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*scene cuts to Vince's office as he furiously removes the DVD from the Netflix postal bag, wondering how this model is ever going to work for a Monday Night Raw platform, but also this Dane Cook guy is something*

Crazy Netflix signed a 10 year deal, since they're so quick to cancel shows instead of.. ...finishing the story

I am not a media industry expert (despite working in the media) by any means. But my early thoughts: 1) $5 billion over 10 years for Raw and overseas things is insanity. I think that shows Netflix had to pay a giant premium (up their bidding price) to get Endeavor and the like to hand over the show to a streaming platform and not keep it on a basic cable network. I know there is cord cutting and etc., but a lot of people have Hulu or whatever to essentially watch cable. That is essentially though $500 million for 52 episodes of Monday Night Raw and international broadcast. I have no idea and don’t have time to look up how well international broadcasts do for the WWE. But if you factor it in just for Raw — Netflix is paying $9.6 million to air every single episode of Raw. 2) I saw Netflix has an out after 5 years. They also can extend for another 10. I have no idea if that extension would be at the same price or if there would be a negotiation. But Netflix is hedging it’s risk on both ends — it can cut bait if this doesn’t work, and it can avoid a bidding war if it doesn’t. 2A) Why would the WWE not want to have another bidding war for Raw in a few years? Because Netflix is paying them $9.6 million to broadcast a single episode of Raw. Take the money and run. 3) Can wrestlers please become full-time workers? The people getting paid from this are going to be company executives with stock options and big Wall Street investors. (Technically any investor but you get what I am saying.) Do the WWE guys still pay for their own travel? And health insurance? They should be in SAG or something already. They literally risk their lives every week and man none of them are getting anything close to their fair share.

This is not the main thing to take away from this but something I thought about - after 30 years of talking about RAW Ratings (UP? DOWN? VS NITRO? VS TNA? VS AEW?) that will finally end. Netflix not only doesn't like releasing numbers but the numbers wouldn't be 1:1 anyway. Their viewing reports (if they keep releasing them) will be interesting but aren't measured the same way. What will people do with their extra free time.

“Heard you talking shit about the Baba Chops”

Personally I feel like SD! being on FOX was a huge part of WWE's recent boom period. Money aside, they've taken a massive step back in exposure with this recent round of negotiations. Gonna take a while for everything to shake out but I could see this hurting house shows, merch and other core business metrics, but it'll be masked by the massive rights fees. But overall this feels like a massive step backwards to me Netflix is extremely guarded with their numbers and IIRC SAG-AFTRA didn't get the concessions they were after in that regard. Doubt we ever get accurate numbers for RAW We're also at a time where there's so much wrestling content out there, so much free media in general, people are already cutting back and consolidating their streaming budgets.......I don't really see a huge upside for Netflix either

Been a lot of chatter that he lost the team fairly early in the season and they still don't trust him. Unfortunate but I'm sure they'll find somebody who bett... GODDAMIT

The money in the bank briefcase will now have 7 bucks in it

This is hilarious. I won't pay $1 to watch an episode of Raw.

The most interesting thing here is how streaming will affect production when it comes to things like match length/commercials/structuring where breaks used to be/etc.

I liked the Collision main because it was totally an AJ/NOAH midcard match with two high second-tier guys vs. Ace/Jobber. You know exactly how the match is gonna go. The second tier guys are total dicks to the jobber. The ace kicks ass each time he's in there, but eventually gets worn down and has to do the cold tag. The jobber gets a hopeless run before getting steam-rolled by a higher-ranked guy. It's not the kind of match you want multiple times a show like in NOAH, but it was a nice change of pace for AEW. Kobashi/Go vs. Akiyama/Tenryu is my favorite example of this formula.

Also the 20th anniversary of Hulk being given the chance to get in on the ground floor of Netflix, but declined as he was too far along in negotiations with what then became the Foreman Grill.

Dick Slater's ghost isn't gonna do anything that Terry Funk's ghost didn't do first

Bill Watts picking up some black hitchhiker would be a story I would instantly come back here and tell. And oh, I would ask him about Master G. That and if Dark Journey has a niece that looks exactly like her.

They’re going to air the SAG awards live on Netflix next month. Me and dozens of other people will be watching.

I'd think going to Amazon Prime would be better for visibility/synergy. Imagine if they guaranteed a Raw banner ad on the front page of Amazon dot com every week.

Am I crazy for thinking Netflix is ubiquitous enough that it’s at worst a neutral move in terms of visibility? Among streamers, I think it’s the only one you could credibly make that claim about.

That was a very qualified answer while also speaking a great deal about the stiff football competition. I think if they were moving, they wouldn’t make that clear until closer to the move so as not to confuse people. It’s eleven months away, why rush to announce such a move?

Listening to Dave and Bryan talking about the attendance issues and problems with the product and a thought occurred to me: a knock on effect of the neverending tidal wave of dishonest bullshit bad faith criticism by all of the worst people since day one is that it's caused the company to block out all the legitimate criticism from serious and reasonable people as well.

This is something I have my eye on, too. You really can’t overestimate the impact that Smackdown being on network TV and PLE’s being available for rock bottom prices on a Peacock sub had on fueling their current business. Increasing barriers to access the programming will absolutely have a trickle down effect on those metrics you listed. Of course, collecting roughly a billion per year in TV rights fees insulates you from any significant harm, but it’ll be interesting to watch.

All I know about Netflix is that they exploit their creators terribly so that they can give millions to idiot stand ups who still think men holding hands is a punchline worthy of the Apollo. Sounds right up WWE's business model

I've got no context for this other than Jim Varney looks bad af...

How about Truth AND Consequences?

Any chance you guys are able to book Riot, or do something crazy like Riot Hot Pants on a Pole match?

And how you play them

There's a flipside to this: the viewing data Netflix will be collecting will be epic, and presumably WWE get access to a lot of the more pertinent stuff. This is not to be underestimated.

I'd still trade 4 down months for getting off of Saturdays year-round. They still have to deal with college prime time games and a handful of WWE PLEs that eat their lunch there anyway. Let's be real, this week they might not even crack 300k against the Rumble. There's no way they do worse than that against weekly MNF, especially that at least leaves the door open for split viewership.

they thought they were hiring the lead singer from ACDC

I was going to just quote @For Great Justice's earlier post but I guess I will just go with this one: I don't think it hurts. As I said weeks ago, I don't think Raw to WBD made sense for either side especially for the amount of money WWE was looking for. If you cannot have both Raw and Smackdown, then you might as well keep AEW for a more manageable rights deal you're not going to regret immediately 2-3 years in and can walk away from. And the reason I was going to quote the other post was I don't think the TNT/TBS identity is Inside the NBA or basketball in that you don't build around something seasonal. The NFL provides pretty good ratings for CBS, NBC, and Fox but they don't lean exclusively on that as much as they make that a priority for half the year and then make original programming paramount the other half of the year. I am not saying you can lean on AEW programming, but it provides a decent substitute while they do figure what direction they want to go in. I am of the opinion AEW should move if they can partly cause of that, but I do realize right now what mutually works for all parties involved. I don't think it's a coincidence Dana said recently UFC is working on their rights deal the next 4-5 months. Those in the know already forecasted it to be insane. Therefore, you can swap out wrestlers with fighters in your third point and not lose the point at all.

A year to figure out live broadcasting on Netflix is like a storyline from Silicon Valley. And if the entire history of Netflix has taught me anything, it’s that they are for sure opting out at that 5 year mark.

For the record, Damien Priest now looks like the dumbest person alive. Seth is basically crying about it being like 90/10 he's not going to make it to Mania. Imperium comes to vaguely threaten him, they get taken out by New Day... Maybe have all 4 (or even 5) members of Judgement Day go distract McIntyre? Then put Seth's head through the god damned briefcase. Jesus. This isn't hard.

Tony Khan probably breathing a bit of a sigh of relief at that news. I don't really think WBD was gonna pony up, seeing as how they want to keep the NBA, but there's a part of me that thought WWE might've taken less just to dick over a competitor. If they weren't publicly traded, I think they might've. This does take a potential destination for AEW off the table.

If this leads to Matanza in WWE continuity it’s worth it

DAMNIT, GORDI! DEAN (C).

I did not have "Imperium/New Day have the best TV feud in wrestling" on my wrestling bingo card for 2024, yet here we are. We need more matches wrestled by people acting like they legit want to beat/hurt each other.

Has anyone ever been to obscure yet pro wres identifiable town before? I once was in Bucksnort, Tennessee.

It's fun seeing everyone's SHOOT NAMEZ who buy tickets.

I think the way I've always personally looked at things (and I've probably expressed this a lot so if this is rehash, well, skip on by) is that I don't like looking at things in a vacuum. Whether it's simplistic work like two people hiding a gimmick for 45 minutes, as Technico refers to them, or action-packed stunt shows, as Matt refers to them, if I don't have a reason to care about the participants and they're just interchangeable parts to get me to whatever comes next, then I don't really enjoy that. I can watch highlights and gifs and whatever for that. Like Kris Statlander. Loved her as alien Kris Statlander, thought she was great. Since coming back from injury, she's been regular old Kris Statlander from Long Island and, I dunno, it just hasn't connected the same. I guess because now there's no hook and she's just another interchangeable part, which stinks. Looking at the mechanics of what she's doing isn't different, but the hook isn't there for me anymore, and I can tell you exactly what the dividing line was and what changed for me. And it seems like every time I bring this up, someone goes "well you just want 2000s WWE with constant sports entertainment and no wrestling", and that's not what I want at all! I need something to care about other than "these people are having a match, and they want to win, and wow [can they do lots of moves/hide the gimmick]". But for some reason it seems like we can't have it all, so instead we attack each other by reducing our arguments to their most base components and call each other stupidheads.

forever forever for....Netflix LLC has decided to take a value downgrade for tax purposes. The following content will be leaving this month.

I know that address but I forgot my brother's address lol.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-netflix-pro-wrestling-wwe-deal-makes-sense-2024-1?amp Business Insider says it’s all about ads.

Updated through Wrestle Kingdom 2024 & beyond https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHbVIIaR0yY4AIQJ5HsZTnhqQFpLcq6Cct5j9FcqU8I/edit?usp=sharing

It's hard not to feel that a big chunk of the current boom has to do with the fact that so many people had Peacock for free over the last few years. People who traditionally watch Raw will go out of their way to watch Raw. This made it a lot more accessible, especially to kids who (anecdotally) seem to make up a huge chunk of said boom.

The really interesting thing to me is how it sits with the admittedly limited NBC deal done last year - including those primetime specials. It sort of locks NBC up from looking at AEW.......I mean probably at any rate. In the UK, Sky being without WWE feels like a moment. Sky has been showing WWE content even longer than ppl may realise..I remember watching Survivor Series 88 taped off Sky Channel. Later the PPVs were moved to Sky Movies and then Sky Sports. If you're Tony, do you think 'f it' and consider running Monday nights? The other thing I am wondering about is...XFL?

I “beat” the Talos Principle with what I think is the good ending? The only bummer is that I think I found every star and then went right to the path I chose to end the game without doing the star puzzle levels so I’m hoping I can go back to go those. Really, really cool game. Love the puzzles. Only had to look up a few online. For the most part I solved most of them pretty quickly and the longest may have taken me 30 to 45 minutes. Looking forward to playing part 2 now.

Shams says Doc Rivers is most likely replacing him

Let's be honest, they weren't doing much of anything besides being stuck in the Jericho-verse before Santana got hurt.

The upside is with the media marketplace in a state of flux Netflix has options to extend the deal out for up to 20 years. That's a long time to lock up a premier property. It's also a great way for them to shift over to an advertising model.

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