AEW/ROH Finances, Ratings, etc.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

8 minutes ago, EVA said:

Two thoughts on this:

1) The main point I’m quibbling with is the basis of why you think a subscription YouTube channel would succeed. “We have x number of people watching/following/subscribing to our free stuff, therefore there must at least y number of them willing to pay a monthly fee for it” has absolutely been said countless times in boardrooms across the world to justify innumerable disastrous decisions in recent years. The gulf between “people who will watch a few minutes of our videos for free while they eat lunch or ride the train” and “people who are willing to invest money in making (insert product) part of their lifestyle” is VAST and often unnavigable. As I mentioned, it did not even work for WWE to a sustainable degree. Remember, the long term goal of the WWE Network was to be exactly what you’re pitching here—air our own shows, cut out the middle man, keep all the money—and even they had to give up on the dream and sell it off.

I understand the logic behind the idea, but we have a lot of real world data that suggests it rarely, if ever, works out that way. And if the Worldwide Leader in Sports Entertainment can’t figure it out, I don’t like the odds for the famously professional and well-organized AEW to pull it off.

Is cable fucked? Yes! Are there very few options on linear TV or even streaming for AEW? Seems that way! But let’s be clear: AEW as an a la cart streaming subscription business is dead within a year. The math does not work. (I think more realistic math would be, at best, 10-20% of the regular Dynamite live viewership, and the numbers on that don’t shake out too rosy.)

2) That said, I do think you may be overestimating exactly where we’re at in the whole “things fall apart” cycle. These companies are in a bad way, but these channels are not going away anytime soon. And as long they exist, they will keep giving it a go with programming. My guess is AEW’s next TV deal will be for between 3-5 years (depending who the deal is with) and I will go out on a limb and say that the Turner networks will still be around (owned/operated by who, I dunno) for the life of that deal.

Is that the most ideal situation? Probably not. But dead in the water in 3 years is much preferable than being dead in one year because we incorrectly assumed that the Honor Club business model with 10x the overhead was workable. Three years is a lot of time for fresh lifeboats to appear on the horizon.

WWE Network and doing a YouTube subscription model is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison.

WWE Network was originally built on its own infrastructure built out by BAMTech, then that infrastructure was farmed out to Endeavor. The biggest thing that crushes your own streaming service is the cost of maintenance of your infrastructure, and that's ultimately why WWE opted to license out their content to NBC/Universal to Peacock, because they got roughly the same amount of money coming in from WWE Network subscriptions without having to maintain/support their own infrastructure. If AEW can somehow get in that same space, great. I have my doubts they can, hence why YouTube is the safest model, because it doesn't require your own buildout/processing/infrastructure/support. You have to give up a pretty healthy cut (I believe it's 30%?) but they're about as smooth of an experience as possible.

As far as AEW as an a la carte subscription being dead within a year because the math doesn't work, show your work. If you're assuming based on Zakk's reference of TNA+ or Honor Club (of which there are no known figures), then you could also assume based on WWE Network's numbers of 1.5 million (which was their userbase in 2020 prior to folding into Peacock). We're all just speculating at this point, you just happen to be more doom and gloom than me on the aspects of YouTube's sustainability.

As far as channels not going anywhere, well... with two of the five major companies running cable networks facing serious problems, and a lot of cable companies experiencing the same, we'll see. We're also seeing smaller cable companies starting to go under and fold, as well as companies like Spectrum looking to pivot towards streaming-only models instead of supporting cable TV packages. Cable isn't going to die tomorrow, or this year, or next year. But you don't want to be looking for lifeboats when it does die, and it's clear that the best time to start looking for other options is right now.

If they want to gradually transition to a streaming-only model, great, but I think that's best for them in the long run. The biggest problem, as I've said, is that they have nothing on that front now. If they do a stopgap contract for the next couple of years, it absolutely has to address their lack of streaming.

13 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

The answer is to diversify. Get Dynamite on a streaming outlet. Amazon / Paramount / Max / Hulu... whatever one you can get a foot in the door. Keep trying for a cable deal for Collison. WBD / Paramount / Fox... wherever you can get a foot in the door.

I've explained the problems with the carriers you've suggested earlier.

[Elsalvajeloco]

2 hours ago, EVA said:

No offense, but that sounds like horrible business for AEW, based on a lot of the same faulty logic about streaming that has led so many companies to their doom in recent years. Signing their own death warrant type business.

 

WWE itself couldn’t even figure out how to make a subscription service a sustainable model and had to sell it off to NBCUniversal to salvage any kind of face/profit from the whole failed experiment. 0% chance that AEW survives a move like that.

I dunno if WWE couldn't figure it out as much they probably should have waited to evaluate the other streaming models and how they could emulate the successful aspects of those models. They didn't have to go to streaming and abandon PPV much like boxing didn't have to do that with DAZN a few years later in 2017/2018. They felt they had to be first. It was incredibly shortsighted. 

As for what AEW could do, I think I actually said some months back that AEW should find someone other than WBD. Now with that said, it's not like AEW is just some mom and pop operation. It is all on what the Khan family wants to do. Anything that infuses this operation with more cash is the best option. The issue is moreso that if any platform just wants to tuck you away and just hide you on the outer reaches where people can't find you, you're screwed whether it's streaming or linear TV. The reason why UFC can still be very successful despite a fair amount of their product being streaming is that ESPN made it a priority to keep the UFC brand out there. They advertise UFC to the point where even if you don't care about any of those events, you will still know that it is coming up. That's what a true partner can do for you.

[odessasteps]

1 hour ago, Matt D said:

Remember when Polynesian Pro Wrestling was on the Financial News Network....

As discussed on our new pod about Kevin Sullivan. #plug

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

18 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I dunno if WWE couldn't figure it out as much they probably should have waited to evaluate the other streaming models and how they could emulate the successful aspects of those models. They didn't have to go to streaming and abandon PPV much like boxing didn't have to do that with DAZN a few years later in 2017/2018. They felt they had to be first. It was incredibly shortsighted. 

The biggest thing that kills a streaming service is infrastructure and support. Full stop. Unless a company has such a diversified portfolio to justify maintaining their own infrastructure, then they should either license out their content to existing services or they should use an established service to handle their infrastructure so they don't have to build their own. For a niche service, WWE did a great job to get above the 1 million mark, but a lot of companies don't hit that mark (most of the data on services like Dropout, AMC+, Sundance, and the like have them around 250-500K). DAZN and Crunchyroll are probably the watersheds for niche services since they get around 15 million subscribers the last time I checked.

If you own your own IP, it's better to lean on a platform like YouTube where you can use their infrastructure in exchange for a cut of the subscription fees if you can't get a licensing structure you're satisfied with. TBH that's why I'm shocked they don't run Honor Club through YouTube because that has to be chewing up money to maintain their structure.

[NoFistsJustFlips]

The main caveat here is TK is a mega millionaire and could feasibly fund this regardless of how much he's offered for any of these suggestions right. But let's assume at face value he won't just sink money into it and is trying to be self sustainable and profitable.

While there are many content creators on YouTube that pull in great numbers, there's not really a sustainable / profitable YouTube only sports league / pro wrestling / pro wrestling adjacent product. It's all low overhead concepts like The Try Guys or whatever. Running live pro wrestling costs a tonnnnnn of money. Let's be over the top positive here and say you can get 1 million people to pay $10 a month for AEW programming. $120million a year is not enough to make AEW profitable.

Sure throw in another $million for ad revenue. You're still not there. Live event over head. Roster. Satellite feed time. Travel. Ect. You're not getting to profitable without $250million annually. The numbers don't work.

 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

55 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

As far as AEW as an a la carte subscription being dead within a year because the math doesn't work, show your work. If you're assuming based on Zakk's reference of TNA+ or Honor Club (of which there are no known figures), then you could also assume based on WWE Network's numbers of 1.5 million (which was their userbase in 2020 prior to folding into Peacock). We're all just speculating at this point, you just happen to be more doom and gloom than me on the aspects of YouTube's sustainability.

Just for the sake of clarity btw, the reason I mentioned those two instead of WWEN was just because of the anomalous nature of the Peacock deal - $1B for five years is *wild* for wrestling. I think MNF costs ESPN $1B a year, so I almost look at it like damn, they got 1/5 NFL money (which sounds like a put down on them, but I mean it sincerely - that's a big chunk). I know your last sentence wasn't in reply to me, but I wanted to put it out there that I was just trying to be realistic as opposed to doomy-gloomy by purposely excluding it

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

14 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

The main caveat here is TK is a mega millionaire and could feasibly fund this regardless of how much he's offered for any of these suggestions right. But let's assume at face value he won't just sink money into it and is trying to be self sustainable and profitable.

While there are many content creators on YouTube that pull in great numbers, there's not really a sustainable / profitable YouTube only sports league / pro wrestling / pro wrestling adjacent product. It's all low overhead concepts like The Try Guys or whatever. Running live pro wrestling costs a tonnnnnn of money. Let's be over the top positive here and say you can get 1 million people to pay $10 a month for AEW programming. $120million a year is not enough to make AEW profitable.

Sure throw in another $million for ad revenue. You're still not there. Live event over head. Roster. Satellite feed time. Travel. Ect. You're not getting to profitable without $250million annually. The numbers don't work.

 

So you've brought up potential TV/YouTube licensing and ad revenue. Keep going. Merch, ticket sales, PPV if they continue to do them (and they should wherever they go, AEW fans have shown they will buy them), sponsorship. There's plenty of revenue streams that come from running a company.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

10 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Just for the sake of clarity btw, the reason I mentioned those two instead of WWEN was just because of the anomalous nature of the Peacock deal - $1B for five years is *wild* for wrestling. I think MNF costs ESPN $1B a year, so I almost look at it like damn, they got 1/5 NFL money (which sounds like a put down on them, but I mean it sincerely - that's a big chunk). I know your last sentence wasn't in reply to me, but I wanted to put it out there that I was just trying to be realistic as opposed to doomy-gloomy by purposely excluding it

I would be pleasantly surprised if AEW gets $100m a year. They don't really have the sustained viewership (which translates to the ad buys that whoever airs them can get in return; remember, this is a ROI game and whatever they get in rights fees, their TV partner will want to get more in ad revenue in return) for anything above that, but if they can get that, good on them.

[NoFistsJustFlips]

17 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

So you've brought up potential TV/YouTube licensing and ad revenue. Keep going. Merch, ticket sales, PPV if they continue to do them (and they should wherever they go, AEW fans have shown they will buy them), sponsorship. There's plenty of revenue streams that come from running a company.

You're vastly overestimating the reach of being You Tube only. Right now they are a US national wrestling promotion on a big cable network. They got lots of local market media appearances. Local news and radios spots to advertise their live events. That stuff goes away if you're just a wrestling company on You Tube. You don't command respect. Your media options dry up. Therefore the ticket sales take a hit (on top of the massive hit they've already taken). The visibility and viability of being in this You Tube bubble have a ripple effect on all those other streams of revenue. PPV numbers would take a hit as well. If you're shelling out $120 a year JUST for the live TV, are you shelling out $500 more to order the 10 PPVs a year? No. People's incomes are limited.

I'm not saying your thought process is totally wrong. What I'm saying is it's *too* forward thinking for where we are now. 70 million cable viewers still exist. That's still the second highest user base (behind Netflix) in today's market. You have 70 million possible viewers right now (for free). Even if people don't choose to watch, they're aware of it. It has visibility. If you scale it back to just 1M people watching (who pay for it) you lose that visibility with vast majority of the open market. You get less people aware of AEW, so less people knowing when they're in town. Less ticket sales. less merch sales. Less PPV buys.

It's one of those topics you just see it the way you see it and I know what I'm saying isn't going to change your opinion. And that's fine. But you're not being very realistic about the finances required to run at a profit and the lack of viability & prestige you'd get for being a You Tube only promotion. I don;t even think WWE with a 40 year head start in their hottest boom in 25 years with gigantic mainstream viability could pull that off. Thinking the verrrrryyyyyy distant number 2 can is just  too optimistic a view point for me.

[Elsalvajeloco]

24 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

So you've brought up potential TV/YouTube licensing and ad revenue. Keep going. Merch, ticket sales, PPV if they continue to do them (and they should wherever they go, AEW fans have shown they will buy them), sponsorship. There's plenty of revenue streams that come from running a company.

Also, is there a deadline for profitability? Yes, everything is expensive. However, that's why (1) you hitch your wagon to someone who can certainly afford to invest in it and (2) understand what strategies can be used to build a path forward to whatever the intended goal is. Yeah, you don't want to be hemorrhaging money but you also have to be realistic especially based on how long you've been existence. It took fifty years for WWE to get where they are now. To expect to be halfway there in less than ten is insane. Let's just throw out a number, shall we? $80m/year. Did anyone expect a company NOT called World Wrestling Entertainment to get that type of money for PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING?

[Technico Support]

Yeah I just don’t think YouTube has the cache to make AEW look like anything but low rent.  YouTube is the place where anybody can post free content, zero barrier to entry.  Saying “we’re on this streaming service or that linear network” means something still.  “We’re on YouTube” just puts you on the level of millions of thirsty content creators.

Edited August 13 by Technico Support

[Elsalvajeloco]

Just now, Technico Support said:

Yeah I just don’t think YouTube has the cache to make AEW look like anything but low rent.  YouTube is the place where anybody can post free content, zero barrier to entry.  Saying “we’re on this streaming service or that linear network” means something still.  “We’re on YouTube” just puts you on the level of millions of thirsty content creators.

Thing is based on my experience with with boxing and MMA is you don't pay lots of money to NOT advertise and monetize it. They aren't paying TammyJames43345 X millions to upload videos of her hiking trip in Oregon. So her video will be up there with only 100 views until she closes her channel. If you pull up a random video (say a shoot interview with Shane Douglas), guess what comes into your feed? More pro wrestling. Guess what happens when you watch a NFL comp video? You get no less than 5 ads in your next video advertising something football related. 

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

13 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

You're vastly overestimating the reach of being You Tube only. Right now they are a US national wrestling promotion on a big cable network. They got lots of local market media appearances. Local news and radios spots to advertise their live events. That stuff goes away if you're just a wrestling company on You Tube. You don't command respect. Your media options dry up. Therefore the ticket sales take a hit (on top of the massive hit they've already taken). The visibility and viability of being in this You Tube bubble have a ripple effect on all those other streams of revenue. PPV numbers would take a hit as well. If you're shelling out $120 a year JUST for the live TV, are you shelling out $500 more to order the 10 PPVs a year? No. People's incomes are limited.

I'm not saying your thought process is totally wrong. What I'm saying is it's *too* forward thinking for where we are now. 70 million cable viewers still exist. That's still the second highest user base (behind Netflix) in today's market. You have 70 million possible viewers right now (for free). Even if people don't choose to watch, they're aware of it. It has visibility. If you scale it back to just 1M people watching (who pay for it) you lose that visibility with vast majority of the open market. You get less people aware of AEW, so less people knowing when they're in town. Less ticket sales. less merch sales. Less PPV buys.

It's one of those topics you just see it the way you see it and I know what I'm saying isn't going to change your opinion. And that's fine. But you're not being very realistic about the finances required to run at a profit and the lack of viability & prestige you'd get for being a You Tube only promotion. I don;t even think WWE with a 40 year head start in their hottest boom in 25 years with gigantic mainstream viability could pull that off. Thinking the verrrrryyyyyy distant number 2 can is just  too optimistic a view point for me.

This is tantamount to saying that the music industry is going to die because MTV stopped playing music.

AEW has to do something. Relying on cable TV, which again is a market that has lost close to a third of its viability in the last five years, is not a healthy option. Is switching to that model bold? Sure. But they have to do something else, and if you're not getting anywhere with a lineal market and a streaming service hasn't signed you up yet, then what exactly should you do? You have to go where the audience is. Take a guess where that is.

Also, are you really making the "people's incomes are limited" point while also advocating for staying on cable TV? It's not free. The cheapest cable package for me is $105 a month. The cheapest possible way to get TBS and TNT is Sling Blue, that's $40 a month. If you're getting that just for AEW, I mean... do you think people might like a different option? How many people do we see getting VPNs and getting AEW+ out of Triller?

And as I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I'll be pleasantly surprised if they get $100 million out of WBD for rights fees, but they lose ad revenue to go along with that. There's pros and cons to go in both directions, but sitting here and saying cable is the cheaper option and has more "prestige" as cable crumbles under its own expensive weight is a baffling argument to me.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

15 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Yeah I just don’t think YouTube has the cache to make AEW look like anything but low rent.  YouTube is the place where anybody can post free content, zero barrier to entry.  Saying “we’re on this streaming service or that linear network” means something still.  “We’re on YouTube” just puts you on the level of millions of thirsty content creators.

The NFL, NBA, and WNBA offer the season viewing packages through YouTube. There's levels to this.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

9 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Thing is based on my experience with with boxing and MMA is you don't pay lots of money to NOT advertise and monetize it. They aren't paying TammyJames43345 X millions to upload videos of her hiking trip in Oregon. So her video will be up there with only 100 views until she closes her channel. If you pull up a random video (say a shoot interview with Shane Douglas), guess what comes into your feed? More pro wrestling. Guess what happens when you watch a NFL comp video? You get no less than 5 ads in your next video advertising something football related. 

Most of them probably pointing to Sunday Ticket, a YouTube exclusive.

[odessasteps]

28 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Yeah I just don’t think YouTube has the cache to make AEW look like anything but low rent.  YouTube is the place where anybody can post free content, zero barrier to entry.  Saying “we’re on this streaming service or that linear network” means something still.  “We’re on YouTube” just puts you on the level of millions of thirsty content creators.

I used to say that about writing on the internet vs being published. 

[NoFistsJustFlips]

Even tho we have slightly different opinions on this I do want to point out you always put a lot of thought into your posts and I appreciate that. I sometimes come off combatative and I'm aware of that and trying to work on it. I do enjoy your posts and I don't think you're that far off the mark here even tho I disagree with You Tube only as a strategy.

Now if we move in the Sunday Ticket direction my thoughts change a bit. Because You Tube is *paying* The NFL for the content. If AEW got a Wrestle Ticket deal where You Tube pays the same rights fees they're looking for elsewhere that does change the math a bit. You still lose a lot of visability, but it's a less risky perception position to be viewed as a commodity that You Tube is paying a ton for.

Again I don't think what your saying is crazy. I just think you're a few years too far ahead of the curve. Cable is still the number 2 viewing platform in the country. And why I said free, its because people are already paying for cable that have it. I feel it's safe to say very few people pay for cable JUST for AEW. So it's something they already have and it's no added cost (better way to put it).

Truth is TK has been shown to be overly positive and a bit stubborn. So he may have a number and he may want everything together in one package and that's the holdup. Doing the WWE / NBA / NFL strategy if breaking up the properties seems like the best way to maximize your potential payout. 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

1 hour ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

. Doing the WWE / NBA / NFL strategy if breaking up the properties seems like the best way to maximize your potential payout. 

Yeah, in a perfect world, that would be what materializes - ubiquity is the key. WWE's been able to leverage that tremendously; like I don't watch at all, but I know they had Challenge on Facebook and Speed on Twitter, I see SmackDown reruns on FS1 in the guide all weekend. No matter where they land, it's crucial AEW have the ability to be able to diversify and put content on as many different platforms as possible.

In that regard, it's shitty timing that WBD (possibly, with this news) and Paramount don't seem to be viable options because they have probably the most inroads into broadcast AND cable AND streaming (I'm not necessarily counting FOX out either even if it were FX or something but I'm not sure whether or not Disney+ has live sports or would even be a good fit). But then again, WBD has failed to do much of that thus far - like why not a Battle of the Belts on HBO or something? March Madness Halftime-Rampage? No room on TruTV for ROH between 12 hours of Impractical Jokers? It's not as though they've been a 10/10 partner

It sucks but i think it's really gonna take a conglomerate like that to help maintain the "prestige" of a TV presence while (again, in a perfect world) still doing aaaaaalll the streaming stuff Stefanie and us were talking about earlier: bring Dark back on as many free platforms as possible (e.g. YouTube, Twitch), get the whole Honor Club and hypothetical "AEW Network" archive on whatever TV partner's platform along with live PPVs, get ROH weekly TVs on there, set up a nice streaming channel like TNA has on YouTube TV, Pluto, and Tub(it really is just a 24-hour Impact infomercial) experiment with running shows on socials like the aforementioned WWE ones (how great was that COVID-era Joshi tourney on Youtube?) Shit like that.

Edited August 14 by Zakk_Sabbath

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

Even tho we have slightly different opinions on this I do want to point out you always put a lot of thought into your posts and I appreciate that. I sometimes come off combatative and I'm aware of that and trying to work on it. I do enjoy your posts and I don't think you're that far off the mark here even tho I disagree with You Tube only as a strategy.

Now if we move in the Sunday Ticket direction my thoughts change a bit. Because You Tube is *paying* The NFL for the content. If AEW got a Wrestle Ticket deal where You Tube pays the same rights fees they're looking for elsewhere that does change the math a bit. You still lose a lot of visability, but it's a less risky perception position to be viewed as a commodity that You Tube is paying a ton for.

Again I don't think what your saying is crazy. I just think you're a few years too far ahead of the curve. Cable is still the number 2 viewing platform in the country. And why I said free, its because people are already paying for cable that have it. I feel it's safe to say very few people pay for cable JUST for AEW. So it's something they already have and it's no added cost (better way to put it).

Truth is TK has been shown to be overly positive and a bit stubborn. So he may have a number and he may want everything together in one package and that's the holdup. Doing the WWE / NBA / NFL strategy if breaking up the properties seems like the best way to maximize your potential payout. 

I think the visibility issue is more what happened to TNA/Impact. They went from Spike to each successive channel being smaller in reach. You look at what happened to WWE Smackdown after leaving UPN, they lost visibility only cause people decided, "hey it's the B show" even in some years it was the better show. However, you look up and both are still around just cause folks are going to watch wrestling if they want to watch wrestling. When Smackdown moved over to Fox, folks who probably haven't watched Smackdown in several years started turning in. 

My thing with where AEW is situated now is TNT and TBS has shown no real growth that wasn't NBA related cause they slashed ALL of their original programming. All OF it. So right now, AEW is basically out on an island by itself ALREADY. So if you advertise on TNT or TBS, if no one is around to see that, then what's the point? And the people who do see basketball of the family of WBD channels (adding in TruTV for March Madness purposes) have already decided, "yeah, I am only here for basketball", then there is no next level after the peak they reached a few years ago pre covid and pre WBD. 

Plus, I would also add that based on the crowd that AEW caters to, if they choose to not follow AEW, then that's a choice that wasn't thrust upon them. There is no visibility loss when probably literally 3/4ths of the world where there is no censorship uses Youtube. AEW caters to Gen Z and millennials, not baby boomers. If this was 2007 or 2008, maybe you would have a point. However, based on how Youtube's popularity has ran adjacent to social media's popularity, there is no "hey, Youtube is only for street fight videos, twerking, or footage of someone in some far off away country getting blown up into smithereens". It's no longer Break.com or Ogrish on steroids. Are you ever on Twitter when a football game is streaming and people are talking about going to Youtube TV to watch it? It's crazy that people in droves are talking about watching a major sporting event on a Youtube based platform when 18 years ago that was implausible. It was probably also implausible that linear TV would be in this rough shape. In my mind, there is no such thing as YouTube only just like if you're on a Viacom (or what was Viacom) owned channel, it's not MTV or BET only. It's not a bubble anymore. Also, I don't think the plan EVER is just to be on one platform in perpetuity. The NFL is ALWAYS trying to foster new relationships and pivot even when they have major rights contracts out of the wazoo. They REFUSE to let anything stay static. 

Do I see cable completely dying? No, just like I don't see PPV ever dying cause folks will pay $100 to watch a combat sports fight that 50/50 odds say will be mediocre. And that's with the fighters who are fighters by trade and do this for a living or not washed up. However, I do realize that there are more viable options now ESPECIALLY if people are willing to pay you significant money to broadcast your content. Now they have a real interest in seeing you be successful. If Amazon pays Joe Rogan a ton of money, you think Joe Rogan is just going to be buried somewhere where you can't find his content? Literally, no one does that. And Amazon has the money to fuck off just like Apple does making all these films that no one watches. Anytime an entity moves ANYWHERE be it cable, streaming, or otherwise, the true question is are you fan or not? Cause if you're not, you wouldn't follow them if these folks were performing in your goddamn backyard. Access and visibility are no longer the real prominent issue cause it's not 1977 anymore. You can find anything. Are you going to lift a finger to do so? If people won't follow you, there is a larger problem at play here. 

[username]

Board ate my reply so short version:

Many smaller wrestling companies have thought that youtube could be their salvation, virtually all of them were disappointed with how that went as these smaller companies couldn't even get the smaller moneys they needed to make it worthwhile.

While not a perfect comparison ROH HonorClub subs maxed out at 12-15k and given that Tony hasn't mentioned those numbers in quite a while they are likely down. AEW would do better but that 20% of 4 millions current youtube would be more than a 50-fold increase from that and... it don't seem likely.

I think youtube or some other streaming service can be a piece of what they do next and probably should be, but the big money is likely still gonna come from some cable network so they pretty much gotta grab that and build up a war chest while they dip their toes and figure out their digital/streaming future before likely having to commit to it next go around.

[AxB]

I saw a clip on Brendan Schaub on Logan Paul's podcast, where he was attempting to promote his latest comedy special. Logan asked him where it was airing, going like "So is it on Netflix, HBO Max, where is it?" and Schaub said "Oh, it's on YouTube". At which point Logan did the "Well, it's been nice talking but we've got to wrap this up, I've got places I need to go". Basically stopped the podcast halfway through and in essence chucked Brendan Schaub off the show. 

[The Natural]

Be interesting to see when the UK deal comes up. AEW is shown on ITV. TNT Sports loses WWE to Netflix.

[ExcellenceofAirPollution]

I'm curious what happens to TNT after losing the NBA.  They've had the NBA since the fucking late 80's, you can't underestimate how huge it was in building and sustaining that channel over the last 25 years.  It's the reason they're on the first sports tier on cable packages and get higher carriage fees, because people pay to watch the NBA.  I know they have some other sports, but the NBA was THE draw for them.

NBA on TNT was such a part of the fabric of that network that I would have fired Zazlav on general principal for fucking up those negotiations.  Is he one of those corporate guys who failed upwards?  Because since he took over WBD I've seen zero that tells me this guy is savvy at anything but schmoozing. 

And funny enough I was watching some old Knicks clips from like 15 years ago and Zazlav was pointed out in the MSG crowd at one point.  Fucker has certainly been around doing whatever for a long time even if I'd never heard the name before the WBD merger

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

3 hours ago, AxB said:

I saw a clip on Brendan Schaub on Logan Paul's podcast, where he was attempting to promote his latest comedy special. Logan asked him where it was airing, going like "So is it on Netflix, HBO Max, where is it?" and Schaub said "Oh, it's on YouTube". At which point Logan did the "Well, it's been nice talking but we've got to wrap this up, I've got places I need to go". Basically stopped the podcast halfway through and in essence chucked Brendan Schaub off the show. 

All this tells me is that Logan Paul - notably someone who got famous from YouTube - is a hypocrite. That’s not new information!

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

Re: cable's future, this is a pretty timely article to hit my inbox. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/cable-tv-cordcutting-warner-paramount-1235973275/

The TL;DR version is that ad buyers are leaving cable and moving towards ad-supported streaming services. That would line up with why there's such disparity between the ad-free versions of services and the ad-supported versions, as well as why the prices have been increasing on the ad-free versions with such regularity.

11 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Do I see cable completely dying? No, just like I don't see PPV ever dying cause folks will pay $100 to watch a combat sports fight that 50/50 odds say will be mediocre. And that's with the fighters who are fighters by trade and do this for a living or not washed up. However, I do realize that there are more viable options now ESPECIALLY if people are willing to pay you significant money to broadcast your content. Now they have a real interest in seeing you be successful. If Amazon pays Joe Rogan a ton of money, you think Joe Rogan is just going to be buried somewhere where you can't find his content? Literally, no one does that. And Amazon has the money to fuck off just like Apple does making all these films that no one watches. Anytime an entity moves ANYWHERE be it cable, streaming, or otherwise, the true question is are you fan or not? Cause if you're not, you wouldn't follow them if these folks were performing in your goddamn backyard. Access and visibility are no longer the real prominent issue cause it's not 1977 anymore. You can find anything. Are you going to lift a finger to do so? If people won't follow you, there is a larger problem at play here. 

I see cable becoming similar to landline telephones, to where if the infrastructure already exists and people already subscribe, then it will be supported, but things will decline and eventually as customers drop off, it'll end. The article I linked earlier reports that analysts see cable channels becoming like newspapers, where investment groups will acquire them to milk them out and eventually close them. (That's similar to retail companies and acquisition firms.)

It reminds me of how my grandmother used to lease her actual phone from AT&T, even though they had stopped taking new customers for that program in the late-1980s, and she did this all the way until she passed away in 2009. Figuring out how to cancel that was a unique experience. Sometimes people just stick with things because it's what they know. I don't know if booking for my dead grandmother is a great idea.