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The WWE’s fourth quarter investors conference on 2/28 ended up being far more about major business changes for the future then discussing what were really steady results of the last quarter and the last year.
In fact, to show how steady things were, when 2012 ended, the company had taken in $484,000,000 in revenue and turned $31,400,000 profit for the year as compared to $483,921,000 in revenue in 2011 with a $24,832,000 profit. And the major reason the profit was higher this year is because last year the company lost $27.7 million in the movie business, while this year, in slowing down on releasing movies, the company lost $1.8 million.
When looking at this year’s profits, it should be noted they spent $8.2 million on the network. Between that and movie losses, profits would have been $7.2 million higher after taxes, so pure core wrestling business profits would have been $38.6 million. For 2011, if you take out the $4 million spent on the network and movie losses, the core wrestling business would have been $43.3 million. Some of that is more incentive bonuses paid to upper management in 2012.
The company’s profits were less than its total dividend payout, which for the year was $36 million. The company as of 12/31, had $152.4 million in cash on hand, slightly down from the $155.8 million they had at the end of 2011.
At the presentation, there was more talk about how next year would probably be worse for a number of reasons, not just more costs associated with starting the network. But there was long term optimism because if the network is successful, it will be a complete game changer as far as revenue and profitability. Plus, the belief is that rights fees for content will continue to escalate.
As noted in the sports world, a number of people also believe the increasing sports rights are a bubble that is going to burst.
But smartly, the company, for years running away from the sports moniker and saying they are entertainment, is now characterizing themselves as having the “best characteristics of entertainment and sports programming.”
The claim they are more like sports because they produce live programming, that their viewership watches live so it is DVR proof (the whole reason why live sports are considered programming kings now because advertisers believe people are watching the messages while entertainment shows on DVR, people may skip commercials, thus weakening the value of advertising, although WWE is weakening the value of advertising on its live shows right now as well), they produce consistent ratings like a sport as opposed to wildly varying ratings like entertainment (actually WWE has very consistent ratings, but most sports don’t and most prime time shows are more consistent in weekly ratings than sports). In claiming entertainment, they claim they have storylines, are character driven (and sports aren’t?) and their product plays equally all over the country whereas team sports have more locally concentrated fan bases.
But the key to the financial future of the company is no longer live attendance or PPV, but two major categories. The first is the future of television rights fees and whether they can convince buyers that they are really more sport, a category they’ve run from being called for nearly three decades, since those rights fees are escalating more than entertainment. They are projecting that the value of television content will increase five percent annually in the U.S. through 2016, five percent per year in the U.K., 11% per year in India and 14% in China. They are looking at those four markets to be their prime television markets going forward. They are also expecting significant increases in rights fees for programming in all four countries over the next few years when their existing contracts with USA, Syfy, Sky, etc. come due.
The second is, of course, the network. CFO George Barrios, who did most of the talking, talked about the network as losing money early, figuring in start up costs and cannibalization of the PPV business. They were projecting, when the entire country has access to the network, that they will maintain at between 2 million and 4 million subscription homes in the U.S. with a proposed monthly price point of between $12.99 and $14.99. They project, based on those figures, that the company will double to triple its current level of profits by 2015, depending upon where between that 2 million and 4 million figure they base out at.
Of course, many are skeptical of those projections. Monday Night Raw on 3/11 was viewed, for free, in 3,313,000 homes. They are talking about getting the same number of homes to all spend $12.99 to $14.99 monthly on their network when they already get six-and–a-half hours of first-run free weekly programming, and most of those viewers don’t watch anywhere near all six-and-a-half hours.
In 2012, the company averaged about 102,000 to 105,000 U.S. buys on PPV, so we know those people are going to get the network since they are paying either $44.95 or $54.95 monthly. The 2013 Royal Rumble did 322,000 North American buys, which, taking out Canada and Puerto Rico, would probably be 280,000 to 285,000 in the U.S. (and with late reported buys that could reasonably assumed to end up at 294,000 to 310,000). There are currently 85,000 homes worldwide that still subscribe to 24/7 Classics on Demand at $7.99 in most places. So maybe we’re talking 50-60,000 in the U.S.
Those are all base numbers for the people that we should expect will purchase the network as soon as it’s available. Using those numbers to extrapolate the final number you are going to reach is more than 2 million is difficult. But as noted many times, this is uncharted water.
They noted that at those prices, break-even on the network will be roughly 1 million subscribers. They don’t expect that many right away, but expect continued growth until hitting a plateau in 2015. The projection is with 2 million subscribers, that would be $125 million in added annual revenue and $50 million in pre-tax profit. At 4 million, it would be $250 million in added revenue and $150 million of that would be pre-tax profit.
It should be noted that they are not projecting a start date for the network, not even saying it would be before the end of 2013. They also don’t expect it to roll out nationally. The plan, as stated here before, is that the network would offer every PPV but WrestleMania, and once it is available on a national basis and the fan base has converted, they will be down to one PPV per year. As noted before, if they do that, most likely that event will be far bigger and WrestleMania, which did about 650,000 buys in the U.S. alone last year, could increase significantly with the idea there is only one such show during the year, similar to boxing’s gains per event on PPV by running fewer major shows.
The feeling is if, say, the network opens and is available on only a few systems and in, let’s just say, 30% of the U.S. homes, it will lose money at first and that’s not an issue because they are expecting that in the first year or so. But after a year in those homes, they will have the data on how well it is received. If it bombs in those places, then they can cut losses early. If it does so-so, they can behave accordingly. If it does well, that will give them leverage because everyone else will want to jump aboard.
Barrios also said the company is projecting on spending around $15 million to $20 million in the movie business this year, but also intimated, after several changing strategies, none of which have worked yet, that this is the last attempt, talking about possibly exiting the movie business if things don’t go well in 2013.
For the first quarter of 2013, they noted they expect lower home entertainment revenue, more expenses in television production, and a higher tax rate. They expect a decline from last year of $6-8 million in EBITDA (before-tax profit) and with a higher tax rate on what they do make.
Overall, because of costs of starting up the network, they overall EBITDA to not be significantly different for the year of 2013, but it may be if they ramp up spending for the network. But cash flow they expect to be done $50 million to $60 million over the course of the year, the biggest being replacing the corporate jet with a new aircraft at a cost of $32.5 million to $39 million. The rest of the difference would be money spent to fund growth they are expecting around 2015. They are also going to spend more money to create content, believing the more content they have, the more money they’ll make. Two other areas they are going to increase spending on are talent development, a division they woefully neglected for years that Vince McMahon never treated as that important, and that really derailed under John Laurinatis. But under HHH, this has become a major priority. They are also going to spend more money on marketing the product.
They really pushed how they are growing like crazy in social media, going from non-existent two years ago, to 65 million Facebook and Twitter followers (that is adding up every follower for every piece of talent or anything related to the company, meaning many people are being counted 30 to 50 times) to 130 million this year. But again, going from zero to 130 million, revenue during that same period of all that growth is essentially the same.
Their belief is that adding the third hour of Raw, the Wednesday night hour and the Saturday morning 30 minutes that the total viewers are way up. But again, is that increase the same core of viewers, just being counted more? They claim the Ion show reaches an entirely new demographic.
They also released studies that they did regarding fans. As noted, their studies, which seem flawed, claim that 51% of the homes in the U.S. have one WWE fan, and that in Mexico, that would be 79%, in Canada that would be 58%, in the U.K. that would be 48%, in India that would be 78%, in South Korea that would be 63%, in Germany that would be 51%, in Australia that would be 55% and in New Zealand that would be 44%. The India number is crazy because in discussing that subject with people from India, they say almost nobody even knows pro wrestling, and those that do, know Dara Singh. There is definitely a very small percentage people who are avid WWE fans. When TNA ran Ring Ka King, the reaction from Jeff Jarrett was similar, in the sense a very small percentage of people knew WWE and to most people, they had never seen American style pro wrestling and what they knew when Ring Ka King started was more the South African group that was on network television before Ring Ka King. It was noted to us that if 51% of the homes in Germany have WWE fans, how come the highest rated WWE TV show each week does 110,000 viewers in a country with a population of 82 million? It was also asked that with 3.5 million homes in the country having PPV capability, how come WWE PPV shows in Germany usually do less than 8,000 buys?
The claim is nine percent of U.S. homes (10,300,000 homes) have a passionate WWE fan in them. But how can that be when only 3,313,000 homes tuned into Raw this week? They claimed another 28,550,000 homes have a casual fan or fans, and 20,550,000 homes have a lapsed fan. They claimed similar stats like that for the other countries listed.
As far as the fourth quarter comparisons go, WWE took in $115.1 million in revenue and had a $600,000 profit for the quarter. For the fourth quarter last year, they took in $112.9 million in revenue and had a loss of $8.6 million. But if you throw out network expenses ($2.3 million) and the movie business losses ($500,000), the profit would have been $1.3 million this year and it would have been $1.8 million last year ($4 million in network expenses; $12.2 million in movie losses.
In comparing the fourth quarter of 2012 to that of 2011, house show revenue dropped 13%, from $26.9 million to $23.3 million. Attendance decreased both foreign and domestic and a big blow was a lucrative tour of Mexico in 2011 that wasn’t replicated in 2012.
This year had 52 North American events and 23 international, as compared with 47 in North America and 31 international last year.
For North America, the house show average for the quarter was 5,700 paid and $254,448. Last year the average was 6,000 paid and $257,220. The difference was the average purchased ticket price went up from $42.87 to $44.64. Total North American revenue was up from $12.7 million to $13.9 million due to running five more shows.
International revenue dropped from $14.2 million to $9.4 million, based on fewer shows, and a decline in average attendance from 6,300 to 4,600, even with an increase in prices. Outside of North America, the average ticket price was $69.81.
Merchandise at the house shows dropped from $3.9 million to $3.8 million. That’s due to running three fewer shows. With lower attendance, the per spectator spending on merchandise was up 5% for the quarter.
PPV revenue dropped from $14.6 million to $13.0 million, largely due to the dropping of Vengeance. Even though the number of buys for the three comparable events dropped 3%, there were more late recorded buys, plus a higher percentage of buyers purchased the show in HD for $54.95 in North America instead of $44.95.
The complete PPV chart for the last few years. W represents worldwide buys and D represents domestic (U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico) buys. The numbers listed are in thousands.
12W 12D 11W 11D 10W 10D
Rumble 483 299 476 281 465 259
Chamber 194 138 212 145 287 160
Mania 1219 715 1124 679 885 495
Backlash/Ex Rules 271 159 216 108 201 112
Judg Day/Over Lmt 172 124 145 72 218 121
Ex/Rules/Cap Pun/NWO 200 110 176 85 158 88
MITB 206 114 205 146 164 98
Sslam 392 296 311 180 349 209
NOC 207 112 169 109 165 99
No Mercy/Hell Cell 200 152 182 98 210 109
Vengeance ---- ---- 121 65 137 71
Survivor 209 121 312 179 244 127
Armageddon/TLC 175 73 179 98 195 101
TOTALS 3928 2413 3828 2245 3678 2049
A few things notable from this chart, is that the Brock Lesnar effect at SummerSlam was huge, increasing the domestic buys from 180,000 to 296,000, or 64%, and overall buys from 311,000 to 392,000. However, even with that increase of 81,000 total buys, because of the cost of Lesnar, the actual profitability of the show was said by the company to have been very slightly less than the year before. Survivor Series this year, when compared to the show the prior year that had The Rock, saw total buys down 103,000 yet this year’s show was significantly more profitable than last year. Similarly, this year’s Royal Rumble will be significantly less profitable than the year before. However, WrestleMania the past two years, with The Rock, not only grossed more revenue than any two shows in wrestling history, but were also the two most profitable shows in wrestling history.
If you take out the three shows this past year with Rock and Lesnar and Survivor Series last year with The Rock and then compare, you get 1,837,000 buys on comparable events factoring them out worldwide and 1,122,000 in North America. For the year before, you would get 1,865,000 worldwide buys and 1,099,000 North American buys. So eliminating them, North America is up 2% and overseas is down 6.7%.
So factoring out the two big guys, on a worldwide basis, PPV was actually down. However, and this is why Rock and Lesnar are worth it even if the individual shows are less profitable, is that investors looking for growth, don’t look at the profit margin of the shows, they looked at and saw that PPV shows growth this year, which the company attributed to social media. Since social media grew huge and is continuing to grow, from the outside, it looks like this is something that will continue to grow, since you’ll never hear The Rock or Brock Lesnar mentioned in these calls, only better creative and social media.
But overall, for 2012, even though the company ran one less show, total buys were up 7.5% for the year in North America. Internationally, buys were down 4.3% for the year. But the company hit rock bottom on PPV in 2010, the same time UFC was setting all-time records. UFC had the big drop in 2011 and 2012, and WWE did pick up during the same period.
Television revenue increased 20%, going from $33.9 million in the quarter to $40.6 million. This $6.7 million increase comes mostly from adding the third hour to Raw, adding Main Event, adding Saturday Morning Slam and international growth. We don’t have the breakdown for the two quarters of U.S. vs. overseas to isolate exactly how much extra the U.S. changes accounted for from this increase.
Home video revenue increased from $6.5 million to $9.6 million for the quarter, a 47.6% gain. This was mostly due to sales of older DVDs and better sell through rates as well as a 43% increase in shipments.
Licensing revenue dropped from $9.5 million to $8.4 million. There were declines in video game sales, WWE clothing and products. Video game royalties dropped $500,000 for the quarter due to not having the secondary WWE All-Stars game. Shipments of WWE 13 were 128,000 units for the quarter, down 21% from the same period last year for the Smackdown vs. Raw 12 game even though there were two releases. Toy sales were up 11% due to the Brawlin Buddies line by Mattel.
The bankruptcy of THQ didn’t affect this quarter, but will affect the first quarter of 2013 because video game revenues will be $0. The company is estimating a loss of $4 million to $5 million in what it was owed by THQ and not paid. There were other bigger losses based on guarantees in the THQ contract over the next several years, but WWE used those to be able to make its own deal with Take Two Interactive. However, they will recognize an $8 million advance that wasn’t recognized on the books in the next quarter so it won’t look bad.
Barrios said, “When the time came for us to move and we talked to all the folks you’d think we’d need to talk to, Take Two blew us away, they’re getting us on as many platforms as possible.”
Barrios said regarding the move from THQ to Take Two, that if retail sales of the game are the same, then WWE revenues under its new contract will be similar.
“Structurally, it’s a little bit different,” he said. “But if retail sales are the same, our economics will be about the same.”
Magazine revenue dropped 15% from $2.0 million to $1.7 million. But it’s not as bad as it seems, because they’ve greatly cut back on costs of the magazine and actually have been more profitable this past year with lower revenues.
Big revenue gains that weren’t there are the You Tube channel contract, which is a set amount You Tube pays them to provide a channel, and the licensing fee from Hulu Plus. Those exact numbers aren’t available, but they are significant. They are listed under web site revenue, which went from $2.7 million to $6.2 million, primarily for the aforementioned reason. But there was also an increase in ad sales so it wasn’t the complete $3.5 million gain.
WWE Shop revenues dropped from $6.2 million to $5.9 million for the quarter. There was an increase in actual orders and sales, but a 10% decline in the average price of an order.
The movie business lost $600,000 for the quarter this year, which is a lot better than the $13.8 million quarterly loss from a year ago.
For the full year of 2012 compared to 2011, as far as where revenue came from.
2012 2011
North America 75.6% 72.4%
Europe/Middle East/Asia 14.6% 15.7%
Asia Pacific 7.7% 8.0%
Latin America 2.1% 3.8%
WrestleMania this past year generated $30.1 million for the company in PPV revenue, a record, breaking the $28.0 million record from the year before. There was an increase in buys, but also growth was because of higher prices in some markets and a higher percentage of more expensive HD buys.
Currently, the WWE has 721 employees, a number that does not include performers, who are independent contractors.
For the year, WWE live events brought in $103.7 million, down from $104.7 million the prior year. North American attendance, and this includes WrestleMania, averaged 5,900 and $267,801 this year compared to 6,000 and $252,660, with the difference being higher prices. Outside North America, it went from 6,700 and $460,558 to 6,000 and $444,900. If you remove WrestleMania, last year’s average attendance would be 5,768. If you remove WrestleMania this year, the average would be 5,661.
Merchandise at house shows for the year went up from $18.3 million to $18.8 million even with lower attendance, due to an increase to $10.66 when it comes to average amount spent at the arenas on merchandise per paying customer.
Television rights fees went from $80.3 million to $88.9 million in North America, mostly based on adding the new shows. International rights fees went from $51.2 million in 2011 to $50.6 million in 2012. The drop was due to losing television in South Korea.
Video game revenue dropped $7.8 million for the year, with only having one game instead of two, plus a 22% decrease in sales of the primary game due to weakening sales internationally and fewer platforms. But with that, the company also decreased expenses by $3.8 million from video games due to lower royalties to talent.
In 2011, the company sold 2,344,800 units of magazines, or an average of 83,743 per magazine released. In 2012, they sold 2,003,500. With three fewer magazines released, the average was 80,140.
Home video revenue was up from $30.4 million for the year to $33.0 million since they released 35 titles this year as compared to 28 last year, and had international growth.
For the year, between the Hulu deal and the You Tube deal, the company took in about $5.7 million more. It’s listed as WWE.com revenue going from $12.5 million for the year to $19.7 million.
For WWE shop, even though revenue dropped from $15.6 million for the year to $14.8 million, profits were up from $3.0 million to $3.6 million due to lowering of costs of materials.
In actual profits from each division, in millions of dollars:
2012 2011
Live events (tickets/merch) $37.0 $36.8
PPV $46.0 $40.7
Television $57.3 $55.9
Other event related -$5.1 -$2.7
Licensing $36.0 $40.3
Home video $16.7 $15.1
Magazine $0.7 $0.2
Other product related $0.4 $0.5
WWE.com $10.6 $6.5
WWEShop $3.6 $3.0
And an update on the movie business, with a breakdown for each movie (numbers in millions), with figures updated through 12/31:
Revenue Profit/loss
See No Evil (Kane) $7.2 -$2.8
The Marine (Cena) $38.3 $15.4
The Condemned (Austin) $10.9 -$6.5
Behind Enemy Lines 3 (Anderson) $2.6 $0.3
12 Rounds (Cena) $12.6 -$2.8
Marine 2 (DiBiase) $2.6 $0.7
Legendary (Cena) $6.6 -$2.1
Knucklehead (Big Show) $4.3 -$4.1
The Chaperone (HHH) $4.2 -$3.8
That’s What I Am (Orton) $0.9 -$5.0
Inside Out (HHH) $1.6 -$3.8
The Reunion (Cena) $2.1 -$4.7
Bending the Rules (Edge) $0.9 -$4.7
No Holds Barred (re-release) $0.4 $0.1
Barricade $0.8 -$3.5
So, aside from Cena, the only movies that made the company any money were starred by Ken Anderson and Ted DiBiase Jr.
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WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS HISTORY
Year Total Revenue Profit/Loss
1994-95 $87,352,000 -$4,431,000
1995-96 $85,815,000 $3,319,000
1996-97 $81,863,000 -$6,505,000
1997-98 $126,231,000 $8,446,000
1998-99 $251,474,000 $56,030,000
1999-00 $373,100,000 $68,973,000
2000-01 $456,043,000 $15,987,000*
2001-02 $409,622,000 $42,233,000**
2002-03 $374,364,000 -$19,455,000***
2003-04 $374,909,000 $48,192,000
2004-05 $366,431,000 $39,147,000****
2005-06 $400,051,000 $47,047,000*****
2006 $262,937,000 $31,617,000
2007 $485,655,000 $52,137,000******
2008 $526,457,000 $45,416,000
2009 $471,161,000 $50,303,000
2010 $477,655,000 $53,452,000
2011 $483,921,000 $24,832,000*******
2012 $484,000,000 $31,400,000********
Note: WWE operated on a fiscal year from May 1 to April 30 until changing to January 1 to December 31 in 2006. The 2006 numbers reflect the period from May 1 to December 31, or an eight month total
*Wrestling profits for the year were $84,981,000, but the WWF’s share of the 50% of the XFL losses was $68,994,000. Total XFL losses for 2001, the only season of the league, were $137,988,000, half of which were covered by NBC.
**Wrestling profit for the year was $42,948,000. Also figured in was a tax break of $4,638,000 for shutting down the XFL, offset by losses of $4,903,000 from operation of The World restaurant.
***Wrestling profits were $16,362,000; offset by $35,557,000 through the operation and closing of The World restaurant.
****Wrestling profits were $37,778,000; also figured in was a tax break of $1,369,000 for shutting down The World restaurant.
*****Includes $16,000,000 in profits from the movies “The Marine” and “See No Evil” and $15,700,000 in losses for the movie “The Condemned
*******Includes $23,400,000 in losses in the movie division and $4,000,000 in start-up costs for the new WWE Network.
********Includes $8,200,000 in start-up costs for new WWE Network and $1,200,000 in losses in the movie division.
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The 2013 Royal Rumble on 1/27 in Phoenix did the best numbers in five years, but I’m not sure how big a success to label it given the C.M. Punk vs. The Rock main event.
The WWE’s first estimate for the show is 498,000 total buys, broken down as 322,000 in North America and 176,000 for the rest of the world. That’s up 7.7% from the 299,000 buys in North America for the 2012 show, and down 4.3% internationally from the 184,000 overseas buys.
Keep in mind this is comparing final totals from last year to preliminary totals for this year. Generally speaking, with late reported buys added in, the number will increase. There is absolutely no consistency to what the increase is, but most often it falls between another 5-10% growth from the original number. It could also drop from the first announced totals. If we look at a comparison with the numbers at the same point of release, the show is up 18% domestic and 6% internationally.
This year’s show was really all about Punk vs. Rock, to the point that they didn’t push the Rumble itself, won by John Cena, as hard as usual. The only other match on the show that made even the slightest difference was the Alberto Del Rio vs. Big Show world title match, and that made no difference when it comes to buys, as the show was Punk vs. Rock as the main event and Rumble as the No. 2 match, the first time Rumble has been really No. 2 on the show in a few years.
Last year, the Rumble itself was promoted harder, and the biggest match pushed aside from the Rumble was Cena vs. Kane in a last man standing match, with the title matches being Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler for the WWE title and a three-way cage match for the world title with Daniel Bryan vs. Show vs. Mark Henry.
But with Rock going for the title, every expectation was for it to be the biggest Rumble number since 2008, if not equaling 2008. As it turned out, it is the biggest, but it’s not going to come close to that 2008 number, which was way up due to Jeff Hardy being super hot at the time (and given how the show did before and since, I don’t know that anyone truly captured how hot Hardy was at the time) and going after champion Randy Orton. That show did 403,000 domestic buys and 172,000 international (575,000 total). So this year’s Rumble is the largest pro wrestling PPV aside from WrestleMania since the 2008 Rumble.
The overall gain from last year domestically so far (23,000 as of first announcement) based on Rock vs. Punk was nowhere close to the 116,000 domestic gain over the previous year (and with a weaker undercard in 2012) of Brock Lesnar vs. HHH at SummerSlam. As far as the number of buys that would pay for Rock’s pay for the show, 15,000 buys won’t come close to covering it. Rock in 2011 picked up the Survivor Series number from 244,000 to 312,000 worldwide and the show’s profit margin was way, way down, the lowest of any PPV show in years, even with the big increase in buys. So if 68,000 buys isn’t cutting it to even come close to the added expenses of Rock and other added expenses of having a bigger show, than based on the numbers released, this isn’t going to come close.
Although the deal was based more on a story that builds to Mania, which includes the Cena win over Rock in taking the championship, so the real story on Rock beating Punk is more about how Mania does and how the title win by Cena is executed and what it means.
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Raw on 3/11 did a 3.34 rating and 4.79 million viewers. It was down from last week, but still a strong number for a three-hour show.
The show was down 7% in Males 18-49 and stayed the same in Women 18-49. It did a 2.3 among male teens, 2.8 in Males 18-49, 1.3 among girl teens and 1.2 in Women 18-49. The viewership was 66.0% male, meaning men down and women were up from usual levels. It was third for the night on cable, but did beat the J.R. Ewing funeral on “Dallas” (3.56 million viewers).
In the segment-by-segment, the show opened at 3.46 for the Paul Bearer tribute to Undertaker and the C.M. Punk interruption. Big Show vs. Seth Rollins lost 9,000 viewers. Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler gained 132,000 viewers. The segment with Fandango coming out with Brodus Clay & Tensai lost 298,000 viewers. The New Age Outlaws vs. Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow, which was really the Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman promo was the big segment of the show, gaining 326,000 viewers to a show-high 3.57 quarter. Mark Henry vs. Kofi Kingston and Ryback vs. Heath Slater and the Henry/Ryback face-off lost 179,000 viewers. Alberto Del Rio vs. Antonio Cesaro lost 265,000 viewers. The John Cena/Rock video package lost 10,000 viewers. Randy Orton & Sheamus vs. Rhodes & Sandow in the 10 p.m. slot gained 106,000 viewers to a 3.32. The Highlight Reel with Chris Jericho, Wade Barrett, Miz and Brad Maddox and all the movie trailers gained 81,000 viewers. Jericho vs. Miz lost 359,000 viewers. Jack Swagger vs. Sin Cara lost 78,000 viewers. C.M. Punk vs. Kane in the overrun gained 153,000 viewers which is a very weak overrun gain, finishing at 3.18. The issue was probably going 15 minutes is too long after a three hour show, plus they took a rare commercial break during the overrun.
A replay of Robot Combat League after Raw did 1.21 million viewers starting at 11:15 p.m.
Smackdown on 3/8 did a good 2.09 rating and 2.84 million viewers. The show tied for third place for the day on cable.
Impact on 3/7 did a 1.13 rating and 1.43 million viewers. The show did a 0.60 in Males 18-34 and 1.00 in Males 35-49.
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WrestleMania 29 is now officially sold out, with a gate of $11 million. There will be some seats released closer to the event after production is set up, and if people are interested in non-scalper tickets, those in WWE say to start checking at Ticketmaster toward the end of the month. Selling out four weeks in advance is the farthest advance sellout of a Mania in years. I expected the show to be the biggest ever, not so much because of the lineup, although with Rock, Lesnar and Undertaker all on the show, it was going to be big. But don’t underestimate the value of coming from the New York market. The last few years, Mania hasn’t legitimately sold out. There were 3,070 tickets left on the secondary market but this is a scalpers windfall. The cheapest seats are going for $189. Third row is $4,200, second row is $7,000 and front row ranged from $18,500 to $50,000. This is up there when it comes to gate and scalper prices with the top tier boxing shows in history.
This is where the lineup stands right now. The top matches are Rock vs. Cena for the WWE title, Lesnar vs. HHH with probably a couple of stipulations to be named, Undertaker vs. Punk, Del Rio vs. Swagger for the world title, The Shield vs. Sheamus & Show & Orton and Ryback vs. Henry. If there is a Divas title match, it’s looking like Kaitlyn vs. newly turned heel Layla, although that program is planned, but at Mania they also may just do the multiple person deal. Kane & Bryan look to be having a tag title match with Langston & Ziggler, although that’s not official. They are doing Barrett vs. Jericho vs. Miz for the IC title on Raw on 3/18, so if there’s an IC title match, it’ll probably come out of that one and end up Barrett vs. Miz, because as of today, Jericho vs. Fandango is scheduled for Mania, which I’m guessing means Fandango gets a big win on the showcase event. As far as other programs being teased, they started a Clay & Tensai & Cameron & Naomi vs. Rhodes & Sandow & Bellas program. That covers everyone being pushed.
The company is now having beginning students train with headgear on to lessen potential head injuries until they learn how to correctly take bumps. This change has been credited to Dr. Joseph Maroon and Paul Levesque, who has been given full control over the developmental system. Maroon said it was a philosophical decision by the company to protect athletes as much as possible. Don’t think the class action lawsuit by the NFL players, isn’t something they, and every contact sport should be following closely. Should it be successful, it will lead to similar actions in every contact sports. You can’t undo the past, but you can argue a lack of knowledge in the past. You can’t argue that today. So this is smart, not only because it’s smart for the health of talent but also smart for an organization having any foresight. Every training facility in pro wrestling should follow WWE’s lead on this one. They’ve noted that in developmental, the incidences of concussions was significantly higher than for the veterans, because injuries during the learning phase of wrestling are usually pretty high. Wrestling does have an advantage over football or MMA in the sense while you can never eliminate concussions, things like taking greater precautions in the beginning phrase of training and eliminating moves in the ring that involve head trauma that can be avoided are all responsible things that should be implemented as much as possible. This move is really quite the positive and one that I hope every wrestling school will follow the lead on. The company put out a video with Maroon, Levesque and Bruno Sammartino talking about the program.
The reason WWE had noted looking for a new Vice President of Creative is because Eric Pankowski, who had been in the position for the past year, was let go after TV last week. He was basically the liaison between the writers and the McMahons (HHH, who doesn’t really deal with the writers, and Vince & Stephanie). They made a big deal when hiring him, with his background as a senior executive at Reveille and Warner Brothers who launched programming. He was the McMahon’s golden boy in creative for the first few months. It’s hard to know exactly what changed it other than things changed a few months back. It doesn’t appear there was any one specific thing that happened other than he had young kids and it’s a killer job with young kids, and long-term staying on Vince’s good side isn’t easy. Plus, there was the frustration of working all week on a finished product, and then Monday, it gets completely changed. Plus there is the frustration of coming up with angles, and then having them dropped, forgotten or changed completely, and it happening constantly. That’s the difference between wrestling and a regular TV show in the sense if they have a direction, it usually doesn’t do an about face at the last minute. Still, creative, at least the big picture when it comes to the money angles for Mania and overall product right now is better than it has been in a while. He was blamed for the bad Undertaker vs. Punk angle, as he presented the idea of having the four-way match on TV last week with the winner getting the Undertaker match instead of creating a long-term personal issue storyline. At one point the “respect” thing was to lead to that, but the “respect” thing ended up being dropped and they did no angles like everyone expected with Undertaker costing Punk a match or Punk doing something to lure Undertaker out of retirement. Of course, Vince is the guy who approves everything and constantly changes everything, but when the four-way was flat on TV (it did decently as far as gaining an audience, not great, but certainly not bad), combined with so many people thinking that was a bad way to set up Undertaker’s match, that may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. But the bloom was off the rose a few months back according to those internally. He did garner a reputation for being territorial, pushing real hard for his ideas and not being good for taking other people’s ideas and pushing them as hard to Vince. Even though he was no longer the golden boy, there were no hints he was in trouble or going to be let go until it happened and the general reaction was surprise, although obviously the people who put together job postings knew well before it happened, given the listing for his successor was up hours before he was still talking with talent on upcoming ideas. He was still talking business on 3/7 and WWE had the job search thing up on 3/6. The key writers right now are Ed Koskey and David Krietman. Now, the expectations are that a lot more changes are coming because Vince now believes the creative process needs an overhaul and he wants to change it, but the feeling is he’s doing it at the worst time because of all the pressure of Mania season. That’s why the entire original undercard was redone.
Regarding the death of Bill Moody (Paul Bearer), it was the most read news story on the Los Angeles Times web site on 3/6, even ahead of the mayoral elections. As far as numbers went, it did similar numbers for the newspaper as the death of Randy Savage. A lot of people were surprised at how much mainstream coverage his death got. There was a public awareness of the death like very few in recent history, really only Savage in the past few years. It really speaks to the uniqueness of the character and how well remembered the Undertaker/Paul Bearer pairing was. My experience with the mainstream media on stories like this is if people have heard of a wrestler, they’ll go a few graphs and forget about it, but if there is a big public reaction coming out of it, then they’ll go farther. That’s why, both in local markets and worldwide, some wrestler deaths get delayed coverage in the sense they aren’t that well covered at first but maybe second or third day the coverage explodes. A lot of it was just the memorable Paul Bearer name, and even people who weren’t wrestling fans kind of knew there was a wrestler named The Undertaker who had a manager named Paul Bearer. I heard from people that I know who were not wrestling fans asking about him simply because they had seen the news covered in mainstream outlets. The pro wrestling version of where the name came from (really the Tampa Creature Feature host) is that Moody had arrived in WWE and they were trying to come up with a name for him. Supposedly it was a discussion in a bathroom. Mike Hegstrand (Road Warrior Hawk) was sitting on the toilet and Bruce Prichard was on the other side of the door having a discussion and Hegstrand blurted out “Paul Bearer” and Prichard thought it was brilliant, took it to Vince McMahon and that’s where it came from. Of course what is weird is the amount of WWE talent that at that time (and still today) were living in the Tampa area and the original Dr. Paul Bearer was a television institution there dating back to the 60s.
As far as Percy Pringles go, there were at least two of them in the 70s, a prelim wrestler in the Central States (who apparently looked like Bill Moody but wasn’t Bill Moody although he looked so much like him that Bruiser Brody, who worked with Bill Moody for years in Texas and saw the other Percy Pringle, thought they were the same guy), and a pseudonym of a wrestling newsletter writer who I don’t think would have been Bill Moody either.
Moody’s sons, Michael and Daniel Moody (the latter is independent wrestler D.J. Pringle in Alabama) were flown to Indianapolis for Raw since they were doing the tribute to their father.
Regarding Paul Bearer in the WWE Hall of Fame, from talking with one of his longtime good friends, if it was up to him, his wish would be to go in the same year as Undertaker, and not this year, for what it’s worth. If he was going to be announced for this year, one would think it would have been on the 3/11 show, with the timing and his two children being flown in. Whatever their plans are, he wasn’t in them and they decided not to change them.
As coincidence would have it, Moody’s final performance as a manager was on 2/23 in Chicago for Pro Wrestling Blitz. This was where he got the upper respiratory infection. He managed Buddy Roberts Jr., who is legitimately the son of the former Freebird. At one time Moody, as Pringle, managed his father in Texas. Roberts wrestled Judas Yorick in what was billed as a Bad Street Casket match.
At the house shows this weekend, they opened the shows announcing the death of Paul Bearer and played a tribute video.
Brian Gewirtz also has been back, but that was expected. He was taken of the staff but kept on with the company. When The Rock returned, I figured at the very least, Gewirtz would be back as his personal writer. He’s also been brought on by Rock for his reality show on TNT.
WWE has increased the price of WrestleMania this year in the U.K. to 17.95 pounds.
Even though it makes no sense given Lesnar is staying and scheduled to main event next year’s Mania, the plan still is for HHH to beat Lesnar. The feeling is he has to because Lesnar beat him the first time, “broke his arm” twice and broke Michaels’ arm as well. I don’t know if this is decided, and with all the creative changes even if it has, that doesn’t mean it’ll happen, but there has been talk of involving Michaels in the angle again this time so Michaels can have a role in Mania.
El Generico debuted in NXT on 3/7 without a mask, using his real name, Rami Sebei. He did a tag match, teaming with Kassius Ohno against The Wyatt Family. It really doesn’t mean much of anything, and is no indication more than just him showing them his wrestling without a mask. If they think he’s better with the mask, he’ll have it on. Almost guaranteed whatever happens, he’s not going to be Rami Sebei so it’s just trying things out.
The Rock wasn’t at TV this week because he’s in South Korea doing promotional work for G.I. Joe.
Regarding the developmental changes, they are building a new facility in Orlando that will be far more state-of-the-art than Steve Keirn’s current Tampa gym. There is no time frame on when it will be ready and everyone will be scheduled to move, other than it will be before the end of the year. The new facility is going to be similar to a major college and major professional sports training facility. It will be larger than the Tampa gym, with far more rings, plus there will be weight gym at the facility and they are in the process of hiring a team of strength and conditioning coaches. I don’t know of any pro wrestling company in history that has hired strength and conditioning coaches, and that the weight and cardio training is likely to be either mandatory, or it won’t serve you well if you don’t do it, so it’s mandatory in reality. There will be tape watching rooms and interview rooms, a trainers room. The feeling is that right now developmental, which has been weak for years, is now with the more extensive recruiting, the strongest it has ever been, even above the early 00s period where they had Orton, Cena, Batista and Lesnar all in OVW at the same time.
Most of the Colter material comes directly from Wayne Keown. He has to get everything approved, but he’s coming up with most of it. Colter and Swagger got a lot more heat at the house shows this past weekend than they had anywhere before.
The Bella Twins (Nicole & Brianna Garcia, 29), signed new deals and returned on Raw on 3/11. This dates back maybe two months. The company felt it was low on women talent and also didn’t feel the women in developmental were ready, so they made offers to bring back The Bellas, Kelly Kelly, 26, and Maryse, 30, who just got engaged to Miz. Those are the names we know of for sure were contacted and are still in play. There may be others we don’t know about, such as Beth Phoenix, although I don’t know for sure in her case. Kelly and Maryse declined the initial offers but in the end it’s really up to the amount offered as I believe talks are still open at this point with both of them, just terms haven’t been reached. Brianna is still the girlfriend of Bryan Danielson. Obviously Cena was dating Nikki at one point since he went to her high school reunion as her date, but I’m not sure what if anything, their status is.
Shad Gaspard, 32, who was released in 2010 when wanting to pursue a career in Hollywood, has told friends that he’s interested in returning.
In January, most business indicators were well above those of a year earlier, likely due to Rock being more in the mix, although that has nothing to do with DVD shipments being up as that’s just timing of releases. Average attendance for January within North America was up 1.9% from 5,307 to 5,409, so largely a wash. Raw went from a 3.15 average rating and 4.51 million viewers last year to a 3.26 average rating (up 3.5%) and 4.58 million viewers (up 1.6%). Smackdown went from a 2.09 average rating and 3.05 million viewers last year this year’s 2.02 rating (down 3.3%) and 2.94 million viewers (down3.6%). DVD shipments were up 55.7% from last year in January with 246,000 for the month. Over the last year, the most shipped (not best selling necessarily) DVD’s have been WrestleMania (237,000 shipped), C.M. Punk (124,000), Attitude Era (117,000) NWO (114,000) and Undertaker (105,000). The web site had 14.6 million unique viewers in January, up 21.7% from the year before. The web site averaged 677 orders per day of merchandise, up 23.5%. That, along with Raw ratings, is where the Rock presence is likely the difference maker, particularly web site traffic.
Although WWE on television pushed that “Dead Man Down” and “The Marine 3" are big hits, there is no indication of anything like that on the former. “Dead Man Down” debuted at No. 4 for the weekend at the box office, grossing $5,345,240 in its opening weekend, but that’s a bad number. Before the weekend started, the predictions were $6.5 million and when those numbers were talked about, they were considered very bad, and even an $8 million first week wasn’t considered good. It’s going to be a big money loser at the theaters. “The Marine 3,” while no numbers are available, internally, the early DVD sales from this past week were said above studio expectations and it was top 25 for the week.
“Snitch,” starring Dwayne Johnson, in week three, did $5,098,235, for fifth place, and as of the weekend had grossed $31,853,362.
Jericho continue to insist that he will never wrestle for a company other than WWE from this point forward. He’s been saying that for a few years. I have the quotes and believe it’s from an interview Jericho did with Konnan, but it could be from a different interview although I was told about the Konnan interview and these were very similar to what I was told. “The main reason why is that I always wanted to work for Vince McMahon ever since I was a kid. I’ve never worked for anybody else since I stepped through the doors in August of 1999 and I never will work for anyone else. I don’t want to go to Japan. I don’t want to go to Mexico for shots. I don’t want to go work in TNA. I’m a WWE guy. That’s the way it’s always going to be. I’m sure TNA is a great company to work for. I’m sure you can do really well there or make some great money or whatever. It doesn’t matter to me. I work for the big leagues. There’s no reason for me to go anywhere else.” Years later, he also talked about Chris Benoit. “I was like everybody else. Shocked. A sense of `what the hell happened?’ Denial. Betrayal. How can he do this? I look back at it now, and was really close with him, but he got considerably stranger and stranger the last six months of his life. I was like, `What’s with this guy? What’s wrong with him?’ And now I know the reason why. It’s because his brain got worse and worse.” Jericho read an article recently in Rolling Stone about concussions regarding a number of famous former NFL players like Mike Webster and Dave Duerson and it helped him come to grips with what happened and convinced him the concussions were the cause. I think as more and more time, and more and more evidence has come out, I’m thinking concussions were a main cause of what happened, and probably the death of Mike Awesome as well (there was a marriage falling apart, but I tend to believe the concussions amplified the depression caused by a marriage issue and led to his suicide). Jericho in the past categorized Benoit as his best friend in wrestling. He made it clear he’s not sure Benoit would have said Jericho was his best friend in wrestling, but he would have categorized Benoit as his. The impression I have is that nobody in wrestling was more adamant at finding out what happened, what was true, what wasn’t true, in the period after it happened.
John Layfield was unable to climb Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina. He was part of a team that spent two weeks climbing. They reached 18,400 feet (the peak is 22,837 feet) and were told by Park Rangers to get off the mountain because a bad storm was coming. They didn’t have enough time to take their camp down so they decided to stay in camp and ride out the storm for two days. Layfield noted that three Canadians in the storm who were far more experienced climbers did make the summit but that even if he tried to make the summit, he never would have gotten down, and that one other person lost their life trying to make the summit. Two others had died in January when a storm hit trying to reach the summit. Layfield said that he will arrange a time next year and attempt to scale the mountain again. He is expected to be back at TV next week.
Gerald Brisco was scouting at the NCAA Division II national tournament this past week and will be headed to the which takes place from 3/21 to 3/23 in Iowa City (finals live on ESPN). Apparently Brisco is high on a few college juniors as pro wrestling prospects. WWE is trying to not get a bad reputation with college wrestling coaches so they won’t heavily recruit people until their eligibility is complete.
Dustin Runnels is still hoping to have a match with half brother Cody at a WrestleMania. It was an idea batted around last year, and they even did some stuff to start the build before Vince McMahon nixed it. “He’s the only one left in the business that I would like to have a singles match with at WrestleMania. Period. No where else. I just want to work with my brother,” he said in an article in Newsday. Runnels, who battled serious drug issues for years, said he has been clean for five years is now down to 238 pounds, after being around 300 when he was at his most out of shape in TNA. Runnels also noted he’s frustrated at times with how his brother is being used. “Sometimes they got a little hot and cold with Cody. I just wish they would make up their minds.” Dustin is now attempting to make it as an actor.
Sarah Backman, 22, who hold World and European championships in arm wrestling, and also did a Gladiators type show in her home country of Sweden, was signed to a developmental deal. Backman is a muscular blond from Sweden who was signed out of the Los Angeles Diva Search camp the past few weeks that Bill DeMott ran.
The Miz did an interview for Cave Magazine. It was the usual stuff. He said that he came up with his look from Chuck Bass from the TV show Gossip Girl. He told his stylist that he wanted to look like Bass. He said his closest friends on the roster are Ryder and Ziggler. When asked who was the greatest wrestler of all-time, he responded, “Right on top is the Ultimate Warrior. I used to run around with streamers and paint on my face. There’s also The Rock. He’s one of the reasons I wanted to be a WWE superstar. And of course, there’s Ric Flair.
Speaking of Flair, a lot of the developmental talent will be doing wrestling matches at Fan Axxess for Mania including Flair’s daughter, who is using the name Charlotte.
Cena worked on 3/8 in Colorado Springs, then had to rush to Austin, TX for the SXSW Social Media conference on the morning on 3/9, and then rushed back on tour to headline the 3/9 show in Loveland, CO. He took a flight after the show, landed at 3 a.m., and at 7 a.m. was there with Stephanie McMahon and EVP of Digital Media Perkins Miller working on the presentation. He was joined by the two of them,. Cena when talking, pushed how WWE continues action during TV commercials on their app, something the NFL doesn’t do. I’m still trying to figure out why any sponsor would hear that and not feel it makes the NFL a superior product to advertise on. Perkins disagreed, saying that their way is better because the viewer stays engaged during commercials because they are looking at their phones instead of walking away from the TV during breaks. Stephanie pushed how social media allows fans to react to the show without being in the live crowd. Stephanie claimed WWE had increased revenue 25% directly due to social media growth. In 2010, before embarking on social media, the company took in $477.7 million and had a $53.5 million profit. In 2012, its second year of promoting the hell out of social media, the company took in $484.0 million and had a $31.4 million profit. The difference between those numbers is that they received $12.5 million more in TV rights fees, which, given the $6.3 million difference in total revenue, not just covers the entire increase but doubles it. TV rights fees are based on contracts that have nothing to do with social media. So if you take TV rights fees out, they are down in revenue from the before social media, even with charging higher prices at high shows and for merchandise, and they are also down in profits (part of that is because of money spent to get the network started). They talked about how they are able to keep their audience engaged for three hours, not mentioning that in the last two years they’ve gone from peaking their audience at the end to consistently losing audience throughout the show.
Two announcements made is that the Internet Mania pre-show will be one hour instead of 30 minutes. Mania will start at 6 p.m. with the Internet pre-show, meaning probably 2-3 matches instead of one, followed by the PPV from 7-11 p.m. There will also be an announcement probably this week of a new means of distribution of the show.
_________________ Drop In wrote: I'm picturing a 12 year old Bob Loblaw bitching out a Randy Savage Wrestling Buddy for botching his finisher. Also envisioning Bob Loblaw getting bitched at for lighting the living room table on fire for said finisher.
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I thought he did it because Nancy over cooked his New York strip.
