Steve's View #102
By Steve
On February 28th XPW announced it
would run it's first pay per view in May. There has been no official
word yet if it will be a live event or taped.
Back in July, 2002 the idea was
for XPW to run taped pay per views on Direct TV costing in the
neighborhood of $3.99 per show. The shows would then be edited
live events and "best of" type shows.
If XPW chooses to instead run a
live pay per view it would more than likely be such a financial
failure that I don't think they would survive after it. The satellite
time and production would be very costly, and there is no chance
the buyrates would be even close to being sufficient enough to
cover those costs. Aside from UFC in the early 90s, no wrestling
or MMA promotion has had any success on pay per view without national
television to promote it. Even with nationally syndicated television
WOW did horrible pay per view numbers, but WOW's television might
have worked against them in that regard, as everyone already knew
how bad the product was.
NWA TNA is taking a killing on their
weekly pay per views, and was on the verge of shutting down before
Panda Energy invested in the promotion. Still, it won't be long
before Panda gets tired of losing cash and shuts TNA down. According
to various reports TNA does about 15,000 buys per show, which
at their $9.95 price would bring in about $150,000.00. The cost
of running TNA was estimated at around $250,000 at one point,
but they likely have cut some money off of that by fine tuning
their operation. You are looking at huge loses none the less.
To top that off, unless you are
the WWE, most pay per view companies are notoriously slow on paying.
Meaning you might not see a dime from your show for six months
or more. Despite what some people believe, and evidenced by recent
events related to the promotion, XPW doesn't have the type of
funds to lose $250,000.00, even if they'll receive a portion of
it back.
If XPW is still planning to run
taped pay per views, and I would guess that is still the plan,
then they should be better off, but still there probably isn't
any real money to be made. XPW's costs shouldn't be very high,
with not having to buy satellite time and the production already
being done. If XPW has to purchase the time they will still more
than likely lose money, as most people won't pay for a product
they aren't familiar with. I don't know numbers for the "Japanese
Hardcore" pay per views, but I don't believe they were very
good, and WWA, with much bigger names than XPW has, have not done
so well in the pay per view market either.
If XPW doesn't pay for the time
and just gets a percentage of the profits however, since they
aren't putting much money into it, they don't really stand to
lose anything, so it's a risk worth taking in that regards, but
they still probably wont get any real money, just the bragging
rights to say they run pay per views.
--
XPW's March 1st show was a really
solid entertaining show. The best top to bottom XPW show I've
seen. There are still a lot of problems with XPW, but they are
at a point (at least with this one show) where the good is outweighing
the bad, and if you compare this last show with any other recent
indy show in SoCal, XPW's was better than most.
--
UPW is trying a new direction where
they will be using the Internet to develop a following and expose
the product and storylines to more people. They have began the
"UPW Weekly Wire" (which is here on SCU every week,
as well as other wrestling websites), and will once again be running
webcasts of their shows starting with the April 25th show at the
Grove in Anaheim (more on that show in a few paragraphs).
I have always been a strong believer
that for an indy promotion the Internet is an untapped resource
that could really benefit your promotion. UPW does really well
in attendance compared to most indy promotions, but after the
show then what? If you want to make more money off your product,
then you need to expose that product to more people, people that
could possibly buy tapes, become fans, then buy merchandise and
more tapes.
Another benefit the Internet has,
is that by running promo videos, and weekly news updates, you
keep the interest in the promotion up. Promotions that just go
from show to show without building interest and hype don't do
well for the most part, and definitely aren't realizing their
full potential.
I have never really understood why
more promotions haven't tried this. EPIC did it to an extent,
releasing various vignettes on their website, but we'll never
really know how that would have panned out for them.
With television costs being so high,
the Internet is a relatively cheap way to build up shows, and
target the audience you want to target. The only real disadvantage
is that unlike TV where a non fan might turn in to the show and
gain interest, you aren't going to reach any non wrestling, or
non so called "smart" fans.
--
UPW announced that it's next SoCal
show will be at the Grove in Anaheim (also check out the press
release about it on SCU). UPW is promising some extra special
guests and intermission and after-party activities. The biggest
news however is that the Grove wont have drink tickets or minimum
food orders (not really big news, but after the last Galaxy shows
terrible service I'll be glad not to be forced to give the Galaxy
my money for bad service). There will be a parking fee and a ticket
surcharge, but if you go in a group as I'd say a good percentage
of fans do, then the cost will be down. I don't really think the
issue was ever the money, but the fact that people were being
forced to spend the money. Most people probably would have bought
one or two sodas anyway.
As stated earlier the April 25th
show will be webcast on upw.com. The first announced matches are
Lil' Nate versus Skulu versus Drunk Irishman and for those who
are familiar with SoCal history, UPW is going for a little nostalgia
UPW will be doing a 22 man battle royal (the annual Los Angeles
battle royals at the Olympic were considered one of the biggest
shows of the year throughout the 1970s).
--
I'll be back in a couple days with
my 2003 hall of fame picks.
-Steve
