Jason Mayhem Posted January 6, 2013 Share Posted January 6, 2013 Having recently read once again the regular criticism of a wrestling company for putting big matches on TV rather than on PPV got me wondering what is more important to the likes of TNA and WWE, do they make more money from TV or their PPVs? Â Anyone know the answer? If it is TV then it makes sense to put high profile matches on TV, rather than saving them for PPV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted January 6, 2013 Paid Members Share Posted January 6, 2013 PPV, else they wouldn't have them. Â If it is TV then it makes sense to put high profile matches on TV, rather than saving them for PPV. Â Which would make a PPV pointless, and they wouldn't have them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Mayhem Posted January 6, 2013 Author Share Posted January 6, 2013 PPV, else they wouldn't have them. If it is TV then it makes sense to put high profile matches on TV, rather than saving them for PPV.  Which would make a PPV pointless, and they wouldn't have them.  Do you know this as fact or assuming? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted January 6, 2013 Paid Members Share Posted January 6, 2013 In TNAs case, the reason they've been able to survive is due to the money they get from TV. Every other revenue stream only brings in a small profit. That's why some have suggested they cut back on PPVs and do the occasional special to keep Spike sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted January 6, 2013 Paid Members Share Posted January 6, 2013 Do you know this as fact or assuming? Its common sense with a lot of fact. The TV builds to the PPV. Thats the whole point in TV. House shows used to be more important than TV before PPV came along. Â TNA are supposed to build to TV as well, but they have been swimming up stream for years and just do what they do to please the audience they have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Mayhem Posted January 6, 2013 Author Share Posted January 6, 2013 Do you know this as fact or assuming? Its common sense with a lot of fact. The TV builds to the PPV. Thats the whole point in TV. House shows used to be more important than TV before PPV came along. Â TNA are supposed to build to TV as well, but they have been swimming up stream for years and just do what they do to please the audience they have. Â I would say it is a common assumption, rather than common sense. Yes ideally that would be the model, use your tv to make a big sale on the PPV so the assumption would be that a company would make more money from the PPVs but as the guy above posted, TNA make more money from TV than PPV, so it makes sense to try and continue getting the viewing figures that they get. If they didn't offer decent matches on TV and lost a number of viewers then they would be dead in the water. If TNA didn't have PPV they would still make money, the PPV just makes them a bit more. Â I'd be interested to see the figures WWE make from several hours of global TV they may against the (not globally available) PPV shows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Mayhem Posted January 7, 2013 Author Share Posted January 7, 2013 This appears to be from PWTorch.com  quoted from PW Torch  In 2007, WWE reported 2.1 percent more PPV revenue compared to TV Rights revenue. In 2010, WWE reported 44.7 percent more TV Rights revenue than PPV revenue.  The difference reflects a widening gap between revenue WWE is collecting from more lucrative domestic and international TV distribution deals compared to their declining PPV business.  In 2007, WWE reported $92.4 million in TV Rights revenue. The total was $127.0 million in 2010, an increase of 37.5 percent over a four-year span.  In 2007, WWE reported $94.3 million in PPV revenue, slightly higher than TV Rights revenue at the time. The total declined to $70.2 million in 2010, a decrease of 25.6 percent over a four-year span.  -- WWE noted in their fourth quarter 2010/full year 2010 earnings report that "improved contract terms" for both current TV deals and international distribution deals led to a significant increase in TV Rights in the quarter and year.  Related to PPV revenue, WWE noted a 23 percent decline in fourth quarter PPV buys and quarterly revenue was down $2.5 million (15.3 percent).  In 2010, WWE's TV Rights Revenue increased to $127.0 million compared to $111.9 million in 2009, an increase of 13.5 percent.  In 2010, WWE's PPV revenue declined to $70.2 million compared to $80.0 million in 2009, a decrease of 12.3 percent.  -- Depending on how the combined PPV & TV Rights revenue figures are interpreted, a potential positive for WWE is that 2010 had the most combined revenue out of the last four years.  The growth of TV Rights revenue is out-pacing the decline in PPV revenue, reflected in the first break down below.  2007 Combined Revenue - $186.7 million 2008 Combined Revenue - $192.1 million 2009 Combined Revenue - $191.9 million 2010 Combined Revenue - $197.2 million  ***  Additional Data  2007 PPV Revenue - $94.3 million 2008 PPV Revenue - $91.4 million 2009 PPV Revenue - $80.0 million 2010 PPV Revenue - $70.2 million  2007 TV Rights Rev. - $92.4 million (-2.1% vs. PPV) 2008 TV Rights Rev. - $100.7 million (+9.2%) 2009 TV Rights Rev. - $111.9 million (+28.5%) 2010 TV Rights Rev. - $127.0 million (+44.7%)    _______________   With all this being considered it appears that WWE are right to stack their TV show as high as they can and get good viewing figures rather than saving matches for PPV as most people claim their should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted January 7, 2013 Paid Members Share Posted January 7, 2013 If TNA didn't have PPV they would still make money, the PPV just makes them a bit more. If TNA ran outside a free studio every PPV there would be no money coming into TNA because the cost of putting on a PPV in an arena would be more than the revenue they would generate from their PPV. Â WWE want to build up a TV audience to get characters over to sell PPV buys. Hulk Hogan has generally never been a ratings winner. Put as far as tickets sales and PPV buys go he was pretty much in a league of his own. If a character does good ratings but the PPV audience wont buy a PPV to see him, then WWE will drag him out of the main event. Ratings under the John Cena era have generally been pretty shite. But he is incredibily popular in every other area of business. TV isn't as important as ticket sales and PPV buys. That is a fact. If WWE's TV audience dropped to 1.2 million a week but that audience was so loyal all of those 1.2 million people bought the PPVs WWE would be punching the air every 5 minutes. If WWE had an audience of 6 million and 8000 bought the PPVs and nobody went to the house shows then it would be shit your pants time. Â Look at WrestleMania. The viewership ratings were the lowest they'd been in years around that period but WrestleMania broke every record going. Just because there is fewer people watching doesnt mean those people aren't a majority of loyal fan. Television is Westlife (sells loads of singles and all of them end up on shit reality shows) and PPV is AC/DC (will be remembered forever due to album sales). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted January 7, 2013 Paid Members Share Posted January 7, 2013 It's common sense once the money you make from your PPV schedule eclipses your advertising revenue and fees from TV channels. TNA is in a completely different boat to WWE. Due to economies of scale holding a PPV every month and the associated costs represents a much bigger deal to TNA than to WWE, especially when you consider how much less income they will recoup in terms of buyrates and when you remember that the PPV carriers themselves take their cut. It was about 40% of the purchase price back in 1998, I have no idea what it is now, but they won't be grossing much from them. It could even be not so much that they make more money from TV than PPV but that the revenue:cost ratio doesn't justify having them as often. Â With all this being considered it appears that WWE are right to stack their TV show as high as they can and get good viewing figures rather than saving matches for PPV as most people claim their should. Â Except that there are 100 episodes of TV to earn that income and only 12 PPVs to earn over half the same amount of income, looking at the 2010 figures. Some things should be special and saved for PPV - an extra 10,000 people buying a PPV for a match puts extra money in their pockets straight away compared to the cumulative effect of long term strong ratings being able to demand a bigger fee from channels/advertisers. If you put all your top matches on TV all the time and rarely have anything big for your PPV, you affect something very lucrative, as evidenced by them losing 5m-10m a year of PPV revenue as seen in the very figures you've posted. They've been able to expand their TV options with more shows (NXT, Main Event) over the years and reaching more markets but eventually that becomes saturated, and once you're putting all your best matches on TV (which comes around nearly ten times more often than a PPV) as you suggest, it very quickly becomes stale, everybody's already wrestled everybody, your TV viewers have seen it all before, you can't create new stars as quickly as others get stale and then you're fucked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Mayhem Posted January 7, 2013 Author Share Posted January 7, 2013 It's common sense once the money you make from your PPV schedule eclipses your advertising revenue and fees from TV channels. TNA is in a completely different boat tp WWE. Due to economies of scale holding a PPV every month and the associated costs represents a much bigger deal to TNA than to WWE, especially when you consider how much less income they will recoup in terms of buyrates and when you remember that the PPV carriers themselves take their cut. It was about 40% of the purchase price back in 1998, I have no idea what it is now, but they won't be grossing much from them. It could even be not so much that they make more money from TV than PPV but that the revenue:cost ratio doesn't justify having them as often. Â See above. WWE make over 40% more from TV than they do from PPV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Mayhem Posted January 7, 2013 Author Share Posted January 7, 2013 TV isn't as important as ticket sales and PPV buys. That is a fact. Â If you look at the figures WWE make over 40% more from TV than they do from PPV. This is a complete swing around from 10 years ago, where they made double the revenue on PPV than they did on TV. So how is PPV more important than TV? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted January 7, 2013 Paid Members Share Posted January 7, 2013 See above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted January 7, 2013 Paid Members Share Posted January 7, 2013 If you look at the figures WWE make over 40% more from TV than they do from PPV. This is a complete swing around from 10 years ago, where they made double the revenue on PPV than they did on TV. So how is PPV more important than TV? They drew $67 million from PPV for WrestleMania alone this year. You are posting bare bones facts regarding the United States from a shit website. They dont mention add ons and the big dog and pony show each state and each country put on and the sale of each DVD that PPV generates. You know if WrestleMania died tomorrow, and WWE stopped running their PPVs and major states stopped bidding on WrestleMania and SummerSlam and they didn't have these big "WWE weekends" in Times Square and California, do you think any TV company would give a shit about WWE being on their TV? Get rid of the PPVs and why would anyone bother watching WWE? TNA is the example of what a company is like without PPV revenue. Â Until an episode of Raw generates $67 million, fills a stadium and attracts huge media attention then WWE really isn't taking Raw and Smackdown over a PPV. You think people are tuning into Raw because its on par with Sons of Anarchy and Dexter? People watch to find out what we are going to see at the Royal Rumble. What matches are added, what tension is built and we pay money to see a pay off. There's a reason they dont sell individual episodes on Raw of DVD. Because "August 2nd Raw - The one where Santino gets his glove puppet stuck in his singlet!!!!" isn't going to sell well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DannRead Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 With all due respect I don't know how this question can be answered. Its a business based on income of which those two are major factors. Â How does one then take into effect the value of the after PPV TV rating which due to post PPV fallout, interest is usually up be it slightly or drastically? . There's 13 of those a year which in theory makes up a quarter of the value placed on the TV ratings, to minus this would have an effect of the TV income. Then there are things like the WrestleMania season where ratings are usually higher than the rest of the year. This is 3 month period covering Jan - late March / early April - and spanning 3 PPVs. Coupled with the after PPV TV ratings this would meal almost half a years worth of TV ratings is based on an after PPV rating or as part of the build up to the biggest live entertainment PPV of the year, which again to go back to my point earlier would then calculate into the value of the TV ratings income. Â Therefore, as PPV plays a big part into the value of a TV episode, and TV is required to make a PPV as successful as it could possibly be, I don't see how this is a question that can be answered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Mayhem Posted January 7, 2013 Author Share Posted January 7, 2013 If you look at the figures WWE make over 40% more from TV than they do from PPV. This is a complete swing around from 10 years ago, where they made double the revenue on PPV than they did on TV. So how is PPV more important than TV? They drew $67 million from PPV for WrestleMania alone this year. You are posting bare bones facts regarding the United States from a shit website. They dont mention add ons and the big dog and pony show each state and each country and the sale of each DVD that PPV generates. You know if WrestleMania died tomorrow, and WWE stopped running their PPVs and major states stopped bidding on WrestleMania and SummerSlam and they didn't have these big "WWE weekends" in Times Square and California, do you think any TV company would give a shit about WWE being on their TV? Get rid of the PPVs and why would anyone bother watching WWE? TNA is the example of what a company is like without PPV revenue. Â Until an episode of Raw generates $67 million, fills a stadium and attracts huge media attention then WWE really isn't taking Raw and Smackdown over a PPV. You think people are tuning into Raw because its on par with Sons of Anarchy and Dexter? People watch to find out what we are going to see at the Royal Rumble. What matches are added, what tension is built and we pay money to see a pay off. There's a reason they dont sell individual episodes on Raw of DVD. Because "August 2nd Raw - The one where Santino gets his glove puppet suck in his singlet!!!!" isn't going to sell well. Â Where are your figures coming from? Wrestlemania was one show and yes it did a big buy rate, but the fact is that along with the other PPVs it did not generate more revenue than their global TV sales. Â Why would a TV company care about Wrestlemania if they don't carry it? Â The MAJORITY of people who watch the TV shows in America alone (let alone the rest of the world) DO NOT buy the PPVs so your comment about "People watch to find out what we are going to see at the Royal Rumble. What matches are added, what tension is built and we pay money to see a pay off." is false, they are watching to see the weekly TV show. If WWE do not keep those people coming back with decent tv programming and march ups, then they don't stand a chance to sell them a PPV. Â "Get rid of the PPVs and why would anyone bother watching WWE?" Get rid of TV and you would have no Wrestlemania or WWE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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