The Hamilton Ave Journal 04.05.08: Volume 1 Issue 28
Posted by JP Prag on 04.05.2008
WrestleMania 24 hits monetary records, TNAs growth overseas and in video games could lead them to profitability, WWE goes after the Fortune 500, only RAW sees ratings growth (although apparently not enough), and Ric Flair takes his last bow in the Top Ten.
THE HAMILTON AVE JOURNAL
By JP Prag
Volume 1 Issue 28
ABOUT THE JOURNAL
The Hamilton Ave Journal is the only wrestling news report focused solely on the business of wrestling. Here in the Journal we not only look at the stories that are important to the investor and business-minded person, but also delve deeper into stories that most fans of wrestling would overlook. That is because the Journal is about getting the heart of the matters that affect the companies and outlooks of the wrestling world.
And where is Hamilton Ave? That is the location of the WWE Production Studio in Stamford, CT, and thus the most powerful place in the wrestling world. Besides, The East Main Street Journal just does not have the right ring to it.
Who am I? I am JP Prag: consultant, entrepreneur, businessman, journalist, and wrestling fan.
Now, ring the bell because the market is open.
WHAT'S NEWS
The Journal's front page area known as What's News isn't just about telling you what has happened. The stories in this section are about what will have an effect on the wrestling industry, individual federations, and the wallets of the fans.
LEAD STORY: WrestleMania hits the books
To end the first quarter of FY08, the WWE put on WrestleMania 24 in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, FL. Already, the show has hit several records, including financial ones. For instance, the show grossed $5.85 million in ticket sales alone, making it the highest grossing live event in WWE and Citrus Bowl History. Expect another $1.0 to $1.5 million in merchandise sales to be released as well down the line.
Additionally, the WWE set a Citrus Bowl attendance record with 74,635 people reported to be in the arena. This figure is slightly inflated as 5,000 7,000 tickets were given away free at the last minute to fill in the upper decks. These tickers were offered to mostly public services workers in Orlando. Still, with at least 65,000 paying customers, the WWE looks to be have added $30 million to the local Orlando economy. Judging by the area around the Citrus Bowl, it would be beneficial if some of that money could be funneled there to help revitalize the surroundings.
The rest of Orlando was turned into WrestleMania-town for the weekend. The WWE hired someone to stand in a robe at the airport with a "Welcome to WrestleMania" sign, banners were hung downtown, and the Wall St. block was turned into a sign and dine zone. Orlando, as the mayor promised, was fully behind WrestleMania and has already put in a bid to host a future WrestleMania again.
Meanwhile, the WWE's weekend did not go without some trouble. There was a power failure at the show itself during the Buddy-mania match that caused the central structure to need a long reboot. As noted below, many fans could not see because of the tent over the ring and were given tickets to RAW the next night. But more than all of that was WWE facing a piggy-back war with TNA.
Although ROH was also in town, it was TNA who was pulling out all of the stops to make sure they were known. The WWE warned their talent to stay away from TNA talent, but many secret meetings were set up, including one at a TGI Fridays. More gregarious than that, though, was when WWE wrestler Robby McAllister showed up in the crowd at TNA iMPACT and was promptly sent some. Although many wresters are upset that TNA management chose to show McAllister in the crowd, his presence there would have been noted by someone and he would have faced the same punishment. He violated a direct order from his company and put them in a compromising situation, even if he just wanted to see Johnny Devine wresle.
The main interactions took place as TNA literally invaded WWE events. Trucks advertising TNA were placed outside WWE events, including some that parked at RAW and WrestleMania. The trucks were asked to move and given their parking money back, but they instead went to another lot. After they refused to leave again, the WWE threatened to call the police, but never did. Prior to that, Team 3D, AJ Styles, Kaz, and Earl Hebner paid to get into a WWE Fan Axxess event in Universal Studios and Brother Ray showed up at a Make-a-Wish event featuring John Cena.
All of TNA's efforts did not break through, though. The WWE managed to get wind of TNA's plan to hire a plane to fly over the Citrus Bowl to advertise iMPACT and convince the pilot (most likely monetarily) to not make the flight. TNA was upset about this as the pilot told them that he could not fly due to weather, but the other planes flying overhead proved otherwise.
TNA in many ways should be applauded for making many aggressive moves to get their name out there, although some decisions such as crashing a Make-a-Wish event were in poor taste. On the other hand, TNA's efforts are completely misplaced. Why do they not this type of effort into gaining the larger available audience? There were only 60,000 to 75,000 on hand here, most of whom were already at least familiar with TNA or knew of its existence. If this were TNA of five years ago or ROH, this would all have made sense. But TNA is trying to go from 1.1 million viewers a week to 2.0 million, and putting so much focus into such a small amount of fans is terrible waste of limited resources.
In the future, TNA should use this type of effort and energy in larger campaigns. Not saying that making small appearances does not benefit the product, but there are certainly more credible ways that TNA could be advertising their product. As noted below in the Marketplace, TNA has not made concerted efforts to expand their product when the opportunity presents itself. Still, TNA has some positive news coming into this year.
TNA grows overseas, in the digital world
The Journal noted last week that even if thousands of fans showed up to the iMPACT Zone, it would not be of great benefit to TNA as the iMPACT Zone can only hold up to 1000 people. That is basically what happened as 2-3 thousand people had to be turned away on Thursday and Friday, although this reporter gained access to Friday's tapings. TNA did make efforts to get visiting fans in instead of the local Orlando crew, but not everyone was going to make it. According to one of TNA's street team who was handing out post cards advertising TNA's PPV and upcoming videogame, TNA was totally unprepared for the crowd and was scrambling trying to get things together. From all accounts, getting in and setting up was a mess, but that did not stop TNA from successfully putting on a live show with little technical glitches.
Meanwhile, the tickets in England (not the UK, as all shows are in England proper), continue to sell well with (via the main news page):
The June 13th event in Liverpool has sold out the 1,700-seat venue
Another show has been added for June 12th.
The June 14th show in Coventry has sold 2,000 tickets
The June 15th show in Brentwood has sold 1,600 tickets
In even bigger news, wrestling-friendly country Australia has finally signed a deal to get TNA iMPACT on a weekly basis as FOX8 has agreed to a 12-month deal, going beyond the 12 PPVs that Main Event currently shows. This actually came about by email and online petition campaign which resulted in a Saturday at 10pm timeslot. Now with New Zeeland in sight, TNA could be available in all of Oceania.
Outside of growth in physical markets, TNA is also in the final phases of development for the TNA iMPACT video game. TNA wrestlers and staff got a sneak peak of the game at a private event hosted by Midway on Thursday night, but 411mania.com got an even more private event on Friday night. After previewing the game, this reporter believes that it will do more to bring in new viewers than any other campaign TNA has done to date. The ease of gameplay and the smoothness of the moveset will introduce many gamers and casual fans to TNA's product and get them interested in seeing the actual wrestling. TNA would do well to have deals set up with Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and the like to have their game available for play in-store so people can be exposed to it and want to pick it up.
A complete preview of Midway's TNA iMPACT will be available right here on 411mania.com next week. Look for it in the Games Zone.
With the additional rights fees for iMPACT (especially in foreign markets), increase in use of their talent (of which TNA receives a cut), the video game, increased house show attendance, many believe that TNA will be turning a financial corner and show black this year. While increased sales are possible, TNA has several areas that it needs to grow, most notably in PPV conversion rates.
One indicator that people are using is that Panda Energy has not infused TNA with any new cash in a year. While this is positive news, it hardly indicates that TNA is self-sufficient. TNA may have just given projections for the cash they would need on float for a couple of years and Panda gave them that money up front. Panda is profitable energy company with a lot of cash in reserve and does not have to give TNA money in little buckets. Dixie Carter and company have proven that they are narrowing the gap in costs and sales and that the company may yet turn profitable, so Panda may have just seen fit to give TNA enough cash to last them a good long while.
Still, TNA is making strides forward. It remains to be seen how far they can take it, but there are many positive signs in recent months, despite the slight decline in ratings in the past few weeks.
Newsbites
Some items of note in the rest of the wrestling business world:
In continuing coverage of the WWE Kids Initiative, Paul Kupperberg has been hired to be in charge of the new kid-focused magazine. Mr. Kupperberg has previously been editor of Weekly World News and a writer for DC Comics. Joining him on an ad hoc basis will be well known comic artist/writer John Byrne, who will be penning and drawing the short strip "Hardys In Space".
Dusty Rhodes will be leaving the SmackDown/ECW creative team and moving down to FCW as head booker and be put in charge of character development. This will allow Rhodes to travel less and have a strong influence on the next generation of wrestlers, including the son of his former long-term opponent: Reid Flair.
Developmental talent that was asked to be at the Hall of Fame and WrestleMania were chastised for eating at catering before the main talent arrived. Obviously, these are generally young kids who have never been with the main roster before and have no idea what the unwritten rules are, although this one seems a tad ridiculous. If this was a serious issue, then the fault lies in the trainers and management of FCW for not properly preparing the talent for the event.
WWE is taking a focus on getting more Fortune 500 companies to advertise with them, hoping to increase their own image at the same time. Some of the current members of the Fortune 500 who would make sense as advertisers:
- Walmart (1)
- Exxon Mobile (2)
- Chevron (4)
- Ford Motors (7)
- Citigroup (8)
- Verizon (13)
- Home Depot (17)
- AT&T (27)
- Costco (32)
- Target (33)
- Dell (34)
- Walgreens (44)
- Lowe's (45)
- CVS (51)
- PepsiCo (63)
- Best Buy (72)
- Coca-Cola (94)
- Nike (158)
- Toys R Us (202)
- eBay (383)
Fans who complained at WrestleMania about not being able to see the ring because of the tent were given ringside seats to RAW. No word yet on what those people who could not stay for RAW received.
MARKETPLACE
In the Marketplace we look at the trends in television ratings. This section is less for critical analysis by the Journal but more for the reader to see what is really going on and to draw their own conclusions.
As with stocks, here in the Journal we track the progress of television ratings. If ratings are the barometer by which we judge the product, then over the course of 52 weeks we should be able to see patterns, trends, and anomalies. Please note that gaps in the chart below are due to data not being released/available.
For the week ending Thursday April 3, 2008, here are the current standings of our shows:
RAW
Close (This Week's Rating): 3.9
Open (Last Week's Rating): 3.4
Percentage Change: ▲ 14.0%
52-Week High: 4.2
52-Week Low: 2.5
All Time High: 8.1
All Time Low: 1.8
SmackDown!*
Close (This Week's Rating): 2.3
Open (Last Week's Rating): 2.5
Percentage Change: ▼ 8.0%
52-Week High: 2.9
52-Week Low: 2.2
All Time High: 5.8
All Time Low: 1.0
* SmackDown! ratings may include fast overnight if final ratings are not posted. Also, SmackDown! ratings are for the prior week as overnights are not available before this article goes to print.
ECW
Close (This Week's Rating): 1.3
Open (Last Week's Rating): 1.4
Percentage Change: ▼ 9.1%
52-Week High: 1.8
52-Week Low: 0.6
All Time High: 2.3
All Time Low: 0.6
TNA iMPACT**
Close (This Week's Rating): 1.0
Open (Last Week's Rating): 1.0
Percentage Change: ▼ 2.9%
52-Week High: 1.2
52-Week Low: 0.9
All Time High: 1.2
All Time Low: 0.6
** TNA iMPACT's are for the prior week as ratings may not be available at the time of the Journal's posting
Analysis:
Overall, this past seven days (and even beyond into the past 14 days) is considered a short term ratings disappointment. First, TNA's Live iMPACT not only failed to draw in any new viewers, it actually shed a few from the prior week. As noted in the Journal last week, TNA failed to do any significant advertising and give non-regular viewers any reasons to watch the show outside of it being live and Sting's return (which was only mentioned at the end of the show the prior week and in sporadic advertising only on Spike and no other Viacom channel). Other factors included the college basketball tournament, regular viewers traveling to Orlando for WrestleMania (several thousand were turned away at the door on Thursday), and in general Spring Break for families and college students. Television viewing has been down almost across the board this week, so TNA is another casualty.
The only ratings gain this week was seen by WWE RAW post-WrestleMania, which also included the Ric Flair retirement speech. Although jumping 14% from the prior week, the show did not break an internally projected 4.0. On the other end, the Hall of Fame Ceremony scored a 2.1 in its 11pm to 12am Saturday night timeslot, a tremendous success for that timeslot for a one-off special. The replay also scored a 0.7 at 2:14am after AM RAW scored 0.8. Overall, these other shows picked up a lot of slack this past week, but on the other hand may have caused viewer burnout.
MONEY AND INVESTING
We all know that wrestling is a business, but we don't often pay attention to what sells and makes money. Money and Investing looks into the top selling items in the world of wrestling and any interesting figures that may have come out this week.
What are the top ten selling items for the WWE? From WWEShopZone.com:
1. Ric Flair Commemorative T-Shirt
2. Triple H Hammer T-Shirt
3. WWE Black Gift Bag
4. Ric Flair Thank You T-Shirt
5. Hardys Twist of Fate DVD/T-Shirt Package
6. Jeff Hardy Armbands
7. John Cena 8-Bit T-Shirt
8. Triple H King of Kings: There is Only One DVD/Retro T-Shirt Package
9. Edge Easy Being Sleazy T-Shirt
10. D Generation X Anytime Anywhere T-Shirt
In a change of pace from the Top Ten, the WWE has two Ric Flair items making the list as Flair goes into retirement. This is not surprising given the amount of attention and time Flair has brought to the table these past few days. Although traditionally not a large seller outside of Horsemen merchandise, Flair has two items this week.
Meanwhile, with Matt Hardy back it is hard to judge where shared Hardy items stand. Their DVD/T-shirt package is definitely a shared item, but Jeff managed to stick around with a single item o fhis own. Triple H continued his domination with two items plus a DX shirt, but Edge managed to crack the list with a new T-shirt. All and all, this is the most diverse list that has been seen in a while, although the Ric Flair merchandise will taper off in short order.
TNA releases a list of Top Ten selling items, but in no order. Using the function to sort by most popular, they came up as:
1. Against All Odds 2007 DVD
2. Sacrifice 2007 DVD
3. Christian Cage "Instant Classic"
4. Motor City Machineguns T-Shirt
5. TNA Global Impact DVD
6. TNA Meltdown Vol. 2
7. TNA Anthology The Epic DVD Set
8. James Storm "Sorry About Your Damn Luck" T-shirt
9. Shark Boy 24:7 T-Shirt
10. Turning Point 2007 DVD
Another week passes and one 2/3 and 9/10 changed places. Give the stagnation of TNA products, it looks like it is time to freshen up the list of available items. The WWE is releasing new products all the time. TNA needs to start shooting some fresh blood into the available products, but not go overboard all at once. Slowly introduce new products, a couple at a time, so that cash flow and inventory controls can be better managed.
PERSONAL JOURNAL
Wrestling isn't just about watching and reading. The best way to be a wrestling fan is to experience it live. Where is wrestling coming to in the next 2 weeks? The Personal Journal answers that question.
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
6 (Apr)
7
RAW Albany, NY
8
SmackDown!/ECW Boston, MA
RAW Live Trenton, NJ
9
10
RAW Live Belfast, Ireland
SmackDown!/ECW Live Valencia, Spain
11
RAW Live Liverpool, UK
SmackDown!/ECW Live Torrevieja, Spain
ROH Live Boston, MA
12
RAW Live Cardiff, UK
SmackDown!/ECW Geneva, Switzerland
ROH Live Edison, NJ
13
TNA Lockdown Lowell, MA
RAW Live Nottingham, UK
SmackDown/ECW Live Strasbourg, France
14
RAW London, UK
SmackDown/ECW Cardiff, UK
15
SmackDown/ECW London, UK
RAW Live Linz, Austria
TNA iMPACT Orlando, FL
16
RAW Live Vienna, Austria
SmackDown/ECW Live TNA iMPACT Orlando, FL Birmingham, UK
17
RAW Live Granada, Spain
SmackDown/ECW Live Sheffield, UK
18
RAW Live Coruaa, Spain
SmackDown/ECW Live Newcastle, UK
ROH Live Detroit, MI
19
RAW Live Lisbon, Portugal
SmackDown/ECW Live Glasgow, UK
ROH Live Chicago Ridge, IL
Do you know a wrestling event coming up? Send one in to The Hamilton Ave Journal and we'll be sure to add it to the list.
EDITORIALS
The Editorials section is designed for you, the readers, to respond to the views presented in the Journal, send an important news item, or talk about another overlooked business related item in wrestling. Just beware: the Journal reserves the right to respond back.
WTF is with the break in the lines on the graph for ratings? Weeks that shows were not aired or what? I am lost.
Well IamMe, as posted just above the graph every week for the past 28 weeks:
Please note that gaps in the chart below are due to data not being released/available.
So there it is written twice in one article. Hope that helps. G3KKO has different thoughts around merchandise:
LoL, The Hardy's are outselling Cena and NEITHER of them are on T.V. at the moment. Maybe the kids are finally realising Cena isn't that good, the same way people my age finally realised it about Hogan over 15 years ago (Before I get accused of "Cena-Hate" I'm just saying kid's aren't as easy to "program" as people think).
Actually, you have to realize that Cena's has consistently has the same item in the Top Ten every week while the Hardy items have been changing on almost a weekly basis. So it is vast variety of Hardy items fluctuating which ones are selling well on any given week compared to one Cena item over several weeks. Cena's single item is far outselling any single Hardy item, but it is possible that the combination of Hardy items is outselling the combination of Cena items.
On the subject of the WWE kids initiative, Brett writes:
I don't see how the WWE is going to execute the new children's brand effectively. Now, if they moved all the kids style gimmicks over to SD!(which they've done for the most part), it would work well, but the live events are doubled with ECW which should be their highly adult brand because it airs late at night on a channel that I don't believe is frequented by children. Same goes with RAW as it airs from 9-11 which is not very kid friendly either.
The worst execution of the entire deal is that WWE will often put children's content and adult content on the same show. They need to start paying more attention to those kinds of things and not mix them up. The only brand that seems to think about this is SD! whereas RAW and ECW don't really seem to take demos into account. I think it would make the most sense for ECW to be the most adult show and have it tour with RAW, and SD! be kid friendly, touring by itself. And RAW can continue to be the MAIN brand by being what it has pretty much always been and being a sort of cross over for when those kids get older, so that way they aren't thrown right into ECW's adult content, plus RAW would keep the audience that it has been establishing since the 90s. Even ECW would benefit because if they were to take a more adult approach, they may see a rise in ratings. I think they really need to attach a particular brand with the kids initiative though. I don't think it really works to have kids watching RAW for Hornswoggle and then be told to stay tuned for a playboy pillow fight and at the end of the night they will see Shawn Michaels "don the proverbial Crimson Mask."
Interesting ideas all around. The logistics of switching HeAT and ECW from RAW and SmackDown would be the most difficult part, as well as changing the talent exchange so that it is RAW/ECW instead of SmackDown/ECW. The other item to consider is that the WWE may be looking to make more Saturday and Sunday morning program available that is kid friendly with toned down violence and sex. And if we have learned anything this week it is that mothers will leave their two and four year olds unattended to let them watch and mimic wrestling with draperies late on Friday night, so who knows when kids are watching?
Plenty more was written, so be sure to take a look. Also worth your read this week is:
Can't wait for the TNA game. I've been playing svr for years now hoping
something with a little more substance and smoothness to its gameplay would
come out. And from what you said it sounds like I wont have to wait much longer
:)
Posted By: Eidolon (Guest) on April 05, 2008 at 05:12 AM
Actually, you have to realize that Cena's has consistently has the same item in
the Top Ten every week while the Hardy items have been changing on almost a
weekly basis. So it is vast variety of Hardy items fluctuating which ones are
selling well on any given week compared to one Cena item over several weeks.
Cena's single item is far outselling any single Hardy item, but it is possible
that the combination of Hardy items is outselling the combination of Cena
items.
Thats bs, the two Jeff Hardy items that have been outselling Cena are the
Armbands and the Pendant thats two items and they have been the same two items
for over a month, and the Hardy pendant has consistenly found its self at
number 1 for a large part of the year.
The WWE Shop top ten changes on a daily basis, you need to check the list every
day! and report each day to give a better reflection of the sales.
because Jeff Hardy had two items at numbers 1 and 2 all week, a couple of weeks
back but the one day you checked the list they were at around 4 and 6, thats
hardly a fair reflection of whats selling on a weekly basis
Posted By: What (Guest) on April 05, 2008 at 07:47 AM
ok it's time to get over it, cena is not just popular with kids and his
merchandise sells better then anyone's end of story. hardy is on a bit of a hot
streak no doubt and triple h has had a new shirt shoved down our throars every
other week now, so let us not get out of hand. also, it is the MENS'S sized
cena shirt that has been selling like crazy not the kids size. cena in no way
sucks and it is getting redundant to say so. he is on his way to becoming one
of the all time greats and is a far superior wrestler and performer then hogan
ever was despite hogan's tremedous drawing ability. for christ sake cena is
beloved by the other wrestlers and is even ric flair and stone cold approved
and don't give me that they have to say that crap, because stone cold has
always blatantly spoke his mind on anyone and really feels cena is the real
deal. a few years ago everyone was hating on the rock and now you guys act like
he is god, ironically after he turns his back on wrestling. which, isn't a knock
on the rock i always defended him as well, but this cena-hate is sickening now.
cena has great promo skills, the look, is extremely over, and can work a hell
of a match on par with rock and austin. maybe, his charcter is stale,but
everyone's character get's stale and when he isn't selling anymore is exactly
when we will get that heel turn and then you can all love him again like the
stupid wannabe rebels you wanna be so bad.
Posted By: guest (Guest) on April 06, 2008 at 06:35 PM
