The Hamilton Ave Journal 08.23.08: Volume 1 – Issue 48

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 August 21, 2008, here are the current standings of our shows:

RAW
Close (This Week’s Rating): 3.3
Open (Last Week’s Rating): 3.1
Percentage Change: ▲ 6.5%
52-Week High: 4.1
52-Week Low: 2.5
All Time High: 8.1
All Time Low: 1.8

SmackDown*
Close (This Week’s Rating): 2.4
Open (Last Week’s Rating): 2.0
Percentage Change: ▲ 20.0%
52-Week High: 2.9
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. WWE Ultimate Rivals Trading Cards ($2)
2. Jeff Hardy Armbands ($15)
3. WWE Superstars Folder ($5)
4. John Cena You Can’t See Me Backpack ($35)
5. WWE Superstars Spiral Notebook ($5)
6. Hardys Messenger Bag ($35)
7. WWE Black Gift Bag ($3)
8. Hardys Purple Logo Pendant ($10)
9. D Generation X Backpack ($35)
10. Hardys WWE Shop and Jakks Pacific Exclusive Action Figure ($34.99, on sale $24.99)

The message from last week is still the same: it’s back to school time in the WWE. Joining the growing list of school paraphernalia this week is the D-Generation X Backpack. Despite no DX angles being run and the true heyday of the group being over a decade ago, DX merchandise continues to perform extremely well. At least in this case it involves wrestlers still on the roster, but too often retired wrestlers are far outsold existing roster members for weeks on end.

TNA releases a list of Top Ten selling items, but the list has not been updated to current products in quite some time. Until TNA updates the list, the Journal will be take the list of featured products and sorting by most popular. When done so, the list comes up as:

1. TNA Global iMPACT DVD ($19.99)
2. Bound for Glory 2008 FanFest Tickets ($40)
3. The Phenomenal AJ Styles Deal of the Century ($79.95)
4. AJ Styles “Unim Phenomenous” T-Shirt ($19.99)
5. Complete 100 Card Set ($24.99)
6. Nash “Big Sexy Tour” T-shirt ($19.99)
7. Samoa Joe “Drastic Times, Drastic Measures” T-Shirt ($19.99)
8. Sting “Logo” T-Shirt ($19.99)
9. Blaster Pack ($24.99)
10. TNA “Cross The Line” T-Shirt ($19.99)

The only movement this week on TNA’s list was the Fanfest tickets swapping places with the AJ Styles set. The fact that the AJ Styles set is still on the list and not sold out three weeks later (only 100 are available) does not make this list look particularly impressive.

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, some people questioned the validity of comparing hits of various wrestling news websites, starting with Guest#0728:

The 411 hits are misleading, seeing as wrestling is only one portion of the website’s content. The politics, sports, entertainment, etc. sections all garner hits that no other wrestling site would otherwise get.

Eric L. was also in agreement:

The web site evaluation was a huge disappointment. While wrestling might have driven your hits a long time ago that’s not currently the case. I seem to recall a time where Ashish was getting a lot of recognition for his political reporting, and you have gotten a following in other areas of the site as well. While you have 4 times the hits you also cover 9 areas that the others don’t. What you did was akin to ESPN using their front page numbers to say that they are the number one baseball site. It’s deceptive. I would expect this kind of thing from others whose job it is to state opinions and back them up.

While the Journal understands your thoughts and agrees that 411wrestling.com attracts a broader audience with different zones, you have grossly overestimated how much they bring in. No offence to Politics—they are excellent writers and do bring in an audience—but the crux of this website is still wrestling news.

If wrestling only accounted for 50% of the unique hits, it would still far out-surpass those other sites. Also, Larry Csonka has several times in the past year talked about the large growth in all zones, including wrestling. So while the Wrestling Zone may not be growing at the rate of the MMA Zone, it is still growing and not shrinking by 60%.

On the subject of MMA, many of these other sites actually do have MMA coverage and others have added “pop-culture” areas to expand readership. So in actuality, the comparison is much closer than you believe. But what was interesting was the idea of comparing the numbers of other sites, as Guest#3385 points out:

I went to compete.com and YouPorn.com has the same amount of hits of wwe.com and ufc.com combined.

The Journal was intrigued and did this comparison as well:

As can be seen, YouPorn.com is outperforming WWE.com and ESPN.com (and surprisingly WWE.com is outperforming ESPN.com). Pornography is an $18 billion a year industry and should never be overlooked for their economic impact and business acumen.

The other big topic last week was on Scott Levy’s (aka Raven) suit against the WWE to try to be recognized as an employee and not an independent contractor. 411mania’s own DaFranchise said:

Excellent, excellent, excellent article. Laying out the Employee vs. Independent Contractor information was nice. Very informative and easy to understand. WWE doesn’t have much ground to stand on.

And Eric L from above more appreciated that story:

Great article on the ramifications of the Scott Levy suit. That’s the kind of analysis I’ve grown to enjoy and expect from you. I’m a regular visitor, and I revisit the article on another computer sometimes as well to reread and show others some of your better points.

As stated last week, the case seems pretty cut and dry. The question is how long with the WWE drag it out in court and how much in back-taxes will the IRS charge them? Another point is that TNA is going to be immediately impacted by this because they have a large number of the same issues. Although they do not have as many of the “yes” answers as the WWE, more than a few is enough. But from what TNA wrestlers told this reporter, TNA does not pay enough to make it a huge impact on their pocket books. Still, TNA cannot afford any additional cost in their precarious profitability.

eRIC also wanted to ask a question about profitability and sales:

Do you know the actual numbers of whats being sold in the top 10s? Because if the number one spot is only getting like 10 people a week, then how impressive is that really?

Unfortunately, those type of figures are not released publicly, but as noted in the TNA merchandise section this week having something with a 100 unit inventory in the Top Ten for three weeks and still not be sold out is not a good sign for volume there.

Plenty more was written, so be sure to take a look. And of course, a week would not be complete without a good dose of JP Prag’s own HIDDEN HIGHLIGHTS!!