Progress nearly half million in debt

[Merzbow]

I just saw that Wrestle Carnival have closed up so that's another Britwres gone, they seemed to have found a home here in Coventry over the past year or so.

[Daddymagic]

12 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

I just saw that Wrestle Carnival have closed up so that's another Britwres gone, they seemed to have found a home here in Coventry over the past year or so.

Gary Ward is a bigger mark than McAteer and that's saying something.

[BomberPat]

8 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

I just saw that Wrestle Carnival have closed up so that's another Britwres gone, they seemed to have found a home here in Coventry over the past year or so.

he already seems to be teasing a comeback, though, he was posting "Carnival of Honor" graphics recently, as he started wanting to pivot to doing ROH Pure Rules stuff almost immediately after starting WC. He also works with RevPro, and has got them running Carnival's old venue in Coventry.

It's extremely tough to make money in wrestling in the UK now, but it's always rubbed me the wrong way when people treat Progress as indicative of the entire scene as a whole; it's understandable given so many people only really got into BritWres off their back, but one company doing badly when there's countless reasons you could point to for that, doesn't mean everyone else is pissing away a small fortune too.

I don't think it's even that they're trying to be "cool" and playing to an internet crowd, it's that I think the current management are too out of touch to do that well, and that the "internet crowd" aren't what they once were - there are precious few cool US indie acts that a UK promotion could bring in and get any buzz around, and that was always a crucial part of any hot UK company.

[Daddymagic]

They are in a lose / lose situation.

As Bomber says above there isn't any talents hot enough on the Indy scene to build the company around that would offset the huge losses. 
But their brand is based on big names and big venues so they must feel that they have to keep that going at big losses. 
 

They would have been better off letting Progress die, buy the tape library and start a fresh promotion if they wanted to get into the wrestling business. They truly were sold a lemon. 

[herbie747]

41 minutes ago, CavemanLynn said:

When the biggest companies on the British scene can't stay afloat paying their talent and venues based on their audience, is there really a business here anymore?

For all the trash people talk about him, Sanjay Bagga wouldn't still be running shows if he was losing money on them. He was never that much of a mark that he'd accumulate personal debt just to hang out with the boys like so many other promoters are willing to - his priority was always to make money as a promoter.

So it can be done. 

[air_raid]

7 minutes ago, herbie747 said:

For all the trash people talk about him, Sanjay Bagga wouldn't still be running shows if he was losing money on them. He was never that much of a mark that he'd accumulate personal debt just to hang out with the boys like so many other promoters are willing to - his priority was always to make money as a promoter.

So it can be done. 

Can I use this as an excuse to again mention Matt Jarrett paying Tanahashi to come to his birthday party?

[BomberPat]

there's also some pretty obvious ways to cut costs, looking at their most recent shows.

Their Wrestlemania weekend had a seven-way scramble, a tag match, and a three way tag match. Now, shows need variety and shouldn't just be all straight singles matches, but when you're losing money hand over fist, does it really make that much sense to a) fly almost every member of your regular roster to America for a show that's in direct competition with a hundred other shows, and b) have that show run to seven matches featuring 26 wrestlers?

Even their last Ballroom show had 21 wrestlers, and Chapter 163 had 27, just per Cagematch, so not counting anyone who might have shown up for a promo, a run-in or any other non-wrestling role, or Jerry Bakewell as MC, and everyone else they had to pay. It's not going to save you half a million quid, but booking one rather than three tag matches isn't a bad place to start, particularly as the most frequent complaint I hear about their shows these days is that they're far too long.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

Is that the biggest loss in British Wrestling? Does anyone know how much the likes of 1PW in all its iterations lost, or how much the FWA pissed up the wall? It would be lovely for Progress to have a record that didn't involve highest number of wrong uns contracted to a show. 

[herbie747]

26 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Is that the biggest loss in British Wrestling? Does anyone know how much the likes of 1PW in all its iterations lost, or how much the FWA pissed up the wall? It would be lovely for Progress to have a record that didn't involve highest number of wrong uns contracted to a show. 

RQW lost their hole too. Likely far more than Progress (so far). Poor Len went from comfortably wealthy to bankrupt in 2 years. 

1PW (Steven) and RQW (Len) both had successful side businesses (1UP Games, and Len had a successful production company - Spectrum Multimedia) that they tanked all because they wanted to play promoter. So they accumulated both personal and company debt - easily in the hundreds of thousands. 

Edited May 3, 2024 by herbie747

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I'd forgotten about RQW. It's one that passed me by to be honest. Just the wrong part of the country for me and my years of travelling miles to watch wrestling were pretty much over by that point 

[Daddymagic]

5Star lost well over quarter of a million  in their last run. No doubt the multi  millionaire funding wrote a lot of it off but that has to be the biggest financial failure.

 

On the show I attended they had a paid attendance of roughly 500 people in a venue that holds 10,000 with Rey Mysterio and a huge card of imports. That show alone would have lost more than £250,000

Edited May 3, 2024 by Daddymagic

[BomberPat]

I always assumed Five Star was, at least in part, some kind of money laundering or tax dodging scheme anyway.

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

1 hour ago, herbie747 said:

For all the trash people talk about him, Sanjay Bagga wouldn't still be running shows if he was losing money on them. He was never that much of a mark that he'd accumulate personal debt just to hang out with the boys like so many other promoters are willing to - his priority was always to make money as a promoter.

So it can be done. 

This. Seeing a similar thing in Australia at the moment, with many promotions spending huge amounts of money and not really making much out of it due to wanted to play fantasy booker.

Having worked with Sanjay personally during the Wrestling Channel era, he had the right head for the BUSINESS aspect of wrestling. It's something I wish more promotors replicated over here.

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

Jerry Bakewell

If he doesn't do a flapjack at least once in his career, then what is the point of anything?

[LaGoosh]

18 hours ago, BomberPat said:

The Dome and the Ballroom have to be costing them anywhere between £5000 and £10,000 a pop

I always assumed they got a sweet deal based on them doing Sunday afternoon shows when it was highly unlikely to be in use by anyone else and them clearing out before the evening gig.

In regards to Brit wrestlers - what's the going rate for a booking these days in general? I assume none of them are making anything close to a living off it?