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Post by sfvega on Apr 8, 2023 9:15:42 GMT -5
Yes and no. As it was, absolutely not. They had established a price for their top end talent that they would have never been able to bankroll without a media giant behind them. The production costs, the touring costs. As it was, WCW was inevitably going bankrupt. Now from just the naming rights, sure you could have ran with it. Get Eric and the brand and a handful of familiar faces (marketable guys who won't break the bank: Sting, DDP, Lance Storm) and a bunch of new guys that ended up being in ROH and TNA for reasonable costs at the time running a weekly show out of a home base. It's funny, because it would have taken Eric full circle from where WCW was when he had the vision of taking it to the top. He'd have to start all the way back at the bottom, and he probably wouldn't last because he was so obsessed with big moves and the whole corporate game. He's not a D'Amore or Cornette, who is going to run a smaller promotion that is more a labor of love than a gigantic financial endeavor. But I think that the biggest issue was WCW's rush to sell. It all seemed to happen very quickly, and I don't think Bisch and crew got a reasonable amount of time to market it. Wrestling has always been kind of niche, but the ratings that they were still getting at the time would be valuable to some networks. But everything in the business is so deliberate and everything is thought so far ahead when dealing with TV networks and greenlighting shows and budgets and timeslots. It's not really a process you can do on the fly. Given a year to find a home, I think WCW could stay alive. Even Sting and DDP weren't cheap, and Sting opted to wait out his deal after the WWF purchase. DDP took the buyout, I've heard various figures from 50 cents on the dollar on down, to join the WWF and be jobbed out to Undertaker's then wife. Really, the best bet for star power on that front would have been Booker T and Lance Storm, and while both guys were awesome and main eventers in the right circumstances, it's not a guaranteed great start to relaunching a formerly global company. They weren't cheap, but it is a reasonable cost. You can't sell to TV networks without sellable stars.
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Post by "Playboy" Don Douglas on Apr 8, 2023 9:25:29 GMT -5
Even Sting and DDP weren't cheap, and Sting opted to wait out his deal after the WWF purchase. DDP took the buyout, I've heard various figures from 50 cents on the dollar on down, to join the WWF and be jobbed out to Undertaker's then wife. Really, the best bet for star power on that front would have been Booker T and Lance Storm, and while both guys were awesome and main eventers in the right circumstances, it's not a guaranteed great start to relaunching a formerly global company. They weren't cheap, but it is a reasonable cost. You can't sell to TV networks without sellable stars. True, but the question is whether they would take the buyout or prefer to stay home doing whatever they want and getting a fat check every week. I know which one I would choose.
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Post by sfvega on Apr 8, 2023 11:13:11 GMT -5
They weren't cheap, but it is a reasonable cost. You can't sell to TV networks without sellable stars. True, but the question is whether they would take the buyout or prefer to stay home doing whatever they want and getting a fat check every week. I know which one I would choose. For sure that would be the sticking point. But if you could offer enough to where they would make more in buyout and salary, it could work. Page had a good relationship with Eric, and Sting always seemed slightly to very averse to working for Vince so keeping an alternative would be important.
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Post by nickcave on Apr 8, 2023 12:17:40 GMT -5
Yes and the first few months in 2001 showed they still had life in them. I think they very easily could have picked things back up again with consistent booking and not hiring back Russo like TNA did lol
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Post by Feyrhausen on Apr 8, 2023 12:19:26 GMT -5
Regarding "WCW" contracts vs. "AOL Time Warner" deals, Hulk Hogan, who had the biggest deal in the history of the company, was under contract to WCW itself. It seems the deal was that all contracts were WCW contracts. WWF only bought WCWs IP, tape library, and certain contracts so Warner was obligated to pay the other contracts and they became Time Warner contracts. Certain guys like Booker and DDP took buyouts to work for WWF (and others took buyouts to work indys) while most let the contracts run out or almost run out before taking buyouts. Smart move because buying entire companies, including their debt is what helped sink Crockett.
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Post by greyfmdan on Apr 9, 2023 0:33:55 GMT -5
Yes and no. As it was, absolutely not. They had established a price for their top end talent that they would have never been able to bankroll without a media giant behind them. The production costs, the touring costs. As it was, WCW was inevitably going bankrupt. Now from just the naming rights, sure you could have ran with it. Get Eric and the brand and a handful of familiar faces (marketable guys who won't break the bank: Sting, DDP, Lance Storm) and a bunch of new guys that ended up being in ROH and TNA for reasonable costs at the time running a weekly show out of a home base. It's funny, because it would have taken Eric full circle from where WCW was when he had the vision of taking it to the top. He'd have to start all the way back at the bottom, and he probably wouldn't last because he was so obsessed with big moves and the whole corporate game. He's not a D'Amore or Cornette, who is going to run a smaller promotion that is more a labor of love than a gigantic financial endeavor. But I think that the biggest issue was WCW's rush to sell. It all seemed to happen very quickly, and I don't think Bisch and crew got a reasonable amount of time to market it. Wrestling has always been kind of niche, but the ratings that they were still getting at the time would be valuable to some networks. But everything in the business is so deliberate and everything is thought so far ahead when dealing with TV networks and greenlighting shows and budgets and timeslots. It's not really a process you can do on the fly. Given a year to find a home, I think WCW could stay alive. Something like this has long been my view. If the entire deal hinged on TV rights, you kind of have to look at the media marketplace at that time. Digital cable was exploding, and new networks were signing on almost monthly. WCW’s ratings, while well off their peaks, were still respectable (Nitro was still a top 20 cable show at the end). I have to think that someone would have been glad to have it on their schedule, even if it wasn’t an A-tier network. With that said, a non-A-tier network likely wasn’t going to give them A-tier money, so it would have required an extensive restructuring of how the company was run. Not to mention that Eric would have likely had to be willing to take a significantly less lucrative deal in the first place, which is a whole other matter. So could it have survived? In theory, yes, I believe it could have—but probably not without a MAJOR reimagining of how they did business.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Apr 9, 2023 3:28:59 GMT -5
Of course, if the WWF could recover after the mid 90s anything could be possible. WCW was losing money, it's true, but a lot of the big money deals were due to expire or not on the company's books, and Time Warner were more than happy to just take on the debts and sell the rest, as that's how history played out there with the WWF deal.
The survival was dependent on finding another TV deal, and had they done that, a slimmed down incarnation could have carved out a niche as a second place promotion on USA network or wherever with a few veteran stars on shorter deals to add name recognition. Even making less money on the deals, getting shot of the 40-50 year old main event scene and switching to tapings rather than all live shows would have brought them close to the black.
A big money spinner for them would bd the DVD boom of the 2000s, there was a huge potential source of revenue on the horizon WCW never got the chance to tap, and make use of what turned out to be the most valuable asset they had, the archive.
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Post by Jedi-El of Tomorrow on Apr 9, 2023 6:14:20 GMT -5
With the amount of debt they were racking up? Not likely. The ratings were one thing, but the problem was revenue. WCW was far behind WWF in t-shirt sales at that point, with the nWo glory days a few years removed. They'd fumbled and lost the THQ video game partnership. They had done severe damage to their house show sales. Their PPV sales had dropped considerably due to bad promotion, prioritizing TV over PPV, and often failing to explain to audiences watching what even happened on the PPVs on the shows coming after.Even at their height, WCW had gotten into the habit of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and when the money stopped flowing as much, that only got worse. The deck was stacked high against them, and if WCW were to live, they'd have needed to basically slash and burn and hope for the best. WWF got WCW for real cheap so losses could be cut, but it was also because it was of no value to anyone else without the TNT timeslot, something WWF would discover when their first plan, of continuing it on as a brand, ran into a brick wall with major stations having no real interest in picking it up, and anyone else being too small or cheap to make it worth WWF's time and effort. It was a different landscape, and the Monday Night Wars had filled WCW with bullet holes and printed "DAMAGED GOODS" on its side. The rehabilitation would have needed to be damn near miraculous. Nash touched on something similar to that on his Broken Skull Sessions as to when he knew WWF would beat WCW. He talked about how at Wrestlemania 14 every match a movie quality trailer in front of it, in case you hadn't been watching you were caught up.
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Nr1Humanoid
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Post by Nr1Humanoid on Apr 9, 2023 10:32:18 GMT -5
Regarding "WCW" contracts vs. "AOL Time Warner" deals, Hulk Hogan, who had the biggest deal in the history of the company, was under contract to WCW itself. Hogan's ex-wife probably has the contract framed.
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Gunhaver
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Post by Gunhaver on Apr 10, 2023 10:53:55 GMT -5
Something else to consider: if they somehow managed to land the TV time needed to keep things afloat, how long would it have taken to win the audience back? When it comes to low points and cold periods for companies, we always talk about swaths of the audience either abandoning the company or wrestling entirely. We obviously have no way of knowing exactly, but given how bad viewership got in the end, I wonder what a rebound would have taken.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Apr 10, 2023 11:57:03 GMT -5
Honestly in the spring of 2001 I don't know what cable conglomerate wanted wrestling. NBC Universal had just gotten out of it, Viacom had WWF on TNN/Spike, AOL Time Warner was out. That pretty much leaves Disney and Newscorps as the bidders.
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tafkaga
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Post by tafkaga on Apr 10, 2023 15:50:20 GMT -5
Something else to consider: if they somehow managed to land the TV time needed to keep things afloat, how long would it have taken to win the audience back? When it comes to low points and cold periods for companies, we always talk about swaths of the audience either abandoning the company or wrestling entirely. We obviously have no way of knowing exactly, but given how bad viewership got in the end, I wonder what a rebound would have taken. Viewership took a dive in the end, but it was still significant. It just wasn't must-see TV like a few years before. Considering that TNA started a few years later from scratch with no brand recognition and built an audience, I think the soil was still fertile for WCW to rebuild had they found the right buyer. Would they ever put 40,000 people in the Georgia Dome again or do a 6.5 quarter hour? Maybe but probably not.
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tirtefaa
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Post by tirtefaa on Apr 10, 2023 16:22:08 GMT -5
Anything is possible.
I mean, even now the WCW name has recognition. That isn't to say if things were different that you're going to see another Monday Night Wars, or anything close to that.
But the absolute stupidest thing that AOL Time Warner decided to do was to sell the WCW name, to Vince McMahon of all people. For literal pennies on the dollar.
It's the reason why TNA and so many other "how are they still alive" promotions exist. I really hope whoever spearheaded the sale is no longer in the entertainment business (not sure if Kellner was the one).
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Post by evilone on Apr 10, 2023 19:15:23 GMT -5
With the amount of debt they were racking up? Not likely. The ratings were one thing, but the problem was revenue. WCW was far behind WWF in t-shirt sales at that point, with the nWo glory days a few years removed. They'd fumbled and lost the THQ video game partnership. They had done severe damage to their house show sales. Their PPV sales had dropped considerably due to bad promotion, prioritizing TV over PPV, and often failing to explain to audiences watching what even happened on the PPVs on the shows coming after. Even at their height, WCW had gotten into the habit of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and when the money stopped flowing as much, that only got worse. The deck was stacked high against them, and if WCW were to live, they'd have needed to basically slash and burn and hope for the best. WWF got WCW for real cheap so losses could be cut, but it was also because it was of no value to anyone else without the TNT timeslot, something WWF would discover when their first plan, of continuing it on as a brand, ran into a brick wall with major stations having no real interest in picking it up, and anyone else being too small or cheap to make it worth WWF's time and effort. It was a different landscape, and the Monday Night Wars had filled WCW with bullet holes and printed "DAMAGED GOODS" on its side. The rehabilitation would have needed to be damn near miraculous. You basically described WWF in 1995 btw. The only damaged goods in TNT afterlife of WCW was Eric. No one wanted to do anything with him, that's why he couldn't make a TV deal. He was the reason why WCW got to the rock bottom in the first place and serious business knew that. I mean come on just look at the Hogan's contract, it's beyond delusional yet it was real. Even if you are a small time entrepreneur would you ever consider working with someone like Eric? Guy just wasn't good with the money and to make it even worse money wasn't even his. He had years to learn how to play money with someone else's money but he didn't as Hogan's contract is testament to that. On contrary I am inclined to believe that he was getting a good cut from Hogan for signing him to that unreasonable contract (if he didn't get a cut that would make him even dumber)
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Apr 11, 2023 4:02:34 GMT -5
I question the 'WCW needed their big stars to survive because they're damaged goods' logic. If Hogan, Nash et al were very much front and center at a time WCW spiralled into the toilet, why would any TV exec see them as major attractions in 2001? People can say they drew in 97 and 98, but so did WCW, if one brand's tainted, they all must be because nobody was paying to see any of them by the time 2000 rolled around.
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tafkaga
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Post by tafkaga on Apr 11, 2023 8:43:04 GMT -5
I question the 'WCW needed their big stars to survive because they're damaged goods' logic. If Hogan, Nash et al were very much front and center at a time WCW spiralled into the toilet, why would any TV exec see them as major attractions in 2001? People can say they drew in 97 and 98, but so did WCW, if one brand's tainted, they all must be because nobody was paying to see any of them by the time 2000 rolled around. I think they needed some of their stars, e.g. Sting, Steiner, Booker T, DDP, Goldberg, because those guys were synonymous with the brand and would bring continuity to the next chapter of WCW. Yes, they were around when the product went in the toilet, but I don't remember anyone blaming any of those guys for why WCW being unwatchable, and they all still could deliver in the ring. It was Hogan, Nash, Savage, Flair, Piper...all those broken down veterans who always seemed to be hovering around the main event scene who had become the disease in WCW.
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hassanchop
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Post by hassanchop on Apr 13, 2023 13:00:18 GMT -5
I just wonder how things would have went if WCW went to USA since they changed their minds about getting ECW since it wasn't the big companies.
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john84
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Post by john84 on Apr 13, 2023 13:05:54 GMT -5
I often fantasy book what it would've been like had WCW still been on the TV after being bought by WWE but with Shane, at least on camera, being the boss of WCW and the two had another ''war'' so-to-speak. Sometimes I mix it up and fantasy book what it would've been like if Stephanie was ''the boss'' on WCW, Shane ''the boss'' of ECW going up against Vince.
Ah well.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2023 13:21:42 GMT -5
I think so just from name value alone and doubt Bischoff would have allowed it to end up like the NWA of today...moreso today's Impact if anything regarding relativity to the business
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tafkaga
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Post by tafkaga on Apr 13, 2023 14:09:34 GMT -5
I often fantasy book what it would've been like had WCW still been on the TV after being bought by WWE but with Shane, at least on camera, being the boss of WCW and the two had another ''war'' so-to-speak. Sometimes I mix it up and fantasy book what it would've been like if Stephanie was ''the boss'' on WCW, Shane ''the boss'' of ECW going up against Vince. Ah well. I've done the same many times. Almost any time I run a fantasy fed on a video game or whatever, it's WCW: What I would have done differently.
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