The recent quarter financial results published by the WWE made interesting reading. The quarter in question included WrestleMania XXIX and yet, TV income out-stripped PPV income for the three months’ results. It wasn’t by much but considering that Mania is the biggest show of the year and other shows do a lot less buys the gap is certain to grow over the next few quarters as TV income tends to be fairly steady, especially from the overseas deals.
In some ways this is arguably Vince’s greatest achievement as a wrestling promoter. The WWE has so many lucrative TV income deals that it is almost impossible for them not to make money. Bear in mind this is at a time when TV ratings in their home territory are far from their Attitude Era peak, even if in relative terms to other programming, and when watching TV in general has become a choice rather than a “have to” given the multitude of ways people can watch programming these days over the internet.
Indeed, in some quarters falling PPV buy-rates have been identified as a consequence of this, with increasing numbers of people willing to illegally stream the “pay” show online. And yet I would argue that part of the reason is also that pay-per-views have become less important to the company as a whole, and indeed less important to the bottom line.
It may seem strange to say that given the fact that in the shape of Payback, Money In The Bank and SummerSlam we’ve just had three excellent pay-per-views in a row. Clearly the entertainment value is sill there, but the build up for each show in some ways took me back to the 1980s when fans were convinced to shell out on the basis of one or two big matches rather than the card as a whole. With a couple of weeks to go to SummerSlam, only a few matches had been confirmed on TV with others added at the last minute. And bear in mind that one of the main events of SummerSlam was set up by John Cena choosing his own opponent. Money In The Bank, as it is every year, was largely built around the gimmick matches that give the show its name, with one of those matches being packed with mid-carders. Payback was slightly different, with more thought seemingly going into that one, but even then the hype for some of the undercard matches was very slim. You were largely being asked to purchase the show on the basis of John Cena Vs Ryback and CM Punk Vs Chris Jericho.
The WWE plays on the fact that there are around 150,000 people worldwide who will slavishly pay their dollars and pounds each month for a PPV show. When the situation arises, the WWE can pull out a special appearance from the likes of The Rock, Triple H or Brock Lesnar to boost buy-rates (even if on most occasions in the past twelve months, non-WrestleMania buy-rates for shows with these special guests haven’t made that much more money). Further to this there is also a supply of “part-time” wresters like Rob Van Dam and Chris Jericho who can keep current fans happy without adding that much to the bottom line but undoubtedly add a little star power to mid-cards.
Of course, PPVs play their part in the focus of the promotion. With monthly mega shows to build up to, weekly broadcasts always have something on the horizon to build to, theoretically at least. One of the problems with Impact Wrestling at the moment, in my opinion, is that shows often don’t have a mid-to-long-term focus. Of course, TNA are historically poor at enticing their regular audience to pay for a monthly show anyway, hence their decision to downsize to four PPVs a year. For all Dixie Carter’s protestations, the decision was taken because 99% of TNA pay-per-view shows lost money.
Where the WWE has the advantage over TNA in this respect is that they at least have the depth of talent roster to avoid the “mega” matches being given away on Free TV so their PPV shows have a different feel to the weekly shows. TNA pay-per-views are often indistinguishable from TV offerings, such as the duplication of matches.
The importance of TV income can also be seen to some extent in Vince McMahon’s obsession with creating the WWE Network when all indications suggest that it would be very difficult to make a profit from the channel. Yes, fans will have to pay to access it, but it would provide a certain safety net if American television networks were to walk away from wrestling. The fact that it’s rumoured that up to 10 “PPV” shows could air as part of the WWE Network package shows that to some extent, TV is driving force.
And whilst PPV shows may be the highest profile events in the wrestling calendar its TV that drives the profitability. The WWE could survive the death of PPV. I doubt they’d survive long without television.
– By Matthew Roberts