Longevity

In the past, I’ve written plenty of opinion about a key thing in the Wrestling world of today, the Pay Per View (PPV). Going back to the original Wrestlemania, Vince McMahon definitely pushed the bar to make PPV a viable, needed option to not only push storylines, but to garner huge influxes of monies into the coffers of whatever company was using them.  Look around the landscape, and you see their value – Boxing, MMA, Wrestling – they all use PPV to get their product to new heights.

Thing is,  PPV over the past few years the market has become saturated with these events. Fans – especially in these Economic times – are having to pick & choose who the support with their viewing dollars. The WWE reported last November they would drop one – which they have, but then went on to say they’d also increase prices on the rest of their fare, which they did.

Net change? Zip, or more accurately, a net loss of buys. While one increased, the rest have fallen. It’s a trend that WILL continue unless someone out there actually gets it through their head – quality is FAR better than quantity, and the Economy is not great.

Why do I revamp this thought? The WWE recently published on their Website an article about the 25 Greatest Intercontinental Champions of all time. While reading this, I was immediately struck by one notion – the best on the list all held their titles for an extended amount of time – so extended in fact that it makes the reigns of Today’s champs pathetic in comparison. What happens today whenever someone has a belt a long time? Fans go crazy because they don’t know if the holder will retain or lose the title – it pushes the business, making people WANT to watch to see when – or if – the event will occur.

As I said in the former article about this:

Back in the days of 4 to 5 per year, Vince and Company were able to write ‘epic’ story arcs that riveted viewers not only to their PPV offerings, but to their weekly shows as well. One such arc, which created the Mega Powers (Hogan and Savage) played out over 13 months from March of 1988 to April of 1989. At that time, there were only 4 “major” PPVs (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, Summerslam, Survivor Series) and the storyline pervaded the atmosphere. People were hooked, and this pushed them to purchase each of the 4.

This just can’t happen with 13 PPVs in a year. What was an ‘epic’ storyline then would last a mere 4 to 6 months at most today, leaving NINE more to have to write for, and try to attract viewership. It pushes the talent, writers and even road agents to their limits, trying to keep us entertained. And while everyone is stretched to their creative limits – the backlash is that people who may still purchase 4 to 6 PPV are focusing only on those that mean something to them, and that includes the competition.

It really IS a no-brainer. Lower the amount of PPVs per year, increase the duration of title reigns – and down the line you make it so viewers will WANT – no, they will HAVE to purchase each PPV in order to follow the story to the finish. Look to your history WWE – you know how to build stars, you know how to make money – are you doing that today? Are your titles as prestigious as they used to be, or are they becoming mere props?

Now, I know going back to 4 – even 6 – is never going to happen. However, consider 8 as a number. What this would instantly do for you is give you (WWE & TNA alike) the ability to throw some prestige onto those title runs. It would make your Champions stronger in the eyes of fans, and make people nearly HAVE to buy each PPV simply because people would no longer be able to predict a title change (Side note, doing a simple search for predictions you can see that fans are pretty dang accurate about this nowadays).

What’s better – buying 5 or 6 (Out of 13) per year, or getting someone so hooked they buy all 8?  Run your cost analysis based on that, and tell me that everyone wouldn’t win from that scenario. Even better, that makes it so fans can afford more merchandise, so it extends into every operation of the business – all from simply stepping back and giving fans Champions they can believe in again.

We want to see extended reigns. We may not all KNOW we want that. but that’s the case. Part of that process is making it so we aren’t so overexposed to PPV that we expect a title to change hands (roughly) every other show.