MAY 2016 WRESTLING DISCUSSION THREAD

[RIPPA]

The KO/Tyler Breeze Go Fund to support the victims of Alberta Wildfires crushed the original 30K goal so the new goal is $100K

They are at $50K+ right now

https://www.gofundme.com/22vqm7w

[Playa Shunna Ver 3.0]

1 hour ago, DTTW said:

Isn't anything the WWE puts their logo on pretty much doomed to fail? XFL, WBF, Ico Pro, WWE New York, WWECW, etc.

3 of the 5 things you listed don't have the WWE logo on them.  WWE ECW wasn't a separate company.  It was a TV show/bran that ran for about 2 years, then was switched to another format.  The show wasn't cancelled.  The touring brand was not successful, and in a good business decision it was discontinued.    It was also one of the better wrestling shows on TV at the time.  This argument of WWE not knowing how to run a business is worse than the WWE doesn't know how to merchandise or market their product.  Especially since someone just laid out the financials in a detailed post 2 pages ago.  Anything WWE puts their logo on is pretty much doomed......that might be the dumbest thing anyone has ever said on this board.  

[Brysynner]

18 hours ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

A legitimate question:  who would be the best figurehead to take over once Vince passes?  I assume a true numbers person would stay in charge of finances, but who would be the best representation for the company that wouldn't send investors into a total panic?

Linda, Shane, Steph, anyone else in the boardroom, Triple H in that order most likely

[Playa Shunna Ver 3.0]

17 minutes ago, Brysynner said:

Linda, Shane, Steph, anyone else in the boardroom, Triple H in that order most likely

What about Canyon Semen or whatever his name is?  He's 6'4", great build and look.  Seems like a prime candidate to be "the guy".

[Brysynner]

2 minutes ago, Playa Shunna Ver 3.0 said:

What about Canyon Semen or whatever his name is?  He's 6'4", great build and look.  Seems like a prime candidate to be "the guy".

But he made his name in beach volleyball. I can't see investors feeling comfortable with a beach volleyball star even if he does have degrees from Stanford and UCLA.

Also he's not Samoan with long hair so he can't be "the guy"

[Zakk_Sabbath]

2 minutes ago, Playa Shunna Ver 3.0 said:

What about Canyon Semen or whatever his name is?  He's 6'4", great build and look.  Seems like a prime candidate to be "the guy".

Agreed. Who betta than Canyon?

[Dolfan in NYC]

EVERYONE

[odessasteps]

Can you trust someone with an obvious porn star name?

[JRGoldman]

When Enzo debuted, Naylor posted a story about his time in developmental when Enzo Amore had to come up with his character name, and Bill Demott told him he couldn't have a name with the initials EA, so he had to come up with 25 alternatives he would be okay with. So Enzo wrote down 24 names that all had the initials EA, and Canyon Cemen as his final choice. That's all I think of when I hear his name now. Enzo trolling Hugh Morris. 

[Technico Support]

A guy who has gone by "Hugh Morrus" and "Hugh G Rection" having any say whatsoever in anyone else's choice of names is ridiculous.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

A little bit off topic but I just got an email from WWE Network letting me know 100 episodes of Smackdown have been added, with the caption "Re-live the McMahon-Helmsley era"

I know they're referring to 1999, but it really made me think about how stale authority angles really are when this was still going on as of three weeks ago. 

[Greggulator]

17 hours ago, evilwaldo said:

This goes back a long time but PPV monies were typically paid out 90 days after the event and the company only kept 50-65% with the cable company keeping the rest.

With the Network you get the $9.95 every month with no middleman (cable company).  I guess it comes down to how many more eyeballs Network wise and how much more in ad revenues can you generate internally.

 

 

The difference in the revenue reporting is different under this structure, too.

Under the old system, the middleman takes the risk of collecting bills. Comcast or whoever paid the WWE for the amount of PPVs that were ordered. But then Comcast takes the risk in its normal billing procedure of having unpaid bills.

Without the middleman, the WWE assumes the risk of people paying them on time. That's not a guarantee at all. Companies account for that sort of stuff in their accounting (there's an estimate in the accounts receivable line in every quarterly and annual report) but there is more risk for the company now. There's more reward -- they have more control and cut out the middleman. But there's also more risk.

Anyone who thinks the old PPV model was better is just wrong. The revenue from the WWE Network in 2015 (its first year, more or less) made about twice as much as their PPV revenue in 2013. And they're still making some money off of traditional PPVs, too.

Another point I didn't bring up? That "disappointing" TV deal in 2014 that crashed the stock price? That's a $150 million deal spread out over a few years. That's really high. It didn't meet what a lot of analysts and investors (and maybe internally) thought they could get after seeing what NASCAR and other entities got for their rights fees. But the WWE's a different product and there was also a bit of a bubble that burst. But they still made a ton of money off of that. It wasn't what "the market" thought they would get. That's the difference.

[(BP)]

I just got an email advertising the Network dropping more classic Smackdowns that said "Relive the McMahon-Helmsley Era!" Like it's not what we've been doing the past three years on Raw. 

[Greggulator]

15 hours ago, KidNatural said:

It's not the money that he's making that's the problem, it's the money that he's leaving on the table. If they produced compelling television and streamlined the announcing, they'd make even more. I've said it before the WWE is like Adam Sandler, they're comfortable making the money that they make and don't care if they make more.

They made $110 million more in revenue in 2015 than they did in 2014 and about $80 million more in profit (although 2014 was a very weird year). They're clearly not comfortable making the money that they make and certainly care to make more.

I don't think Vince is leaving anything off the table. I really don't think "Bray Wyatt going over The Undertaker" or "Push Cesaro!" or "LOL Cena WINZ~" or "Stop ramming Roman down our throats" is making one bit of difference to their bottom line. Yes, the announcing is annoying, but Joe Buck and Troy Aikman or any other number of actual sports broadcasters are just as bad, if not worse. Changing announcers wouldn't make one iota of difference at all.

Hardcore fans really nitpick this stuff to death and don't really see the bigger stuff at all. Sometimes the product is better than others. Like, The Daniel Bryan and the Era of The Shield and Rise of the Wyatts all at once was the best stretch of TV they maybe ever had. Last year's build to WM was obviously a bit of a snooze. That stuff made NO difference at all to their bottom line, and that's when they had an unlikely star break out into the mainstream.

[Roman]

1 hour ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

EVERYONE

[Hagan]

One of the worst by-products of the Monday Night Wars besides Vince Russo, all of the deaths, and distraction finishes (in that order) is the interest wrestling fans have towards TV ratings and revenue. I was watching the Heat game last night and literally have no idea what those TV ratings or how much money they drew this year yet it's a central story in wrestling.

I'm as guilty as anyone but it's just odd when you really break it down. It's like we're all mini-Darrell Rovell's and base how good something is by how much money it draws.

 

[Greggulator]

51 minutes ago, Hagan said:

One of the worst by-products of the Monday Night Wars besides Vince Russo, all of the deaths, and distraction finishes (in that order) is the interest wrestling fans have towards TV ratings and revenue. I was watching the Heat game last night and literally have no idea what those TV ratings or how much money they drew this year yet it's a central story in wrestling.

I'm as guilty as anyone but it's just odd when you really break it down. It's like we're all mini-Darrell Rovell's and base how good something is by how much money it draws.

 

It is seriously the dumbest thing ever, especially since a lot of the people who talk about that stuff shouldn't be trusted to hold a Target gift card. I have no idea why anyone would care about those things unless you're an investor.

One of my least favorite complaints is when people say something along the lines of, "They're giving that match away for free." Like that's a complaint if you're a customer? If Apple wanted to give me an iPhone for free, I'd take it in a minute flat. Would anyone in their right mind say, "Oh, that's hurting Apple's bottom line so much." Give me all the free stuff possible.

The only reason I dug into the WWE is because it was a fun company to do a project about. I could have done an energy company (I used to write about them) but they're kind of a snooze and way more complicated. The WWE is such a simple business when you're trying to really learn these things.

[JRGoldman]

1 hour ago, Hagan said:

One of the worst by-products of the Monday Night Wars besides Vince Russo, all of the deaths, and distraction finishes (in that order) is the interest wrestling fans have towards TV ratings and revenue. I was watching the Heat game last night and literally have no idea what those TV ratings or how much money they drew this year yet it's a central story in wrestling.

I'm as guilty as anyone but it's just odd when you really break it down. It's like we're all mini-Darrell Rovell's and base how good something is by how much money it draws.

 

It's a little bit different, but sports fans also really dig in to financials. They look at salary caps, and contracts, and trade simulations, etc. Granted, that has a potential effect on the on screen product, which makes it inherently different than TV ratings and quarter hours and what not, but it's not an aspect of fandom that is unique to wrestling. 

[steve]

5 hours ago, Playa Shunna Ver 3.0 said:

6 hours ago, DTTW said:

Isn't anything the WWE puts their logo on pretty much doomed to fail? XFL, WBF, Ico Pro, WWE New York, WWECW, etc.

3 of the 5 things you listed don't have the WWE logo on them.  WWE ECW wasn't a separate company.  It was a TV show/bran that ran for about 2 years, then was switched to another format.  The show wasn't cancelled.  The touring brand was not successful, and in a good business decision it was discontinued.    It was also one of the better wrestling shows on TV at the time.  This argument of WWE not knowing how to run a business is worse than the WWE doesn't know how to merchandise or market their product.  Especially since someone just laid out the financials in a detailed post 2 pages ago.  Anything WWE puts their logo on is pretty much doomed......that might be the dumbest thing anyone has ever said on this board.  

 

In fairness to him, he hasn't watched in 13 years or whatever, so he's probably just parroting stuff he read on the internet. 

[Greggulator]

16 minutes ago, JRGoldman said:

It's a little bit different, but sports fans also really dig in to financials. They look at salary caps, and contracts, and trade simulations, etc. Granted, that has a potential effect on the on screen product, which makes it inherently different than TV ratings and quarter hours and what not, but it's not an aspect of fandom that is unique to wrestling. 

All of the salary cap management and the like connects to the emotional investment of a team's wins and losses. I have absolutely no idea why any wrestling fan cares (or cared) about quarter hours or subscription numbers. It's so dumb.

Do people care about what movies grossed what? I can picture bigtime comic fans talking about that sorta stuff, but I'm pretty removed from that scene and also I go to maybe one or two movies a year.

[JohnnyJ]

My favorite WWE stock story was from mid-2012 when I was watching the stock very closely. WWE ran Brock-Cena at Extreme Rules 2012 which popped the buyrate. Based off the buyrate alone, with no mind paid to why it popped, some important stock picker featured WWE stock as a buy claiming buyrates were on the rise over previous years. This caused the stock to go up several percentage points. 

 

 

[JRGoldman]

2 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

All of the salary cap management and the like connects to the emotional investment of a team's wins and losses. I have absolutely no idea why any wrestling fan cares (or cared) about quarter hours or subscription numbers. It's so dumb.
 

I think you sort of answered your own question. It stems from a time period where people were using quarter hours to compare competing companies. When one company had higher ratings, it meant the product/team you supported was more popular/creatively more interesting/better. Now, because people don't have another company to compare ratings to, they compare individual performers within the same company, even though that is insane and a preposterous thing to do. 

[Technico Support]

45 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

If Apple wanted to give me an iPhone for free, I'd take it in a minute flat. Would anyone in their right mind say, "Oh, that's hurting Apple's bottom line so much." Give me all the free stuff possible.

I have zero doubts whatsoever that there are diehard Apple fans who would say this.  There are rabid fanbases for every single pursuit you can imagine and there is a subset of every single one who treats it this seriously, like they're "in the biz," and the Internet has enabled them to congregate and go on and on like insiders.  You know there are fans of comics, My LIttle Pony, fast food and everything in between who discuss business moves and various inside baseball bullshit like it matters to their lives.  For example, if I see one more video game fan reference "SKUs" or "engines," I'm going to pee straight up in the air.

[Greggulator]

41 minutes ago, JohnnyJ said:

My favorite WWE stock story was from mid-2012 when I was watching the stock very closely. WWE ran Brock-Cena at Extreme Rules 2012 which popped the buyrate. Based off the buyrate alone, with no mind paid to why it popped, some important stock picker featured WWE stock as a buy claiming buyrates were on the rise over previous years. This caused the stock to go up several percentage points. 

 

 

That's probably because of the low liquidity more than anything else. One buy rating causes a bigger investor  (some fund or the like) to buy a bunch of shares, which can push up the stock price a lot faster than it would with a similarly sized company that had more shares available to buy and sell. I don't know if it's still true but there was the Jim Craemer Effect for a really long time. He'd talk up a stock on Mad Money and it would usually move up in price to some degree all because he mentioned it on air.

That's Vince's trade-off for having so many closely held shares. He will never be threatened to lose the company, but in exchange the shares he (and everyone else) holds are prone to really sudden shifts, moreso than your typical company.

Vince also gets the 48 cent/share dividend like any other person who owns WWE stock. I think there are something like 35 million shares he and his family hold. That's $67 million per year in dividends before taxes. And that comes to him no matter what, on top of whatever he makes in salary (which probably isn't much, relatively speaking.)

[SorceressKnight]

3 hours ago, Greggulator said:

 

Another point I didn't bring up? That "disappointing" TV deal in 2014 that crashed the stock price? That's a $150 million deal spread out over a few years. That's really high. It didn't meet what a lot of analysts and investors (and maybe internally) thought they could get after seeing what NASCAR and other entities got for their rights fees. But the WWE's a different product and there was also a bit of a bubble that burst. But they still made a ton of money off of that. It wasn't what "the market" thought they would get. That's the difference.

Of course- but even the stock price crash was likely not just the "disappointing TV deal", but ties into the same "stock price crashes when Vince McMahon's limo explosion happens or Donald Trump 'buys Raw' in an angle" problem.

When that huge WWE stock price explosion happened, it may have partially been about the WWE Network and the new TV deal...but more importantly, while WWE was shopping around the deal, one of the places they shopped their TV to was AMC (and a game of telephone turned "WWE is shopping their TV deal to AMC in a natural part of the negotiation" into "AMC NETWORKS BUYING WWE IS IMMINENT, IT WILL HAPPEN BY THE END OF THE WEEK- BUY NOW AND GET AMC STOCK AT A DIRTCHEAP PRICE, YOU GUYS!!!!") It's important to remember when that happened- NO FANS bought that this was about to happen and everyone called the "AMC to buy WWE?" thing as a load of bullshit- but the stock markets fell for it hook, line, and sinker...and once the TV deal was announced (even though it was a fairly high deal), the more important thing was it officially confirmed the AMC rumor was false...and THAT caused the bubble to burst more than anything else.

So, a lot of this can boil down as well to "Wall Street bigwigs fall for something that wouldn't fool a wrestling geek in their mom's basement, and demand heads roll before admitting to that".