"TNA Wrestling" News

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Well, they're already going to be pre-taping their TV shows, so perhaps PPVs will be used more for the surprises. Not back to the extent of "guest of the week", but enough to have an element of uncertainty that is an influence when deciding whether to order.

True, but I'd rather order a PPV knowing what matches will suck and what matches will be good. TNA is never consistent, so pre-taping more shows could help people decide on what shows to buy and what shows to skip, and whatever shows get more buys the bookers and TNA fedheads can look at and say "oh, so THAT'S what they like!"

 

TBH, I'm not entirely sold on the idea of having more than one show taped at a single event. Judging from the reports I've seen posted here, the X Cup matches taped after the regular show were greeted with apathy and a half-empty arena despite their apparent quality. If that's what happens with perhaps an extra hour of presumably quite exciting matches, I'd hate to think what would happen if they tacked on a whole other PPV. It'd also make a bit of a mess of things for those following spoilers, with the events of the upcoming TV show given away by the second PPV taping (assuming the two are linked in a storyline sense).

That's because they're pre-taping the post-show matches late on a weekday night. Most people have work the next day, or school. You're leaving out the part where I suggest they tape two shows on a weekend date, so that way they can have the show run longer (4-5 hours) because they could start earlier. Then, whatever comes across as terrible live can be edited, and spoilers are out to the audience so they know what to expect for their $10.

They are most likely linked storyline-wise, the TV tapings and the live PPV, but this would then bring up two other aspects: tape the matches for the free TV show during the taping of the two PPVs, and tour a little bit to give more of a variety of flavor to the audience at home.

Without official buy rates and knowing the financial effect of taping PPVs, I don't think it's truly possible to predict the success of any changes with certainty.

True, it's not, but all guesses at buyrates are in the 10,000-12,000 range, and TNA would need 20,000 buys per show to break even on that show. Live attendance is down, PAID live attendance has plummeted since October of last year, so all signs point to TNA losing money. I feel that they could save money by holding two less shows a month, and taping all of their programming.

I'd be particularly interested to know the buy rates for the Team UK PPV. With negative spoilers out long before that screened, I'd bet they'd have dropped a long way. Taped shows are all well and good if you keep producing quality shows, but I've yet to see a promotion that's 100% successful in that regard. TNA has a habit of having turning good cards into average shows, and having those pre-taped would probably cost quite a few buys. Besides, isn't the ability to order PPVs on a replay or off their site (as I do) a sufficient way of ensuring that they make enough money from shows with positive responses? I can't see how having them pre-taped would be substantially different to that.

Yes, the ability to order replays is a great in case the show was worth ordering, but spoilers out early could increase the chance of more people ordering the first time. Since most replays are at asinine times (like the middle of the night or the middle of the day), most fans cannot order them.

I'd be extremely interested in seeing the Team UK PPV buys as well. That show sucked the meat whistle, and is one of the big reasons why I stopped doing the Lazarush (that as well as the fact that we're getting bullshit Sports Entertainment slowed down to become "old-school" from Jarrett, Mantel, and Russo; sorry, but AJ Styles can win clean, you know).

[Guest Donners]

Okay, I see where you're coming from there. There's certainly benefits to taping, though I'm still not entirely convinced it's necessarily the best move. There's two main concerns I have.

 

First, you said you'd, "rather order a PPV knowing what matches will suck and what matches will be good." I very rarely get the chance to watch wrestling within less than a week of it screening in the US, so I have plenty of chances to check out reviews. Not only is there often sharp contrasts between their views on matches, my opinions upon seeing it often vary from those I've read as well.

 

I'm quite reluctant to use those reviews as a basis for ordering or not ordering a PPV, and that's even after I've been reading their stuff to have a good idea of their biases and how well they generally reflect how I'll feel about a match. From what I've seen of previous taping reports, they're often provided from some random who was allegedly there. I couldn't imagine being able to put matches into categories of "suck" or "good" based on one person whose biases I don't know. Worse yet, that one report could be picked up by a dozen sites, which can present a very distorted picture. Add to that the biases that sites have in choosing which report(s) to feature, and it's a pretty big mess.

 

Then there's the issue of being coloured by what you read. I ordered a couple of RoH tapes a few months ago and hated them, despite reading glowing reviews. To this day I don't know if they simply set my expectations too high or if I was deliberately looking for flaws because I was sick of such one-eyed reviews or if they just genuinely weren't good.

 

 

My second concern is still from a live crowd perspective. Even if the TV matches were taped at the same time as the PPVs, they'd be in a different location (unless you're suggesting they drop that), which could make things a bit confusing for the crowds having missed part of the continuity. There'd also be a problem with "cliffhanger" endings and one-week builds to matches not getting the same reponse they would have otherwise.

[Kardo 0]

True, it's not, but all guesses at buyrates are in the 10,000-12,000 range, and TNA would need 20,000 buys per show to break even on that show. Live attendance is down, PAID live attendance has plummeted since October of last year, so all signs point to TNA losing money. I feel that they could save money by holding two less shows a month, and taping all of their programming.

Meltzer said on the last WOL that TNA get 6,000-8,000 buys a week and break even is 25,000.

 

He also said their business plan allowed for 50,000 a week, which doesn't seem like much with a pay per view market of 50 million, but they were finding it hard to get.