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The Man Comes Around - Raw - 2/4/2019


Dolfan in NYC

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14 hours ago, MORELOCK said:

They haven't lost you, so you aren't part of the (fake) exodus (that isn't happening). You're hovering around waiting to be drawn back in. 

Not really, considering they have not "drawn" me back since 2014. So yeah they lost me awhile back. But that does not mean they can't get fans back. But it would require them to stop the dumb shit that is hard wired into the company. Now for the bolded part. You seem to think saying the audience shrinking is an opinion, when it is an objective fact. The ratings have gotten worse every year for awhile. Live event attendance has been going down. The Network has stayed steady, but it has old content for lapsed fans and PPV for the remaining fans.

 

14 hours ago, MORELOCK said:

And I will happily say "smark" for as long as the so-called "smart" fans keep acting like marks. It's only derisive to those who think they're smarter than the average fan.

Okay you don't get it. There are no "marks" or "smart fans, just fans. If you want to sound like Scott Keith, be my guest.

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50 minutes ago, Victator said:

Not really, considering they have not "drawn" me back since 2014. So yeah they lost me awhile back. But that does not mean they can't get fans back. But it would require them to stop the dumb shit that is hard wired into the company. Now for the bolded part. You seem to think saying the audience shrinking is an opinion, when it is an objective fact. The ratings have gotten worse every year for awhile. Live event attendance has been going down. The Network has stayed steady, but it has old content for lapsed fans and PPV for the remaining fans.

Oh, no, I'm aware the ratings are going down, but that is also an overall trend with television in general, not the result of a bunch of hardcore fans quitting in protest because the right people aren't being pushed. The hardcore fans are the ones that are staying - as you yourself noted, the Network numbers are steady. Network subscribers are not "lapsed" fans. They are giving the company their money every month.

As for you yourself - you're in the RAW thread, paying close enough attention to what WWE is doing to keep up with the conversation despite supposedly not watching since 2014 (You admitted to watching a YouTube video per week, Vic). If WWE has lost you, why don't you go chill out in the Puro or Indie subfolders? What do you have to add if you're never, ever going to watch the shows again? But here you are. You're hovering because you still give a shit. The idea that WWE should be THAT worried about their hardcore fans bailing is just a talking point. Almost everyone seems satisfied with NXT, NXT-UK, 205, and most of SmackDown. I don't believe that the most hardcore fans of wrestling are ready to run for the hills because RAW usually sucks.

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By lapsed fans, I mean people who still watch old wrestling but don't care about the current product. I still watch old wrestling. The clips WWE puts on Youtube are usually four minutes. From October to December, I was rarely watching those even.

House show attendence is down and they are having issues selling out live TV tapings. There is no way to spin that as anything but bad. The whole "hardcore fan" deal is a gimmick entertainment companies do to deflect criticism or lagging interest. Healthy companies don't have to resort to that. 

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8 hours ago, Victator said:

By lapsed fans, I mean people who still watch old wrestling but don't care about the current product. I still watch old wrestling. The clips WWE puts on Youtube are usually four minutes. From October to December, I was rarely watching those even.

House show attendence is down and they are having issues selling out live TV tapings. There is no way to spin that as anything but bad. The whole "hardcore fan" deal is a gimmick entertainment companies do to deflect criticism or lagging interest. Healthy companies don't have to resort to that. 

That isn't what "lapsed" means. And you still can't trot out the 2014 line if you're watching WWE every week. It doesn't matter how long the videos are. You're watching. You care. All the hardcore fans care. This idea that WWE is hemorrhaging fans isn't supported by actual numbers.

You could make the argument that WWE is an unhealthy company if you thought that live events were their only revenue stream, but I think you know better. 

This is all projection. You're unhappy with the product, so they must be unsuccessful. Lots of hardcore fans want that to be the case, but that isn't reality.

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Right watching eight minutes of a show in a week is total investment.  

Unsuccessful is not the right word because they still make a lot of money despite fan interest being the lowest it has been in a very long time.

You also keep dodging the live events being down and TV tapings not selling out. 

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WWE could let everyone in to Live events and TV tapings for Free for a year before it would even begin to have a small impact on the bottom line. As long as they continue to create content for broadcast deals and the streaming network, they are laughing. The days of looking at Gate Revenue as anything but found money are over.  

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10 minutes ago, dokdoyle said:

WWE could let everyone in to Live events and TV tapings for Free for a year before it would even begin to have a small impact on the bottom line. As long as they continue to create content for broadcast deals and the streaming network, they are laughing. The days of looking at Gate Revenue as anything but found money are over.  

I agree, WWE have evolved what their metric for success is. It used to be gate numbers, then it was merchandise sales, then PPV buys, TV ratings, network subscribers, and now streaming numbers and big money deals. I also agree that it's not a great sign that they can't keep attendance up. TV is one thing, there's a lot of ways people watch WWE that they don't or can't track, but when you have to be careful how you shoot Raw to not show empty seats, that's a problem. It just might not be a problem they're all that interested in fixing right now. I'm not a huge regular sports guy, but could they be seen to be in a rebuilding phase? Opening PCs all over, numerous new minor leagues, trying to sign everyone under the sun with any kind of name. Seems like they're more invested in the future than the present sometimes.

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There are two unarguable points here

1.) The WWE is making more money than ever before, by an order is magnitude over even it's biggest boom periods.

2.) They are losing domestic viewers at a rate similar to the mid-90's dark ages, and these kind of ticket and tv numbers would've been a disaster in any previous era. They are now losing viewers at a rate that far outstrips "cord cutting"

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No idea how this works in TV: Are there contingencies built into those TV contracts in the event viewership dip below a certain threshold on some metric? I know none of us are keyed into specifics. But in general, what happens if a network were inclined to cancel something they'd made a commitment to? Is WWE entitled to payment for what Fox committed to regardless of performance or cancellation? 

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1 hour ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

No idea how this works in TV: Are there contingencies built into those TV contracts in the event viewership dip below a certain threshold on some metric? I know none of us are keyed into specifics. But in general, what happens if a network were inclined to cancel something they'd made a commitment to? Is WWE entitled to payment for what Fox committed to regardless of performance or cancellation? 

My best guess is Fox probably has an out clause, but it wouldn't be cheap.

With normal TV shows, the network pays for what they order, which is why you see new shows get 13 episodes ordered, and the back nine only gets picked up if it's successful. And why you rarely see a show renewed for more than one season at a time unless it's a huge hit or The Simpsons. But I can't imagine they didn't build in some protection in a 5 year deal.

Of course, WWE had the leverage last year. An executive from Fox was quoted the other day saying something about the Friday slot being "temporary" but nobody knows exactly what he meant.

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19 hours ago, Victator said:

By lapsed fans, I mean people who still watch old wrestling but don't care about the current product. I still watch old wrestling. The clips WWE puts on Youtube are usually four minutes. From October to December, I was rarely watching those even.

House show attendence is down and they are having issues selling out live TV tapings. There is no way to spin that as anything but bad. The whole "hardcore fan" deal is a gimmick entertainment companies do to deflect criticism or lagging interest. Healthy companies don't have to resort to that. 

Now this is getting silly, Lord knows I'm not necessarily the demographic that WWE is chasing after, (though the 55-65 demo with a shit-ton of disposable income is perhaps something they should give a bit more thought to), but they get my eyeballs on all things NXT and 205 Live, they get my ten bucks every month and I never watch RAW and rarely do I bother with SDL.  Viewers of traditional TV are down, have been for some time, the hand-wringing that a multi-billion dollar company is somehow in trouble considering how many revenue streams they have is more than a bit premature. 

No, they may not be programming to fit your particular cup of tea just now, but they still have their hooks set, you can't stop yourself from reading the threads here and elsewhere about doings on a program you claim that you haven't watched in five years. 

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On 2/7/2019 at 6:41 PM, OSJ said:

Now this is getting silly, Lord knows I'm not necessarily the demographic that WWE is chasing after, (though the 55-65 demo with a shit-ton of disposable income is perhaps something they should give a bit more thought to), but they get my eyeballs on all things NXT and 205 Live, they get my ten bucks every month and I never watch RAW and rarely do I bother with SDL.  Viewers of traditional TV are down, have been for some time, the hand-wringing that a multi-billion dollar company is somehow in trouble considering how many revenue streams they have is more than a bit premature. 

No, they may not be programming to fit your particular cup of tea just now, but they still have their hooks set, you can't stop yourself from reading the threads here and elsewhere about doings on a program you claim that you haven't watched in five years. 

Really? How much of my money have they gotten? When did I last watch a full episode? What is the cash conversion on a message board thread?

I never said they are in danger of shutting down. To his credit, Vince McMahon has found a way to make money as the fan base shrinks.

And again, the live show attendance and difficulty selling out even TV tapings is not mentioned. 

See you in two days

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9 hours ago, Victator said:

I never said they are in danger of shutting down. To his credit, Vince McMahon has found a way to make money as the fan base shrinks.


You indicated that WWE should be worried about hardcore fans losing interest in the company - the numbers don't support this because the Network subscriptions are steady. TV ratings don't indicate anything about a shrinking fanbase in 2019. People don't need to sit in front of a TV on Monday night to get their wrestling fix. WWE's shows are on demand on Hulu. DVRs exist. The WWE Network is a thing. You're approaching this entire conversation as if it's 1998.
 

9 hours ago, Victator said:

And again, the live show attendance and difficulty selling out even TV tapings is not mentioned. 


I did address it. In the post directly above the post in which you accused me of not addressing it. I'll happily review, though: Falling live events and TV ratings are a negligible problem at the moment because the company is making a shitload of money. TV ratings in general are definitely not as important as you seem to think they are these days.
 

9 hours ago, Victator said:

See you in two days


I'm sure we're all very excited to hear your insight on a show you don't watch.

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Ratings over the last six or eight months are falling at a rate far faster than average. SmackDown, in particular, is doing numbers that would be well below the network average for Fox if they don't pick up.

I don't disagree at all that falling house show attendance poses no real threat to the company, but it absolutely is an indication of falling interest from the fanbase.

The Network just had it's worst "post-WrestleMania to Q4" subscriber drop off in it's four year history, and that was coupled with them announcing they will no longer report the numbers after WrestleMania going forward.

The sky isn't falling, but fan interest in the company clearly is down significantly in just the last year. 

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He attempted an ankle lock at one point. He did a Clothesline to outside as well. But considering he's retiring because his body is too broken down, German Suplexes are the last kind of move he should be using, even if his form on them is not exactly pretty any more. It's still a pretty high angle bump you take hitting the move, even without a high bridge.

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