Would wrestling benefit from an Off Season?

[Greer]

Dec 26, 2011 4:54:54 GMT -5 frogsplash45 said:

Dec 26, 2011 4:42:38 GMT -5 Greer said:

My only counter is that the MLB, NFL, and other pro sports have off seasons and continue to make money. Those sports also have many young fans as well.

I doubt children forget they are Derek Jeter fans during the baseball off season.

I think we kinda underestimate the minds of children sometimes.

I also think it would get new fans invested if they build up the next season with commercials and banner ads. It might get people interested to see what a fresh new season will bring.

1) Those aren't story driven though, man. You can watch just one game, and get some closure out of that alone. There's a decisive score. There's finality to it. (ideally, at least)



2) A lot of guys are flat-out "sports fans" who tend to switch from basketball to baseball to football in a year-round rotation.

It's a pretty natural transition because so much of the emphasis of those sports is rooting for your home-team. People get opportunities to go to their local team's games nearly all the time. Pretty much any decent dad can find the time and money to make the trip with his son to go see a live baseball game. That isn't quite true for WWE.

The drama of sports is very story driven.

Basketball as an example:
Will Lebron win a title? Will the Knicks finally make it back to the Finals? Can the Mavs retain their title? Are the Celtics too old to win another year?

There is plenty of drama in sports much like wrestling, which is why people keep coming back. Plus yes, you can watch one game but just like in wrestling...if a team gets a fluke victory, you wanna see if they can do it again and prove they are for real etc.

Your second point, well I don't have much of a counter. Unless people just started to watch TNA or ROH while the WWE is on its off season. However that would not benefit the WWE.

[Deleted]

I'd like a compromise where house shows are simply eliminated for a month every year.

[jadison]

Dec 26, 2011 3:52:44 GMT -5 jimmyjames said:

The problem is that instead of being excited for a new season, the majority of fans, who are children /young adults and casual fans, might just walk away and forget about it. Wrestling is kind of like soap operas, characters and performers can take time off, or even leave completely, but if the whole thing takes a hiatus, it's done.

Sadly, I think you're right. As others have said, maybe cutting the house show schedule for a couple of months would be nice. Personally, I think an offseason with NFL style rumors and such setting up storylines for when they come back could be really cool. But they can't just tell USA "alright, we're not running Raw in the fall".

[molson5]

One of the reasons they did the brand split in the first place was so they could MORE shows a year. It's hard to imagine any scenario where they'd willingly do fewer shows.

If guys needs breaks, that another discussion. They don't have to take them all at the exact same time.

[Deleted]

Overlapping seasons: Raw brand should run from Jan-August and SD should run from August-April.

That way everyone gets 4 months off and everyone is still around for RR, Mania, and SS.

Something like that would be their best bet.

[lizardking]

I'd say give the entire company a month off after WrestleMania, showing "best of/highlight" shows on Raw and Smackdown.

[rapidfire187]

Dec 26, 2011 7:06:42 GMT -5 Futureraven: Beelzebruv said:

Isn't this how it's done in Japan and one of the things that Wrestling Revolution Project's going to be doing?

I think Japanese promotions do something similar, but it's not exactly like that. I think they generally go on tour for a month or two, then they take a month or two off. That's the basis of why I think Japanese wrestlers are able to take so much abuse but haven't really experienced this "death before the age of 40" thing that we've had over here. I don't think they're tougher, they just have more time to rest, so the need for painkillers and stuff probably isn't as high.

[Vince's Torn Quads]

I think it's a great idea and much-needed. The wrestlers will get the time off that they need to spend with their families and recover, and we get some time to actually MISS wrestling. I mean, I know I'm not the only wrestling fan who has spent time away from watching it altogether because I've had my fill.

But, think of the lost revenue. It'll never happen.

[clifford]

2 months off after Wrestlemania would be very good for all the workers, crew and creative but bad for business.

Personally, I'd love it. I tend to get burnt out myself watching wrestling all year round, and usually relax my devotion to it for about two months every year anyway.

Also, it could light a fire under TNA's butt. Imagine if they had two months of no televised competition? They'd pull out all the stops to win over as many new viewers as possible. Which could turn out great or knowing TNA, hilariously awful. Either way a good thing in my eyes.

[machomuta]

Dec 26, 2011 3:52:44 GMT -5 jimmyjames said:

the majority of fans, who are children /young adults and casual fans, might just walk away and forget about it. .

If they are real fans, they wouldnt forget it.

[unc40]

Dec 26, 2011 14:39:55 GMT -5 Vince's Torn Quads said:

But, think of the lost revenue. It'll never happen.

Thats the first thing I thought when I read the title of this thread. Can you imagine a WWE employee going to Vince with the idea of going a couple of months without any shows.

[bitteroldman]

Instead of having the entire roster/promotion shut down why not stagger the time off? Give a quarter of the roster 4-6 weeks of downtime to allow them to rest/recuperate, then bring them back with fresh storylines and give the next group time off.

[Joe Galt]

How about Raw for first half of the year and Smackdown for the other half? Not sure if this would work financially though.

[AztecaDragon]

It seems too long term-y for the WWE to try.

[therealsk]

f*** all this offseason talk. The best part about WWE is that their always on and always a chance to see them. Plus this doesn't make sense business wise at all.

[Bub (BLM)]

There shouldn't be an off season, but they should cycle the roster so guys always get a three month break at some point in the year. All the lower card guys could be off February-April because they really aren't needed during the road to WrestleMania, and then you could gradually start giving uppercard talent time off starting after WrestleMania so that by the time the next Royal Rumble rolls around, they've all had a break. You just couldn't let them all go at once for obvious reasons.

[Alex Shelley]

I don't want an off season; what I want is for wrestlers to get off seasons. Every wrestler in WWE should get 1-3 months off every year, at differing times. I think this would make such a huge difference in so many things.

[Efren]

Dec 26, 2011 15:31:11 GMT -5 therealsk said:

f*** all this offseason talk. The best part about WWE is that their always on and always a chance to see them. Plus this doesn't make sense business wise at all.

[whatamaneuver]

I've said it tonnes of times - wrestling shouldn't have a break, but every wrestler should get a mandatory month (including one PPV) they are forced to take off.

Would keep them more healthy and stop things getting quite so repetitive!

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

Cycling the roster through the year would be ideal: it wouldn't hurt business in the slightest, and it would give everyone a break: careers would be longer, workers would be healthier, storylines would be more compact and tighter, since they'd be written with the actor's planned breaks in mind. No one would lose.

Unfortunately, everything screwed up about the way the WWE runs things flies in the face of this. There's that moronic pervasive mindset that guys need to "get themselves over," and there's the brilliant (but utterly evil) contracted employee thing. If your year's income largely depends on you hawking your own T-shirt on TV every week, then the lost money from taking time off isn't going to be worth it.
Besides, being healthy enough for a longer career hardly matters when you're in danger of being fired if the writers forget about you for ten minutes.

In short: It's an awesome idea, it would help the performers and make the product much better. But the entire evil way the business is run would have to change, and it won't.