Post by Hobby Drifter on Jan 25, 2013 2:06:15 GMT -5
When an MLB team says that "two million tickets were sold" that statment is true. Granted, it's not two million unique visitors, but people paid money for two million tickets.
Similarly, when McDonald's says "billions and billions served" they're talking about how many of their burgers were served to customers. And, again, true statement. McDonald's sells a LOT of burgers.
But when WWE says that "four billion people have watched RAW" it's flat out wrong. If they had worded it as "RAW has been watched over four billion times by viewers all around the world!" it'd be a tricky use of language, but technically correct. Saying "Four billion people watched RAW" is flat-out, demonstrably false. It is SO false, that I have a hard time believing that a publicly traded company would have the balls to actually say it.
But I guess I shouldn't be TOO surprised. They tried to pull a very similar stunt while trying to get the WWE network off the ground. They said that an estimated 100 million people watch wrestling. And that is a number that they OBVIOUSLY got by adding up all of the audience viewing numbers for RAW, Smackdown, each PPV combined, Main Event, Superstars, NXT, and Saturday Morning Slam. And, based on that number, they tried to get investors to support the network. It took me all of 5 seconds to go "Wow, that is some heavy grade bull." How long do you think it took their investors? If any other company claimed 100 million customers when their audience was really between 5 and 7 million, somebody would likely go to jail.
I like WWE. I really do. I've been a fan for like 15 years. And I like the little bubble the WWE Universe exists in. When they welcome us to the longest running episodic television show in cable history" I kind of chuckle. But when their stuff spills out into the real world? That just makes me uncomfortable. It not only makes the company LOOK scummy, it means that the company IS scummy.
Similarly, when McDonald's says "billions and billions served" they're talking about how many of their burgers were served to customers. And, again, true statement. McDonald's sells a LOT of burgers.
But when WWE says that "four billion people have watched RAW" it's flat out wrong. If they had worded it as "RAW has been watched over four billion times by viewers all around the world!" it'd be a tricky use of language, but technically correct. Saying "Four billion people watched RAW" is flat-out, demonstrably false. It is SO false, that I have a hard time believing that a publicly traded company would have the balls to actually say it.
But I guess I shouldn't be TOO surprised. They tried to pull a very similar stunt while trying to get the WWE network off the ground. They said that an estimated 100 million people watch wrestling. And that is a number that they OBVIOUSLY got by adding up all of the audience viewing numbers for RAW, Smackdown, each PPV combined, Main Event, Superstars, NXT, and Saturday Morning Slam. And, based on that number, they tried to get investors to support the network. It took me all of 5 seconds to go "Wow, that is some heavy grade bull." How long do you think it took their investors? If any other company claimed 100 million customers when their audience was really between 5 and 7 million, somebody would likely go to jail.
I like WWE. I really do. I've been a fan for like 15 years. And I like the little bubble the WWE Universe exists in. When they welcome us to the longest running episodic television show in cable history" I kind of chuckle. But when their stuff spills out into the real world? That just makes me uncomfortable. It not only makes the company LOOK scummy, it means that the company IS scummy.
