Interesting article from Jay Bower

[Guest HollyandTestMark]

NWA:TNA Troubles?

 

While it would be great to see all three of these performers show up in NWA:TNA when their clauses expire, the bigger question would have to be will the NWA even be around in 12 weeks to take the wrestlers in. The buyrates for the first several NWA pay-per-views have been a topic of controversy lately as some sources (NWA) are claiming that only a small sample of the metered market has been estimated while others (the "rags") are claiming that projections for the events look to be around 15,000 buys on average per show. If the buyrate is somewhere around the 15,000 buy area, then the NWA is falling 70% short of the magical number of 50,000 that Jerry Jarrett said the company would need in order to remain afloat.

 

But, taking into consideration the fact that the show now runs live every week, is no longer a traveling attraction, now emanates from a dirt-cheap venue, has lowered ticket prices and now pays to produce a weekly television show in Nashville, what the books look like is anyone's guess. The number of buys needed may have risen and may have fallen, but either way I still think that Jerry Jarrett and company are falling short of the kind of interest that is needed. Unfortunately, I think that the buyrate has peaked as well as the novelty has begun to wear off. Last week's show was a great show, but fell short of the standard that NWA:TNA had set in previous weeks, and sometimes in a venture like this all it takes is one off week for fans to move on to something else.

 

I hope I am incorrect in my assessment but my gut feeling tells me that I am not. Without making drastic changes in marketing and means of airing their television, I feel as though the promotion may be doomed. This fact is extremely sad considering the fact that the NWA has done NOTHING wrong up to this point. Their promotion has been innovative, exciting, well produced and basically perfection given the budget and resources that they have to work with. The failure is in no way coming from Jerry Jarrett's end, it's coming from OUR end.

 

The simple fact of the matter is that their aren't 30,000...40,000, and especially not 50,000 wrestling fans diehard enough to spend $10 a week on quality wrestling these days. Wrestling is on the outs with the general public and WWE ratings continue to decrease/stablize to 4 year lows. The economy is in a freefall that is seeing all of our invested savings crashing into the ground. Entertainment such as dining, shopping, sporting events and television viewership across the board have all taken sizeable hits in the past six months. Young 20somethings, a huge part of wrestling's demographic, are graduating from college to find that the job market is nonexistent and thus are finding themselves without hardly the money for rent, let alone $40 a month for some startup promotion. The timing of the NWA entering the market was just horrible, but kudos to them for having the balls to attempt it.

 

If the NWA implodes like many believe it will, look in the mirror when asking why it didn't succeed before clogging message boards with volumes of drivel about how horrible the company was. I was one of the promotions biggest critics before one episode of the show proved me wrong and I congratulate the NWA for that. When it comes down to it, American wrestling fans like to complain about the lack of a second national promotion yet when a good one comes along, we don't have the energy, time and finances to support it at the current time. The show isn't even available in Canada last I heard, which is unfortunate because I could see the promotion padding its buyrates nicely through our friendly neighbors to the north.

 

At this point it is uncertain how the NWA plans to combat the circumstances that are bringing it down, but rumors have been circulating that the NWA is looking to expand it's weekly free-television show and possibly try to push it into syndication. A cable deal has not been as openly discussed, but it seems as though it would do the company more harm than good. While the NWA could probably bank on pulling in around a 1.3-1.7 rating on a given week, this would be in addition to it's weekly pay-per-views. The cost of producing another weekly broadcast sleek enough to look respectable on cable television would be expensive. Advertising revenues from the cable show could serve as a nice boost to the companies income, but their leverage would be virtually nonexistent and if their deal was anything like ECW's cable deal, they would see almost none of the revenue and pay almost all of the costs for the production, probably coming out of the deal with losses. While it would be a good way to get the product exposure, it would also be guaranteed to cripple the buyrates for the weekly pay-per-views as no one would pay to see a product that they can see for free once a week anyway. So with a cable deal out of the picture, syndication would be the only remaining option. Syndication is such a crap shoot these days that predicting it's affects on the companies profits with any type of accuracy would take a Quiji Board, a magic 8-ball AND Nostradamus' enchanted bowl of soup. The pros and cons of syndication have pushed companies to the moon (80's WWF) and sunken them as well (UWF).

 

The NWA, as I see it, has two options. Continue to run weekly PPV's and attempt to cut costs as quietly as they can without a noticeable decrease in the factors that persuade people to follow the product, or shop for a cable deal and start pushing a monthly PPV for full market price ($34.95). Unfortunately neither of these options seem to have very good odds for success. Weekly PPV's aren't going to suddenly increase by 30,000 buys per week and remain there as there is "too much wrestling" in the market right now in many people's eyes. Christ, there are about 47 different WWE programs that air on any given week, all of which are available on free TV and boast superior production and talent that is perceived as light years beyond anything that the NWA has to offer.

 

On the other hand, a cable deal would bury the promotion in the long run as well. The advantage that WCW, ECW and WWE have all enjoyed in putting on weekly cable shows was that they had alternate sources of revenue coming in and didn't particularly need to make a cent from the broadcasts. All three promotions heavily pushed house shows, merchandise, home releases and upcoming events on their shows and in turn saw large boosts of revenue coming in as a result. The NWA doesn't run house shows and their gate for tapings is barely enough to cover the cost of renting the arena on most nights from the sounds of it. They don't have merchandise to push in volumes and really have nothing to gain in the deal except more exposure. The additional amount of exposure would have to be enough to boost the revenues for the more expensive monthly PPV by around a whopping 20X higher than what NWA ppv's are garnering now in order to fund the monthly operations.

 

It will be interesting to see how the NWA reacts to the initial indications that the wrestling market is unable to support them at the current time. I have been wrong in the past and Lord knows I will be again in the future, but things aren't looking as good as many of us would have hoped for the NWA. If things don't work out, thanks for the memories guys. If they do, I'll be one happy net-dweeb.

 

Credit: NWA:TNA.com, WrestlingObserver.com

 

->That's a lot of new info to me, what do you guys think?

[Guest Tony149]

I think that column was written before the news of the Jarretts' firing one of their PPV guy (Who lied to them about buyrates).

 

The Jarretts' have said the company is in no danger of folding.

 

Once they sort of the legal mess and start pushing more money back into the company, we'll see how they'll do.

 

If they can survive the current problem, I think they'll be around for a while.

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

And Meltzer said that the cost cutting they have done until they get the advertising and ppv people in line...will make the money loss manageable.

[Guest Vyce]

If they do fold, I will blame the "fans".

 

I know at least a dozen guys who go, "I watch NWA, every week! I get it on my hotbox!"

 

Well, I pay for it, fuckers.