The Hamilton Ave Journal 07.30.09: Volume 2 – Issue 97

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.

For the week ending Wednesday July 29, 2009, here are the current standings of our shows:

RAW
Close (This Week’s Rating): 4.0
Open (Last Week’s Rating): 3.5
Percentage Change: ▲ 12.9%
52-Week High: 4.5
52-Week Low: 2.6
All Time High: 8.1
All Time Low: 1.8

SmackDown*
Close (This Week’s Rating): 1.8
Open (Last Week’s Rating): 1.8
Percentage Change: UNCH
52-Week High: 2.5
52-Week Low: 1.6
All Time High: 5.8
All Time Low: 1.0

What are the top ten selling items for the WWE? From WWEShopZone.com:

1. Jeff Hardy Deluxe Aggression #21 Action Figure (Item Unavailable)
2. Randy Orton Root of Evil T-Shirt ($25)
3. John Cena HLR Academy T-Shirt Package ($57, on sale $29.99)
4. Triple H Eversoris T-Shirt ($28)
5. Jeff Hardy 2 Armband Package ($40, on sale $14.99)
6. Hardys 2008 Spiral Notebook ($5, on sale $3)
7. John Cena Attitude Adjustment T-Shirt ($25)
8. Hardys Green Pendant ($10)
9. Jeff Hardy PPV #20 Action Figure/Armband Package ($43.99, on sale $27.99)
10. Hardys Messenger Bag ($35, on sale $24.98)

The list returned to something must more expected this week, though the sales continued to put some odd items in the list. Those items did still belong to regulars Jeff Hardy and John Cena, so there was not too much deviation in this list. On the other end, Randy Orton returned to the list with a new shirt. Can he keep up between the high profile sales of John Cena, Jeff Hardy, and Triple H? Prior history indicates that he cannot maintain the position for long.

TNA sometimes releases a list of top selling items on ShopTNA.com. According to the site the top selling items were:

1. July Holiday Sale – Mix package ($250, on sale $49.99)
2. Destination X 2009 DVD ($14.99, on sale $11.99)
3. Beer Money T-shirt ($19.99)
4. Against All Odds 2009 PPV DVD ($14.99, on sale $9.99)
5. Lockdown – 2009 DVD ($19.99)
6. Taz FTW shirt ($19.99)
7. The Beautiful People Men’s T-shirt ($19.99)
8. Kurt Angle – Champion DVD ($19.99, on sale $17.99)
9. Cross The Line Triple Pack 2.0 DVD Set ($24.99, on sale $14.99)
10. TNA Logo T-shirt Special ($24.99)

TNA continued their streak of updates with some shuffling this week. Most interesting was the introduction of the Taz FTW shirt. While hiring a non-wrestler in a prominent role has many people scratching their heads, it would appear that Taz is able to make up his contract in sales right out of the gate. The Beautiful People also shows that they can sell a men’s shirt and not just women’s clothing and trading cards, thus expanding their repertoire.

Conspicuous by his absence this week is Jeff Jarrett. Mr. Jarrett has been on this list since his DVD premiered, so his absence is either showing the saturation of the product, a condition of him not being on TV, or a conscious decision by TNA to not have his product appear due to his current situation. Considering TNA has listed Christian Cage several times since he left the company, the latter seems highly unlikely.

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.

From the commentary section last week, there was some misunderstanding of when Jeff Jarrett has not been actively involved in TNA. Donners asked:

Did Jarrett not take time off around his wife’s death? He certainly wasn’t on screen, but I would have presumed he would also not have been backstage.

And Rinsa decided to take it two steps further:

As Donners says above, JJ did take time off when his wife died.

As I’ve said before I like the column, but basic glaring errors like this, which seem to be getting all the more frequent, really damage it.

Actually, Rinsa, you are wrong again. Jarrett stayed actively involved with the company when he was not on TV, especially in an office capacity. He lives in Nashville right near the office and most accounts say that he preferred to keep busy rather then spend time thinking about his wife’s passing. Jarrett missed a couple of TV tapings, but that was about it. He was back in Orlando in very short order and stayed involved with the writing team even when he was away.

So perhaps what you view as “glaring error” are actually holes in your information?

Moving on from Jeff Jarrett, this situation involving his is most interesting. Lexie asks several questions:

If Jeff Leaves TNA, Will Kurt Angle become the chief booker or will it be Vince Russo?

That is completely up to Dixie Carter. As President of TNA, she has final say on who is writing the shows. Up until this point, she has been quite content to run the business side and let Mr. Jarrett run the creative side. If Mr. Jarrett cannot continue in that role, Ms. Carter will appoint someone else.

How much Of TNA is owned By Jeff, How much by Dixie Carter? And are there more owners?

Ms. Carter owns 0% of the company. TNA’s parent company Panda Energy took 72% of the company when they invested in 2002. Since Ms. Carter’s parents are the owners of Panda Energy, she is the defacto owner. In reality, though, she is just the president.

Given that purchase amount and assuming Mr. Jarrett bought out his father, he owns 28% of the company. It is conceivable that Spike TV or Viacom own a piece of TNA, but for the most part Panda Energy is the majority owner.

If Kurt Angle is the one who leaves, will it have a slight impact or will it hurt TNA a lot?

Kurt cannot leave tomorrow as he has plenty of time on his contract, but if he were to leave at that point the impact would be minimal. Kurt Angle personally did not add significant buyrates, ratings, or attendance figures. He does move a significant amount of merchandise, but most of TNA’s big selling items in the past 2 years have been from compilation items. TNA has more than enough talent to fill the void left if Mr. Angle were to leave. Much like the WWE, no one star determines the fate of the company. Instead, it is the production of the show in total that determines that.

In other words, who is more important for TNA – KURT OR JEFF? The person who founded them or their biggest star?

To TNA the corporation, neither is that important. They are valued members of the staff that both add different aspects to the product and company, but neither is irreplaceable. There are plenty of wrestlers, writers, sales people, pitch men, faces of the company, and whatever other roles are needed out there. From a corporate perspective, if both were to leave tomorrow there would be a bit of short term pain, but in the end the company would continue on and fill the void.

One more Q –

In other words, is it economically feasible for TNA to reduce their PPV’s by a significant number and to make them feel more important than just filler?

Unlike the WWE, TNA is not highly dependent on PPV revenue. Of the $50 million in estimated revenue last year, $4.5 million (after the PPV companies’ 50% cut) came from PPV buys. This amounts to 9% of TNA’s top line. There is no proof for TNA that reducing the number of PPVs will lead to more buyrates as most buyrates do not go into very high numbers (Average buyrates of 25,000). Could TNA get better buyrates from fewer PPVs? This seems highly unlikely as they have not been able to increase their conversion rate in three years. Instead, as ratings have risen their conversion rate has actually decreased! Before TNA can even consider reducing the number of PPVs they have, they first have to get conversion rates to at least be going in an upward trend.

Speaking of PPVs, mogamer: wants to know a bit more about WWE PPVs:

WWE couldn’t get as many buys with 4 PPV’s like they do now with 14. But I do think that they could by cutting back to 8. And they might actually have a larger net profit by avoiding the production costs of 6 extra PPV’s.

Ok, we start off with the same assumption. The Big 4 PPVs bring in 2 million buys and about $106 million, leaving a gap of $2.4 million dollars. Assuming no change to the Big 4, at $34.95, the remaining four PPVs would have to do an average buyrate of over 590,000, higher than other PPV except WrestleMania. If the price were raised to $44.95, each PPV would need nearly 460,000 buys, still higher than every other PPV except WrestleMania and SummerSlam.

Now, let’s say that the Big 4 all increase in buyrates by an astounding number like 20%. Even with that, the other PPVs at the $44.95 price point would have to do well over 333,000 buys a piece. That would be nearly as much as Survivor Series last year and close to Survivor Series after the 20% increase.

You can see from this, then, that even the eight PPV model would be stretch for the WWE and audience. The WWE is still better off with lower buyrates across 14 PPVs then trying to get such an increase with fewer PPVs. More PPVs spreads the risk, and the WWE has that risk spread.

Still, ODog finds fault with this model:

Love the column but find fault with your PPV analysis. Basically, each show would need to get about 1 million buys. The WWE has proven with their WrestleMania promotion that they can get 1 million people to buy that show based on name alone. If they went back to only 4 PPVs, increased them to 4-hours, they could charge $60 per show easy.

Personally, I think 6 is a more reasonable number. It would give them 2 months between shows, the opportunity to have PPV-quality shows for either Raw to pop a number or NBC or another TV partner.

You forget one thing: the core audience isn’t the WrestleMania audience. There are a large number of people who buy WrestleMania around the world who do not watch another wrestling event all year. Those people have been conditioned for WrestleMania over 25 years of work. To convince them that Survivor Series is worth their money would be a major stretch. At the same time, Royal Rumble would be the biggest problem because it is so close to WrestleMania. Are one million people going to buy the Royal Rumble and then WrestleMania just eight to ten weeks later? That does not seem like something that is likely to happen.

Plenty more was written, so be sure to take a look. And if you enjoy the Journal, why not bookmark 411wrestling.com and make it your home page? You can do that by clicking here.