WWE Network impressions

[EmpireWF]

The Warrior documentary that aired last night is worth going out of your way to check out. Hour long, covered his career and had plenty of footage shot during WM week behind the scenes. Seeing Vince bring up growth hormone (talking about 1992) was something else. They even brought up Hogan's deposition conducted after the Self Destruction DVD and showed a couple clips from that.

HHH noted about Warrior being back for only a few days around guys he hadn't seen in 10-20 years meant a lot to Warrior because both he and guys who talked shit forever were burying hatchets left and right.

 

[NAHSTE]

I am enjoying this WWE original content. Specifically this one program which features these twins, "the Bellas" going to a waterpark.

:smughard:

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

They need a real uptick in total eyes on the product to reach 1M...Asking 25% of your audience to pay $10/mo AND having the appropriate hardware to use said product is asking way too much.

The 1M thing isn't even a real thing and has sort of taken on a life of its own.

First, it was "we expect to average 1M subscribers per month in 2014". Then the goalpost was moved to "We expect to have 1M subscribers by the end of 2014".

But the fact of the matter is, Chris Harrington & Dave Meltzer crunched the numbers, and the real break even (break even...not even profitable) due to revenue splits with ROKU, etc plus start up costs was really closer to 1.3 million. And now that Dish & DirecTV have stopped carrying PPV's, the new break even is 1.7 million based on estimated lost PPV revenue added to the pot.

Meltzer was saying that if InDemand drops the PPV's, that will effectively kill PPV for them for good, which will push the break even even higher. They were expecting a slow crawl to the elimination of PPV revenue. Instead, they're getting hit upside the head with a brick.

Even with the higher than expected 400k Mania PPV buys (which could end up settling lower, as the early estimates the last two years proved to be high and ended up adjusted down), they lost money on moving Mania to the Network. Yeah, they knew that would happen, but the break even on this thing keeps getting bigger - and the #1 selling point (by far) is in the rear view.

My gut tells me that people like Tyused who signed up for old content will not come back after the novelty wears off, and the modern product is not even close to being hot enough to get them to nearly 2M subs.

I'm not ready to call The Network a failure, because I figured it would be a crawl and not a sprint. But the 667k subs is looking worse and worse. They may have been 2-5 years too early rolling this out. Clearly it's the future, but the future isn't now.

 

[ThomasTomasz]

The 1M thing isn't even a real thing and has sort of taken on a life of its own.

First, it was "we expect to average 1M subscribers per month in 2014". Then the goalpost was moved to "We expect to have 1M subscribers by the end of 2014".

But the fact of the matter is, Chris Harrington & Dave Meltzer crunched the numbers, and the real break even (break even...not even profitable) due to revenue splits with ROKU, etc plus start up costs was really closer to 1.3 million. And now that Dish & DirecTV have stopped carrying PPV's, the new break even is 1.7 million based on estimated lost PPV revenue added to the pot.

Meltzer was saying that if InDemand drops the PPV's, that will effectively kill PPV for them for good, which will push the break even even higher. They were expecting a slow crawl to the elimination of PPV revenue. Instead, they're getting hit upside the head with a brick.

Even with the higher than expected 400k Mania PPV buys (which could end up settling lower, as the early estimates the last two years proved to be high and ended up adjusted down), they lost money on moving Mania to the Network. Yeah, they knew that would happen, but the break even on this thing keeps getting bigger - and the #1 selling point (by far) is in the rear view.

My gut tells me that people like Tyused who signed up for old content will not come back after the novelty wears off, and the modern product is not even close to being hot enough to get them to nearly 2M subs.

I'm not ready to call The Network a failure, because I figured it would be a crawl and not a sprint. But the 667k subs is looking worse and worse. They may have been 2-5 years too early rolling this out. Clearly it's the future, but the future isn't now.

I hate to be the guy who goes straight to the end point, but if the future isn't now, how long will they bleed money before calling it quits on the Network?

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

The 1M thing isn't even a real thing and has sort of taken on a life of its own.

First, it was "we expect to average 1M subscribers per month in 2014". Then the goalpost was moved to "We expect to have 1M subscribers by the end of 2014".

But the fact of the matter is, Chris Harrington & Dave Meltzer crunched the numbers, and the real break even (break even...not even profitable) due to revenue splits with ROKU, etc plus start up costs was really closer to 1.3 million. And now that Dish & DirecTV have stopped carrying PPV's, the new break even is 1.7 million based on estimated lost PPV revenue added to the pot.

Meltzer was saying that if InDemand drops the PPV's, that will effectively kill PPV for them for good, which will push the break even even higher. They were expecting a slow crawl to the elimination of PPV revenue. Instead, they're getting hit upside the head with a brick.

Even with the higher than expected 400k Mania PPV buys (which could end up settling lower, as the early estimates the last two years proved to be high and ended up adjusted down), they lost money on moving Mania to the Network. Yeah, they knew that would happen, but the break even on this thing keeps getting bigger - and the #1 selling point (by far) is in the rear view.

My gut tells me that people like Tyused who signed up for old content will not come back after the novelty wears off, and the modern product is not even close to being hot enough to get them to nearly 2M subs.

I'm not ready to call The Network a failure, because I figured it would be a crawl and not a sprint. But the 667k subs is looking worse and worse. They may have been 2-5 years too early rolling this out. Clearly it's the future, but the future isn't now.

This is just more telling that the figures are incredibly unrealistic for "break even" point. Now they are supposed to get 45% of their audience to spend $10/mo and have the appropriate hardware?

Just so unrealistic.

 

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

The Warrior documentary that aired last night is worth going out of your way to check out. Hour long, covered his career and had plenty of footage shot during WM week behind the scenes. Seeing Vince bring up growth hormone (talking about 1992) was something else. They even brought up Hogan's deposition conducted after the Self Destruction DVD and showed a couple clips from that.

HHH noted about Warrior being back for only a few days around guys he hadn't seen in 10-20 years meant a lot to Warrior because both he and guys who talked shit forever were burying hatchets left and right.

Just saw it tonight...was pretty damn good.

Vince was balling his eyes out for the entire second half of the doc.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

I hate to be the guy who goes straight to the end point, but if the future isn't now, how long will they bleed money before calling it quits on the Network?

It's not like Mania didn't make a shit ton of money, it did, but they left a lot on the table. Here is an estimate based on the 400k PPVnumber settling a bit lower (as is the pattern):

At 350,000 U.S. buys going with the average of $33 per head, that’s $11.55 million. At 667,287 network subscribers at $8.50 per head, that’s $5.67 million or $17.22 million total. At 600,000 U.S. viewers on PPV buys, with no network, at $33 a head, that’s $19.80 million in company revenue with considerably less expenses. However, the $2.6 million that Mania is down is far less than the amount every other month will be up. But there’s also the cost of the network itself, so a true evaluation, the actual profit margin for the show itself will be way down from the prior year.

They are all in. The Network is going nowhere. It's the right move, but it will be a slow crawl and they will leave millions on the table before this thing learns to walk.

 

[Kuzzy Powers]

Just to be clear.. Roddy Piper is apparently a werewolf?

 

[EmpireWF]

The Monday Night Wars documentary series will run for 20 episodes (read that somewhere)

WCW Nitro episodes will be added to the network next week starting with the first 100 hours (so the belief is the first year, through Sept. 1996).

As for the MNW series:

Episode 1 - Covered pre-MNW and up to late 1995 after Nitro's launch
Episode 2 - Premiered today, focuses on the nWo, goofy Raw (Fake Diesel & Fake Razor are covered) and goes up to early 1997 (ended with the repetitive nature of the angle, though no mention of Sting yet) with the start of WCW's ratings dominance
Episode 3 - Premieres tomorrow, focuses on the direction change in WWE to the attitude era