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On Thursday WWE released 11 talents, wishing them well in their future endeavors (and not for nothing, it's time to retire that oh-so-insincere line from the posted reporting of what is in essence a firing from one's job). We have heard that more across-the-board cuts are coming throughout the company. The primary reason for the belt-tightening is the success of The WWE Network, or lack thereof.
On April 7, WWE announced that they had 667,000 subscribers to The Network. While those were supposed to be domestic numbers only, there are an unknown (to us) number of people from outside of the United States that are using VPN services to get access to the Network via IP addresses based in the United States. The point being that the 2/3 of a million people subscribed in April is not made up solely of people from the US. Of course, that means that there are actually less American subscribers than reported, and it also means that when WWE rolls the service outside of the US they will have a cannibalization effect where some of their "US" subscribers will leave and sign up in their own country.
There are some within the company that have intimated to us that when the WWE second quarter numbers are released, the number of subscribers will actually go down (which to be clear we can't confirm at this time). When this was mentioned on audio yesterday, subscribers asked how it is possible that the numbers could drop given that people made a six-month commitment when they signed up. It's easy to explain. If there is no money on the debit or credit card someone signed up with, when WWE tries to draw payment they will not get it. Eventually, the subscriber in question is cut off, reducing the numbers.
To make the situation of growth for the Network more dire, as Vince McMahon himself stated the best time to get people to try The Network is in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania. Those weeks are a long, long time away now. From now until January, when the Royal Rumble takes place, there is not much of an impetus (other than the rollout outside of the US) to get the subscriber numbers up.
So with these facts in hand, WWE has started cost-cutting measures. For those wondering, it's too soon to "give up on The Network", for a few reasons. For one thing, the company has made a huge commitment to it and in many ways put their reputation on the line with its success. To do a 180 just a few months in would be disastrous for the company, especially when they have not taken the proper steps to make The Network successful. Also, part of the reason that they went to The Network in the first place is due to the declining revenue coming in from the PPV business. In an era where illegal streams pop up for every show and files of the events appear on torrent sites shortly after the PPVs end, the future of PPV revenue is murky at best.
With that said, all hope is not lost. In fact, WWE is in complete control of whether The Network succeeds or fails, but it will be up to Vince McMahon to make the changes that are needed for that to happen. Let's get into some numbers.
WWE's highest audience for Raw in recent years was a little over 6 million viewers back in July of 2012 when they went to three hours. It's fair to say, no matter what WWE's "surveys tell us", that 6 million is pretty close to the ceiling of people that will potentially pay for The Network. If you get 20% of them, added in to those outside of the US, The Network is a success. If you don't, it probably will not be.
Right now, they have maybe 10 percent of those people signed up.
The sad irony in all of this, and it truly is sad, is that Vince McMahon has unwittingly proven all of the advertisers who don't want to pay to be seen on his product correct. Think about it. WWE's audience base tops out at a little over 6 million people. Accounting for people outside of the US in the current domestic subscriber mix, that means that even with giving its top product (PPVs) away for a greatly reduced price, WWE can only get about ten percent of their fan base (if that) to spend money on their own product. If you are selling Jeeps and you see those numbers, you are not going to try to get that audience to buy your product as they won't even support the product that they are supposed to be fervent about.
But again, the problem can be fixed.
Remember when the company's catchphrase was, "Anything can happen in the WWF"? The thing was, it was pretty much the truth. Each week when you turned on Raw, you had no idea what would take place on the show. The product was surprising and could go in any number of directions. Contrast it to today, where 99% of the things that happen on WWE programming are completely and utterly predictable. Now, it's more like "The same old things happen every week in WWE".
Back then, when "anything could happen", WWE went on a long sellout streak of TV tapings, PPVs and house shows. Tickets went on sale, and tickets sold out. The fans could not get enough of the WWF product. If The Network was launched then, they would have hit 20% pretty easily I believe.
What else, other than unpredictability, was different back then? Well, two things really.
1) Vince McMahon was losing to WCW so he left his comfort zone and started presenting a product that while he personally didn't prefer, he was willing to create to appeal to the masses so that he could retake the number one position in the wrestling industry. He was losing and his reputation was on the line, so he left his comfort zone (and yes, his reputation is on the line again today).
2) Characters were actually booked strongly. The pecking order was not so clearly established that anyone could see where everyone fell, as it is today. People look back on the era as if everything was great. It wasn't. There was dreck for sure. But the top of the card, wow, it was great. At any given time, when you had a roster that included Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker, Triple H, Mick Foley, Kurt Angle and others. Any of those people could be WWE champion and it was believable. And better than that, their were a lot of legitimate challengers. And those that weren't in a Title program gave credibility to the other matches at the top of the card. Contrast that with today. John Cena is over at the top of the card and there is who else? Don't say Daniel Bryan because while I love him, WWE did everything they could to keep him from getting over. The fans MADE them put him in the Title hunt and WrestleMania and as soon as he won the belt, Vince put him in an insipid program with Kane that did nothing to help Bryan. It was almost as if Vince said, "I will give you what you want at Mania, but then I will go back to doing it my way". And the apathy that has followed since Mania has become palpable since he did.
So how can WWE fix the problem? Here are a few good places to start.
1) Listen to the fans. I get that Vince thinks you can't always give them what they want when they want it. He's right. But that doesn't mean the fans are always wrong. What happened with Daniel Bryan should show him that. Vince dropped the ball and the fans let it be known, but he didn't learn. The perfect case in point is Cesaro. The fans were ready to get behind him as a big babyface, but instead Vince kept him a heel putting him with Paul Heyman instead of turning him face (at a time where they really need faces no less). Here is the thing that Vince really, really needs to take under advisement: You don't have to love a wrestler. As long as the fans do, that is all that counts. As I have said here many times, if I don't like a promotion but covering it gets a ton of clicks, we are covering. Vince has to learn it's not all about him. On free TV, you can be that way. When you want to get into someone's pocket, you need to change your mindset.
2) Stop relying so much on John Cena, at the expense of the other talent. This one is a no-brainer and I hope I don't need to explain it. Cena is Vince's crutch and as I mentioned above, when you have six legitimate guys on top, people believe anything can happen. When you have one, they know it can't. Vince, your job is to create top guys. You need to do a better job of it.
3) Stop treating your audience as if they will just accept anything you say or present on TV as being fact, even when it makes no sense. A great example happened Monday on Raw. The last time we saw Daniel Bryan on 6/2, he was telling Stephanie McMahon that he would not give up his championship or his belts. He left. Monday, he was not at Raw we were told. The show started with Triple and Stephanie McMahon making a big announcement, they were stripping Bryan of the titles. OK, that was fine. Then they panned to over the ring and there were the Title belts hanging there, with no explanation as to how they got from Bryan to the top of the arena. It may seem like a little thing, but it's just one example of how careless storytelling adds up and breeds apathy among fans. It's not that hard to do quality control, especially if you stop doing so many re-writes to the script. There is no excuse to put the creative team through Monday re-writes week after week. Chart a course and stay with it (just make sure it's a good one).
4) And to a lesser degree realize that the top watched shows on The Network involve wrestling. PPVs and live NXT events are the big draws. So give the fans more than that. I would love to see a Saturday Night Fights kind of show. They could load up the Friday house show each week, since there is usually only one, record it and air it on Saturday nights. Three hours of just wrestling, for wrestling fans. I think it's a good concept.
But at the end of the day, the only real way to get people to buy The Network is to make the product "must see" again. Right now, it's just not. Sure, you can get four million people to watch on Monday, and that is great. But it's also free to them. To make The Network succeed you need to get them to sign up for it. And to make that happen, you have to give them reason to. You can do it if you want to. The question is: Do you?
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