CM Punk chat

[The King of Old School]

21 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I think this is something they'll genuinely have to consider. No way Punk's body holds up for a long term feud, if he tries to keep up with the pace of the Bucks/Omega his body will turn to dust before you know it.

If i was booking it it'd be short and sweet. Two matches: first up CM Punk/FTR vs Omega/Bucks with CMFTR going over. Then you run Omega vs Punk with Omega going over. Then move the fuck on to other things as quickly as possible.

Yep i agree with this.

It's all it needs to be. 

On paper, there isn't many more bigger matches you can do in AEW than Punk/Omega.

[Gus Mears]

Kevin Nash vs Punk. Big Sexy wins in 5 seconds to best his Bob Backlund record. Give the people (me) want they want, Tone!

[El Hijo del Mikey Jr]

CM Punk is hardly Hogan to WCW.

The difference he made was one big PPV (All Out 2021) and then seven weeks of serious ratings movement.  Year over year (compared to pandemic numbers), it was over 100k in the demo but those seven weeks compared to the seven relatively hot weeks before he debuted was about 60,000.  After that, the ratings tailed off to where they were before he arrived.  I went looking for evidence to show how he was a massive difference maker to prove he was worth the hassle and I didn't find it so came to the conclusion that he wasn't.  Maybe he comes back and does seven wonderful weeks of ratings again but the real problem is when he inevitably leaves again.

Despite the narrative, AEW bucked cable TV trends and had year-on-year growth for the first three years.  It wasn't much but an 8.3% increase in the demo is not insubstantial, especially when Smackdown was down 20%, Raw was down 25% and NXT was down 40%.  However, the irony of Mr Drug Free is that he's like a heroin addiction.  The highs are higher but now you're off it, your life is in shambles. They're down 15% in the demo and the solution being proposed is to get back on drugs.

They need to find a new star and rebuild, not go back to a guy who will be good in the short term but cause more damage to your promotion than he's worth.

AEW was perfectly fine without CM Punk.

[FUM]

He had the two highest YouTube views the year of his return and was their biggest merch seller for a good period (I believe, happy to be corrected).

It’s not 1998 where we pretend ratings and PPV buys alone determine the success of a company or wrestler.

Edited April 14, 2023 by FUM
Missed a defining word!

[Loki]

So what are the metrics then?  Merch and YouTube?  Surely TV ratings are the prime metric of success - and I believe Tony Khan is a fiend for ratings breakdowns.

[Devon Malcolm]

Why on earth would people not want him back? It's not like your football team signing Carlton Palmer. Even if you think he's a twat, which he is, just think of all the drama and unintentional hilarity his return causes, in the short or long term. It's wrestling.

[Merzbow]

I couldn't imagine Punk surviving a single snapdragon without something crumbling to dust, let's get him back.

[FUM]

14 minutes ago, Loki said:

So what are the metrics then?  Merch and YouTube?  Surely TV ratings are the prime metric of success - and I believe Tony Khan is a fiend for ratings breakdowns.

I think WWE continually being on a ratings slide but yet managing record financials disproves any correlation between ratings and PPV buys alone solely meaning success. I do realise I missed out the word “alone” from my original post - now amended.

[The King of Old School]

14 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Why on earth would people not want him back? It's not like your football team signing Carlton Palmer. Even if you think he's a twat, which he is, just think of all the drama and unintentional hilarity his return causes, in the short or long term. It's wrestling.

People take it all a bit too seriously.

[Infinity Land]

31 minutes ago, Loki said:

So what are the metrics then?  Merch and YouTube?  Surely TV ratings are the prime metric of success - and I believe Tony Khan is a fiend for ratings breakdowns.

Domestic TV ratings are certainly important. However, the week to week analysis that's a hangover from the Monday night wars isn't what it once was. The cable package is shrinking year to year. Once a TV deal is locked in, it'll be years before it becomes a massive issue. All the signs from WBD with another new show on the way is that they are happy with the relationship.

So ticket sales, merch, international deals, PPV buys, licensing are all part of the bundle. There isn't just one thing.

[Keith Houchen]

I believe ratings aren’t the be all and end all but demographics are the key metric. It’s all about the demographic who will buy what’s on in the adverts. You might have a bunch of ten year olds watching the show but they aren’t the advertisers audience, they want those who will buy what they’re selling. 
 

It’s like on daytime shows you always see ads for cremation services and freeing up equity and gold coins commemorating royals. You don’t see toy ads because old infirm close to death berks like me a watching. 

[GlennCullen]

Glad we've all agreed that Danhausen is the biggest star in AEW.

[Slapnut]

Punk wrestled full time for a year and in that time had two injuries, one of which from jumping into the crowd like an idiot. The way people talk about his injury record you’d swear he was getting injured every other week.

[El Hijo del Mikey Jr]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Why on earth would people not want him back? It's not like your football team signing Carlton Palmer. Even if you think he's a twat, which he is, just think of all the drama and unintentional hilarity his return causes, in the short or long term. It's wrestling.

 

I think he's a terrible human being and he doesn't sustain my long-term interest.  I like AEW and, despite being their patron saint, I don't think he fits into the show.

 

49 minutes ago, FUM said:

I think WWE continually being on a ratings slide but yet managing record financials disproves any correlation between ratings and PPV buys alone solely meaning success. I do realise I missed out the word “alone” from my original post - now amended.

Things are not as reactive as they used to be. If you're buying time and getting an ad share or you're reliant on getting people into buildings then it's a very different world.  New Japan's business is not the same as WWE's because they're still trying to draw houses.

 

WWE are putting up record financials because they sold their TV and streaming rights for way over the odds for a long-term period.  They have PPVs but they're not a significant part of the business model because virtually everybody else pays for Peacock or the WWE Network.  They traded potential money away for guaranteed money and have made out like bandits.

 

However, if you're a content factory like WWE are and AEW aspires to be, everything is based on engagement.  On TV, engagement is still measured by ratings.  When they sell ads and when they sell a show to a network, it's still focused on what rating they'll get in the demo.  That's the measure and it's only changed because they're getting contracts for five years based on the ratings they did two years before.

 

Those record sums were made off three massive lies.  Firstly, WWE is "pro sports".  It's not.  It's a live show and, yes, people want to watch it live but it's entertainment.  It's in the same category as reality shows except virtually every reality show is much cheaper to produce and, by extension, cheaper to purchase for networks.

 

Secondly, that the ratings downturns in 2017/18 were a blip.  They sold those ratings based on how they did in 2016, where the Raw ratings they were selling things based on were double what they were by the time they hit Fox.

 

Thirdly, that WWE draws robust ad revenues.  This ties everything together.  There have been two articles since the start of the year that suggest Fox are losing serious money on WWE. A network needs to bring in more in ad revenue than they spend out in licensing fees.  The profit margin is generally somewhere between 10-25%.  Smackdown brings in somewhere in the region of 63m per year in ad revenue, which is at the lowest rate per minute of any network show at $47,000.

 

The contract is backloaded so WWE earn more now than they did year 1 but it averages out to 205m per year.  So Fox are losing around 140m per year on Smackdown.  They're getting poor ad rates, in part because they're wrestling, in part because they getting poor ratings.  Not poor compared to last year but poor compared to 2019 and poor compared to 2016 Raw.

 

So, ratings might not matter now but they matter for the next contract.  Based on these figures, WWE should be getting 50m per year from Fox, not 205m.  The MLS Apple+ deal would suggest that gravy train has clearly come to an end but most people think WWE is going to double their TV rights.  The only way that happens is if they find another mark to buy their "live sports" con.

 

To bring this back to AEW, the higher the ratings, the more guaranteed money they can get from WBD.  I can take or leave a lot of what AEW does but they've put on the best TV wrestling matches ever.  For a workrate junkie, they are the promised land and a big increase can only help that promised land to survive and thrive.

Edited April 14, 2023 by El Hijo del Mikey Jr
I can't write init

[FUM]

I mean I get all that and, genuinely, thanks for the very informative post as you clearly know your stuff around this sort of thing but TV ratings alone are still not evidence he wasn’t a massive difference maker that is worth the hassle.

His merch made money, he brought YouTube views, he likely brought ticket sales, the AEW name was everywhere with him around. Personally, CM Punk is the only thing that could be added to AEW to make me want to go out of my way to go to the London show and many people will feel like that. I regularly watched when he was around, I just dive in on occasion now. It’s not even that I like the guy or I’m a huge fan, there’s just something that feels bigger about him than others. He makes a massive difference both to the product and financially whether you like him or not.

Edited April 14, 2023 by FUM