WCW’s One Dumb Decision That Puzzles Me

[Hulkshi Tanahashi]

I get why they did a lot of the dumb things they did. Wasting a lot money? It was Ted Turner’s company, so it Turner’s money they were spending. The dumb booking decisions? They were done by people who either didn’t know anything about wrestling (Jim Herd), thought they knew wrestling but didn’t (Vince Russo), or just wanted to get themselves and their friends and family over (Ole Anderson, Dusty Rhodes, Kevin Nash, Hulk Hogan, etc.). But, I just do NOT understand why they would subtract from their attendance numbers when they were selling out arenas during they hot years (1996-1998). They would draw like 55,000 people to the Georgia Dome but announce an attendance of 39,000. Why would they do that!? Has there ever been an explanation for this? Has anyone on the inside explained why this was done?

[ianriccaboni]

I've read that the announcers would get the paid totals vs. paid + complimentary = full house numbers for their announcements.

[Cyno]

That's crazy. Wrestling is so much about exaggerations, especially with numbers, that you don't expect a company (especially one as big as WCW at the time) to be honest about tickets minus comped.

[cjh]

I only know of WCW doing this one time, that being the Jul. 6, 1998 Nitro at the Georgia Dome.  They announced 39,000 on TV, but there were apparently 41,000 there.

[ianriccaboni]

Dec 21, 2019 22:32:52 GMT -5 Cyno said:

That's crazy. Wrestling is so much about exaggerations, especially with numbers, that you don't expect a company (especially one as big as WCW at the time) to be honest about tickets minus comped.

I have heard but don't know for sure there may be some accounting benefits to announcing lower attendances and not making the complimentary number public? I think you may have to pay tax in certain states on complimentary tickets but I have no idea.

[J. Hova]

Dec 21, 2019 22:51:43 GMT -5 ianriccaboni said:

Dec 21, 2019 22:32:52 GMT -5 Cyno said:

That's crazy. Wrestling is so much about exaggerations, especially with numbers, that you don't expect a company (especially one as big as WCW at the time) to be honest about tickets minus comped.

I have heard but don't know for sure there may be some accounting benefits to announcing lower attendances and not making the complimentary number public? I think you may have to pay tax in certain states on complimentary tickets but I have no idea.

I'm not so sure how it works, but keeping in mind that Time Warner had already merged with Turner by this time and since Time Warner was publicly traded, it might be a reporting deal as far as revenue.  That said, when the WWE announces 100k people for Wrestlemania in Jerry World, you know damn well that 5k of those tickets were comps.  I don't own any WWE stock outside of my 401k but I'd imagine there is some sort of disclosure for stuff like that during earnings calls or filings with the authorities.

[Feyrhausen]

Dec 21, 2019 22:51:43 GMT -5 ianriccaboni said:

Dec 21, 2019 22:32:52 GMT -5 Cyno said:

That's crazy. Wrestling is so much about exaggerations, especially with numbers, that you don't expect a company (especially one as big as WCW at the time) to be honest about tickets minus comped.

I have heard but don't know for sure there may be some accounting benefits to announcing lower attendances and not making the complimentary number public? I think you may have to pay tax in certain states on complimentary tickets but I have no idea.

Is the original poster referring to the announcers telling fans at home the attendance though? Because i doubt a wrestling company would get in trouble for giving an inflated number on air as long as the official paperwork was correct.

[thegame415]

Nothing done by WCW should shock anyone anymore.

[Yamashita Enforcement Division]

Dec 21, 2019 22:28:44 GMT -5 ianriccaboni said:

I've read that the announcers would get the paid totals vs. paid + complimentary = full house numbers for their announcements.

That actually makes a lot of sense to me from a logistical stand point, the only number the company would be keeping a close eye on would be the box office sales coming in, and however people were pulling comps for whatever reason could wait until after the show was over to care about since comps don't justify WCW's 'cost' and you give the announcers the number you have because you are pinching pennies and that is the number being broadcast.

[Hulkshi Tanahashi]

Dec 24, 2019 12:08:44 GMT -5 Feyrhausen said:

Dec 21, 2019 22:51:43 GMT -5 ianriccaboni said:

I have heard but don't know for sure there may be some accounting benefits to announcing lower attendances and not making the complimentary number public? I think you may have to pay tax in certain states on complimentary tickets but I have no idea.

Is the original poster referring to the announcers telling fans at home the attendance though? Because i doubt a wrestling company would get in trouble for giving an inflated number on air as long as the official paperwork was correct.

That’s what I meant: the announcers saying they had a lower attendance than what they actually drew.

[Natural Born Farmer]

Given that it was a pre-wiki time period, were there really a lot of people running to the Internet to check the announced attendance vs. the actual capacity?

To me it always kind of blended into big numbers and “sure looks like there’s a lot of people there!”

[Cranjis McBasketball]

I imagine they just guessed. I doubt anyone in charge gave them any idea of how many people were there, so they took a wild ass guess.

[ianriccaboni]

Dec 24, 2019 19:48:09 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

I imagine they just guessed. I doubt anyone in charge gave them any idea of how many people were there, so they took a wild ass guess.

That's what I did at MSG. "Nearly 20,000!". I must have said that six dozen times.

[Deleted]

Dec 22, 2019 4:12:48 GMT -5 J. Hova said:

Dec 21, 2019 22:51:43 GMT -5 ianriccaboni said:

I have heard but don't know for sure there may be some accounting benefits to announcing lower attendances and not making the complimentary number public? I think you may have to pay tax in certain states on complimentary tickets but I have no idea.

I'm not so sure how it works, but keeping in mind that Time Warner had already merged with Turner by this time and since Time Warner was publicly traded, it might be a reporting deal as far as revenue.  That said, when the WWE announces 100k people for Wrestlemania in Jerry World, you know damn well that 5k of those tickets were comps.  I don't own any WWE stock outside of my 401k but I'd imagine there is some sort of disclosure for stuff like that during earnings calls or filings with the authorities.

Yeah, a shareholders conference shortly afterward they spun that as saying them setting that record was strictly a kayfabe thing.

[cjh]

Dec 25, 2019 13:10:41 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Dec 22, 2019 4:12:48 GMT -5 J. Hova said:

I'm not so sure how it works, but keeping in mind that Time Warner had already merged with Turner by this time and since Time Warner was publicly traded, it might be a reporting deal as far as revenue.  That said, when the WWE announces 100k people for Wrestlemania in Jerry World, you know damn well that 5k of those tickets were comps.  I don't own any WWE stock outside of my 401k but I'd imagine there is some sort of disclosure for stuff like that during earnings calls or filings with the authorities.

Yeah, a shareholders conference shortly afterward they spun that as saying them setting that record was strictly a kayfabe thing.

All Vince has ever said on those shareholder calls is that if they say 100,000 on TV, that's meant to be a count of people and does not mean they sold 100,000 tickets. 

That's different than what Meltzer claims WWE does, which is that they just lie and say the number of people in the crowd is 10,000 or so more than it really is.

[johnnyk9]

They just made a lot of mistakes