my only problem with it is not the idea itself, but the simplemindedness of the WWE fans, because even though they'll have less PPV's and less total money, they'll still think they are spending more money.

I absolutely love the way you have it lined up and that makes perfect sense, more sense than whats going on now.

Kinda reminds me of watching "Clash of the Champions" back in the day.

Anonymous said...

Problem is... most marks and most of North America in general are middle to low class and even an extra 10-20 bucks a month can dent te pocketbook just enough that it makes it unaffordable. Plus, keep in mind that most PPVs come at the end of the month: when the paycheque is almost gone.

Personally, I think a good idea would be to drop the regular PPV price by $5 or so and sneak the main 4 PPVs' prices up 5 or $10. Granted I said upping prices is no good, but having a 'big show' feel can draw that extra money out. I know you'll probably come back with "that's what I was getting at, making it a 'big show' feel by having less PPVs." But I don't really think that you really need to drop any PPVs, you could actually keep that extra revenue while still grabbing more buys. The smaller PPVs might entice the lower class families to buy a PPV they normally felt they didn't have the money for. People have enough problems saving money as it is, nevermind saving up $40-$50 over 2 months for wrestling PPVs.

As for the big 4, you might lose the poor family that bought the cheaper PPV, but you're keeping everyone else and at a higher price. Sorry for the people who don't like math, but for example if you're drawing 100,000 buys at $40 each, that's $4 million. Dropping the price $5, you need an extra 15,000 buys. Sounds reasonable. Advertise it all month long, run Orton angles about how he's not wrestling at the PPV unless they up the price because people need to pay more to see him. That will draw those extra buys and even if the $10 price hike on the big 4 lose 15,000 buys each, you increase PPV revenue by $1.2 million. And the great thing, no increase in the amount that people are paying for PPVs, you don't want to draw MORE money out of the regulars, you want to draw SOME money out of the casual fans.

D.J.B. said...

You make some decent points duffle, but what I'm saying is that you can't get the "Big Fight" feel on one particular PPV when there are 13 other ones. People kept clamoring about the "Big Fight Feel" at last years Great American Bash between Cena and Lashley, and it's buys were DOWN from the year before. Sure drop prices for regular and raise prices for big 4, but that isn't going to change much because you can just wait another month and see another match with the same guys. Or watch it for free on Raw. 14 PPV's are too much.