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With only 4 days to go before Survivor Series, the show is far from sold out. And already Big Show is being blamed for this.
All of the pay-per-views since WrestleMania 29 have had poor buy rates. The WWE blamed a fan favourite in every instance. Ryback, Dolph Ziggler, Christian and Daniel Bryan in particular have been competing for major titles. Management have convinced themselves that pushing these stars "before they were over with the fans" resulted in poor sales. However, they refuse to acknowledge that John Cena, Randy Orton Mark Henry and Alberto Del Rio have not been bringing in ticket sales either.
(It should be noted that Ryback, Christian and Bryan are 3 of the biggest merchandise sellers, with Ziggler being the biggest. So the argument that any of these guys can't make money for the company is already proven wrong).
But there is a very obvious reason why pay-per-views have been doing badly. The WWE has intentionally tried to make SmackDown, and especially RAW, better than the pay-per-views. If the shows pulled in major ratings, they can demand more money when negotiating new contract deals with television providers and sponsors. It also helps build up the forthcoming WWE Network, and strong rating would justify a higher subscription fee.
That's right, the WWE have intentionally been booking pay-per-views to be worse than their weekly TV shows. And now they're wondering why fans won't pay to see shows that are worse than ones that are cheaper.
The perfect example is this week's Raw event. A match between CM Punk & Daniel Bryan against the Wyatt Family had already been booked for Survivor Series. When it looked like this match would be extended into a 6 vs 6 match, pay-per-views sales speed up dramatically. But they slowed back down once the WWE confirmed that the dream match would not be happening. The WWE's stance was that their proposed card for Survivor Series would be better, despite fan demand suggesting otherwise. The main event that fans want was given away for free on Raw.
All of the pay-per-views since WrestleMania 29 have had poor buy rates. The WWE blamed a fan favourite in every instance. Ryback, Dolph Ziggler, Christian and Daniel Bryan in particular have been competing for major titles. Management have convinced themselves that pushing these stars "before they were over with the fans" resulted in poor sales. However, they refuse to acknowledge that John Cena, Randy Orton Mark Henry and Alberto Del Rio have not been bringing in ticket sales either.
(It should be noted that Ryback, Christian and Bryan are 3 of the biggest merchandise sellers, with Ziggler being the biggest. So the argument that any of these guys can't make money for the company is already proven wrong).
But there is a very obvious reason why pay-per-views have been doing badly. The WWE has intentionally tried to make SmackDown, and especially RAW, better than the pay-per-views. If the shows pulled in major ratings, they can demand more money when negotiating new contract deals with television providers and sponsors. It also helps build up the forthcoming WWE Network, and strong rating would justify a higher subscription fee.
That's right, the WWE have intentionally been booking pay-per-views to be worse than their weekly TV shows. And now they're wondering why fans won't pay to see shows that are worse than ones that are cheaper.
The perfect example is this week's Raw event. A match between CM Punk & Daniel Bryan against the Wyatt Family had already been booked for Survivor Series. When it looked like this match would be extended into a 6 vs 6 match, pay-per-views sales speed up dramatically. But they slowed back down once the WWE confirmed that the dream match would not be happening. The WWE's stance was that their proposed card for Survivor Series would be better, despite fan demand suggesting otherwise. The main event that fans want was given away for free on Raw.
