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I want to call Wade Keller a faggot on pure principle...because he's acting like a faggot.
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If it's an angle........
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I remember one of the various times in the past I subscribed to the Torch, I think it was after the Benoit deal (could have been after Guerrero's death, don't 100% remember).....for awhile, most of what Keller wrote about and did podcasts about was coming up with these ideas about how to change the business for the better.
Were some of them good ideas....in theory, perhaps (I remember one or two of them).
But I'm talking about he went on and on and on about how WWE needed to institute an off-season, have rotating rosters so one group could rest for a month or two while the other is on the road, etc.
Of course, I remember thinking (in the aftermath of a horrible event, but still)...shut the fuck up with this bullshit. Nothing like that is going to happen and it's a waste to spend so much time on it.
It just seemed like he was trying to do so much more than what he's there for (report news, analyze it and draw from his decades covering the business).
This isn't a massive story, whether you think it should be or shouldn't be. I'll assume Keller is spending the majority of the week talking about Bully's dumb ass though.
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Hes okay with him making sexist comments on air but not homophobic comments when no one can even hear him? What? I called him a baby on twitter.
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Nice to hear that higher ups in the WWE don't think there is any crossover in fan bases with MMA.Comment
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TMZ says Chris Masters saved his mother from her burning home by uprooting a tree and tossing it through a window.
Some freak neighbor set fire to the place.
Woah.
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I wish Chris would have put the guy in the Masterlock ChallengeComment
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So WWE plans to phase out PPVs and have everything on the network. I wonder how much cash they stand to lose from that, just from the people that buy two or three per year.Comment
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The network will be around $12-$15 per month. I think the break even number is something like 3 million subscribers. Go back a few pages, I posted the breakdown.
It's a calculated risk to mess with the #1 revenue stream. But without the PPV's, nobody is buying the network. They will never admit that, but they needed that hook. WWE 24/7 has like 50,000 subscribers worldwide or something. A network with no PPV's wouldn't be drastically different in terms of content.
They will get 100,000 or so sure fire subscribers, the people who buy every PPV who will save $30 per month. How they plan to attract the other 2.9 million is a mystery to me. I'm not paying $15 p/m for the network based on what we think is going to be on it. The PPV's are not a draw for me, I don't even watch most of them for free illegally.Comment
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Sorry, break even is ONE million subscribers. Here is Meltzer's breakdown from the quarterly investors call a few weeks ago:
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.Comment
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1 million subscribers is cake considering all the sportsbars and restaurants that will likely subscribe to itComment
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I believe you, but I'm not sure that's typical. Zero bars show WWE in my town, to my knowledge. Some of these shows are doing like 90,000 domestic, I just don't see the demand for bars to jump on the network unless the product gets much hotter.
The bars that currently show the PPV's will obviously buy it. But how many of those 100,000 regular buyers are bars? I don't think many others will hop on.Comment
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