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Post by toodarkmark on Apr 1, 2020 9:14:36 GMT -5
WWE isn't going to have any problems, they're politically connected enough to get loans they will never have to repay. They can also blame their already happening downturn on the pandemic. In 10 years they will do a documentary and say how they were on fire until the pandemic.
Everyone else will lose money. And then when the world gets back to normal, many people wont have the disposable income to attend shows. But desperation will lead to innovation. A few years from now it will be back to normal, unless pandemics just happen all the time.
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Post by The Thread Barbi on Apr 1, 2020 13:24:07 GMT -5
Kevin Dunne realises fan reaction shots are not better than in ring action.
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Glitch
King Koopa
Not Going To Die; Childs, we're goin' out to give Blair the test. If he tries to make it back here and we're not with him... burn him.
Watching you.
Posts: 12,716
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Post by Glitch on Apr 1, 2020 20:34:16 GMT -5
I can see a bunch of new indies popping up to take the place of ones that went out of business. People are gonna be hungry for wrestling, and that'll create opportunity.
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Post by El Cokehead del Knife Fight on Apr 3, 2020 5:11:15 GMT -5
WWE does make tons of money in revenue but their profit margin is actually not that amazing. I can certainly see them cutting a bunch of NXT talent that they're just hoarding and getting rid of some of the extra shows and leaving it stripped down to Raw, Smackdown and NXT.
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Post by flakeymcgill on Apr 3, 2020 5:26:16 GMT -5
I think we'll see a return to television tapings, quite honestly. Big marathon sessions where you can get 7 hours worth of television from a single show.
Imagine how much better it would be to show footage of actual matches in an actual arena and interslice it with studio-dubbed commentary and backstage skits and interviews to make it relevant to whatever the current storyline you're pushing was.
The industry would have been in a much better place to begin with if it stopped making everything about being 'live' and I think this might actually reignite the desire to get as much stuff on tape as possible.
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Post by BRAINFADE on Apr 3, 2020 6:23:16 GMT -5
Wrestle-1 in Japan officially closed its doors a couple of days ago. There was talk of this before Covid-19 truly kicked off, but I'm sure it didn't help matters.
Might be the first of a few puro companies going down.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Apr 3, 2020 6:26:02 GMT -5
Wrestle-1 in Japan officially closed its doors a couple of days ago. There was talk of this before Covid-19 truly kicked off, but I'm sure it didn't help matters. Might be the first of a few puro companies going down. As already said in this thread Big Japan is on death watch too. Anyone other companies looking particularly not long for this world, puro or otherwise? Edit: Also according to this Wrestle-1's last ever match on April 1 was a big battle royal
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Post by BRAINFADE on Apr 3, 2020 6:30:06 GMT -5
Wrestle-1 in Japan officially closed its doors a couple of days ago. There was talk of this before Covid-19 truly kicked off, but I'm sure it didn't help matters. Might be the first of a few puro companies going down. As already said in this thread Big Japan is on death watch too. Anyone other companies looking particularly not long for this world, puro or otherwise? Quite honestly? I wouldn't be surprised to see All Japan go under. Not owned by a big corporation like NOAH, Stardom etc, and not exactly doing killer business over the past few years. Unless Akiyama sells to McMahon, of course.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Apr 3, 2020 6:37:41 GMT -5
As already said in this thread Big Japan is on death watch too. Anyone other companies looking particularly not long for this world, puro or otherwise? Quite honestly? I wouldn't be surprised to see All Japan go under. Not owned by a big corporation like NOAH, Stardom etc, and not exactly doing killer business over the past few years. Unless Akiyama sells to McMahon, of course. Good call. I was thinking that as well a few days ago. AJPW has become some hybrid of WCW and Impact of Japan. They have a heck of a legacy, but have been a zombie promotion for years. They have a heck of an ace that most people have never heard of. Other than that you never really hear anything about AJPW. I remember a few years ago I was going through the free Observer articles on Japanese wrestling and literally everyone was on NJPW or a tribute to a dead wrestler. There was a time where the coverage would've been much more balance because AJPW's stuff would have justified it. Anyway, I could see this killing them.
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Post by BRAINFADE on Apr 3, 2020 7:26:51 GMT -5
Quite honestly? I wouldn't be surprised to see All Japan go under. Not owned by a big corporation like NOAH, Stardom etc, and not exactly doing killer business over the past few years. Unless Akiyama sells to McMahon, of course. Good call. I was thinking that as well a few days ago. AJPW has become some hybrid of WCW and Impact of Japan. They have a heck of a legacy, but have been a zombie promotion for years. They have a heck of an ace that most people have never heard of. Other than that you never really hear anything about AJPW. I remember a few years ago I was going through the free Observer articles on Japanese wrestling and literally everyone was on NJPW or a tribute to a dead wrestler. There was a time where the coverage would've been much more balance because AJPW's stuff would have justified it. Anyway, I could see this killing them. The ONLY silver lining I could see in All Japan going under (and please don't mistake this for me wanting it to happen) is seeing some Kento dream matches in other companies. No disrespect to their roster, but he is head and shoulders above anybody else they have right now, because he's one of the best, if not THE BEST, in the world right now.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2020 7:59:34 GMT -5
Not to pee all over the parade, but this is all conjecture considering that the entirety of human society is probably gonna be greatly affected/altered by COVID-19 in its wake/aftermath. And we don't even know the details of that.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Apr 3, 2020 8:05:04 GMT -5
Not to pee all over the parade, but this is all conjecture considering that the entirety of human society is probably gonna be greatly affected/altered by COVID-19 in its wake/aftermath. And we don't even know the details of that. At the top of the OP I made a point to say this is all speculation. Still interesting to talk about (for me anyway). At two extremes you have Covid-19 killing the wrestling industry dead or people getting so excited to have wrestling back after the pandemic ends that it leads to the biggest boom ever. Much more likely than either of these is something in the middle. So threads like this can be useful in speculating just what that middle is. We could all be completely wrong, but it’s worth the thought exercise
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Post by CeilingFan on Apr 3, 2020 8:27:20 GMT -5
Not to pee all over the parade, but this is all conjecture considering that the entirety of human society is probably gonna be greatly affected/altered by COVID-19 in its wake/aftermath. And we don't even know the details of that. At the top of the OP I made a point to say this is all speculation. Still interesting to talk about (for me anyway). At two extremes you have Covid-19 killing the wrestling industry dead or people getting so excited to have wrestling back after the pandemic ends that it leads to the biggest boom ever. Much more likely than either of these is something in the middle. So threads like this can be useful in speculating just what that middle is. We could all be completely wrong, but it’s worth the thought exercise Last year seemed to mark a resurgence in Pro Wrestling with the success of AEW, NWA, and Impact. I hope we can get back on track by September.
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Post by cabbageboy on Apr 3, 2020 9:10:50 GMT -5
It's a big problem. The question to me is this: What are the circumstances that lead to getting back to normal? What is normal? Where I live school was cancelled after 1-2 people were diagnosed so based on that standard what would it take for school to resume? It would almost have to be literally no one and that isn't going to happen anytime soon. In the realm of wrestling what is it going to take for wrestling to be in actual arenas again? I dunno.
This to me is where the TV rights fees aspect is hurting WWE and also AEW to some degree. Right now they need to just shut things down for a while until the outbreak is over, but at the end of the day they can't because they have to produce some sort of content for TV in order to get those rights fees. AEW has far less overhead than WWE, so they could just dial it down if need be. AEW also has Blood and Guts they can do when crowds are back so I would think the audience could come back fairly quickly.
WWE though? What happens to them if they simply can't run any shows? They have a million people under contract, no revenue from actual gates coming in, no real PPV numbers, so they are almost entirely dependent on USA and Fox. So if they can't even do any sort of show then this is going to get financially ugly real quick.
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Post by Oh Cry Me a Screwball on Apr 3, 2020 13:41:30 GMT -5
It's a big problem. The question to me is this: What are the circumstances that lead to getting back to normal? What is normal? Where I live school was cancelled after 1-2 people were diagnosed so based on that standard what would it take for school to resume? It would almost have to be literally no one and that isn't going to happen anytime soon. In the realm of wrestling what is it going to take for wrestling to be in actual arenas again? I dunno. This to me is where the TV rights fees aspect is hurting WWE and also AEW to some degree. Right now they need to just shut things down for a while until the outbreak is over, but at the end of the day they can't because they have to produce some sort of content for TV in order to get those rights fees. AEW has far less overhead than WWE, so they could just dial it down if need be. AEW also has Blood and Guts they can do when crowds are back so I would think the audience could come back fairly quickly. WWE though? What happens to them if they simply can't run any shows? They have a million people under contract, no revenue from actual gates coming in, no real PPV numbers, so they are almost entirely dependent on USA and Fox. So if they can't even do any sort of show then this is going to get financially ugly real quick. If they absolutely can't produce any content whatsoever, they have a huge archive of old footage they can air for years if need be. Yeah, the ratings won't be through the roof, but they can make good on having some sort of programming on their timeslots.
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Post by cabbageboy on Apr 3, 2020 17:07:46 GMT -5
They are already doing this to some degree. With AEW I dunno what they can do though since they have little in the way of older footage to show. They kinda have to keep doing something every week until it's impossible to keep doing it.
We may get more shows like the Tomasso/Gargano NXT episode where it was a review/hype show.
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cjh
Hank Scorpio
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Post by cjh on Apr 3, 2020 18:58:58 GMT -5
If they absolutely can't produce any content whatsoever, they have a huge archive of old footage they can air for years if need be. Yeah, the ratings won't be through the roof, but they can make good on having some sort of programming on their timeslots. I honestly think showing classic old shows every Monday night on USA for a while would do better ratings than the empty arena stuff does. Episodes of old shows are now added to WWE Network only one day per month, and it's down to 10-14 episodes at a time when they have added 70+ episodes at once in the past. That change is explicitly because of the lack of viewership they were getting.
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Post by eJm on Apr 3, 2020 19:18:56 GMT -5
I honestly think showing classic old shows every Monday night on USA for a while would do better ratings than the empty arena stuff does. Episodes of old shows are now added to WWE Network only one day per month, and it's down to 10-14 episodes at a time when they have added 70+ episodes at once in the past. That change is explicitly because of the lack of viewership they were getting. But on the flip side of that, the Network in general hasn’t done much to get people’s interests. Sure, the documentaries are good but there’s only so much spin people can tolerate to an extent and the original stuff basically came and went. With way more US viewers than US Network subs (believe it was around 500,000 from last check), there’s potential to use older footage in a way more suitable to a TV audience. Live tweeting, cuts to talking heads, you could even do something where superstars talk about their favourite matches ever or in their career and show those, making use of the footage they have but also putting over the influences of the present day stars. There’s way more they can do with that for USA then for the Network since if you tried something like that for the network...people can just watch the matches on the Network.
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Post by Cyno on Apr 3, 2020 19:27:00 GMT -5
I'm not saying airing classic episodes of Raw or old PPV's or Takeovers will get ratings on par with a live airing of Raw or Smackdown or anything, but it's super-cheap to air in place of producing new content where that's increasingly becoming more and more prohibitive to make. There's also way more basic cable subscribers than people who have the WWE Network who might be curious about that sorta thing but don't want to pay for a super-niche streaming service.
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cjh
Hank Scorpio
Posts: 6,573
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Post by cjh on Apr 3, 2020 19:27:58 GMT -5
Episodes of old shows are now added to WWE Network only one day per month, and it's down to 10-14 episodes at a time when they have added 70+ episodes at once in the past. That change is explicitly because of the lack of viewership they were getting. But on the flip side of that, the Network in general hasn’t done much to get people’s interests. Sure, the documentaries are good but there’s only so much spin people can tolerate to an extent and the original stuff basically came and went. With way more US viewers than US Network subs (believe it was around 500,000 from last check), there’s potential to use older footage in a way more suitable to a TV audience. Live tweeting, cuts to talking heads, you could even do something where superstars talk about their favourite matches ever or in their career and show those, making use of the footage they have but also putting over the influences of the present day stars. There’s way more they can do with that for USA then for the Network since if you tried something like that for the network...people can just watch the matches on the Network. Those documentaries are the only things people really watch on the Network besides the live events. They're adding more and more of them all the time for a reason. They draw viewers while the classic content doesn't.
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