Question: How many of you Steal/Download/Stream/Torrent Professional Wrestling Shows?
 

How many of you steal from the wrestlers who break down their bodies in the ring?

As fans, when we do this we are really hurting the product because we are taking away dollars from the companies and therefore the wrestlers. But fans do this anyways regardless.

If you stream television shows you're taking away from the ratings. Ratings go towards advertisements and pushes for the popular stars. When you stream a pay per view obviously you are not paying the ridiculously overpriced $35 and up price to order, which hurts the companies. If you can torrent the DVD releases and burn them yourself your

What are your thoughts, or justifications for "stealing" / "downloading" / not paying for wrestling events? Do you think if fans on a widescale did pay for all events they watch would wrestling be bigger because more money is going into it? Or do you think fans who are unwilling to pay would simply just tune out completely?

Why does this sound like some kind of set up?

I pay for every PPV I watch.

My justification for streaming PPV's is it's cheaper and easier and I'd rather spend money on other stuff.

I pay for everything on the Internet, Mr FBI

Their ppvs have been over priced before streaming became popular. I remember a couple years ago I spent like 60 dollars on the Royal Rumble. 60 dollars for 3 hours? 20 dollars an hour? Honestly that is a rip off.

Also, WWE tends to put out some shitty ppvs (card wise) and expect people to pay 50 dollars to see it. If you are going to have John Cena vs. John L in the main event then no I will not buy your crappy product. That was a match that was Raw worthy. Basically, there is more blame to go around than just the fans. If everyone stoped streaming their ppvs today the prices would not drop.

The dvds I tend to agree with you on.

I stream so I can then complain non stop about the product and say I'm never watching it ever again.

NARC.

Unless any of us are pickpockets, I highly doubt it. Filesharing is digital piracy; equating it to theft is outright dishonest. That doesn't justify it, but "who here is stealing from the hard working wrestlers?" is nothing short of cheap sensationalism.

Unless you're a Nielsen family or part of another metric, then no, you're not. And if you are part of a Nielsen family, why the fuck are you streaming when you can just turn on the TV?

Idle speculation is idle speculation, but as long as that's established I see no harm in commentary. Combating piracy has done little to actually, you know, combat piracy. There is no correlation between piracy and an increase/decrease in sales. Looking into other media, games like the Call of Duty series are both heavily pirated and break records in terms of sales. The argument could be made that we can't prove they wouldn't be higher without piracy, but really, it's pretty inane to argue a lack of proof to the contrary as proof.

In TV, we still manage to see incredibly high ratings for many shows, despite the existence of piracy. In light of increased performance by most top ten shows versus WWE's/TNA's stagnant or floundering numbers, I think we merely have to admit that pro wrestling isn't that appealing to the mainstream.

I have trouble thinking, as such, ratings would increase simply because people weren't downloading the material.

I pay $10 for every ppv. How? I go to a friends house, have some drink, toke some smoke with several friends and we all pitch in. Cheaper, more fun, and its not stealing.

:lol:I refuse to vote on this poll due to its bias and incriminating nature, and I also at this point at going to envoke my right to plead the 5th and all questions can now be directed to my attorney who has prepared a statement on my behalf;)

A mix of both in terms of streaming and buying DVDs. Never bothered with torrenting wrestling stuff besides making a backup copy for 2-3 ppvs that I had as a VHS copy.

I watch on YouTube after it airs, since I dont have cable. The only thing I'd want cable for is WWE and I'm not paying $50+ a month just to watch Raw/Smackdown, when I can catch up on it the next day on YouTube.

If WWE were smart, they would have some sort of service to deal with this.

Then again, if WWE were smart, they'd fire John Cena, put Daniel Bryan in his spot, and watch the cash roll in.

no comment.....

Gonna Vomit..... Turn Cena Heel, rake in the cash from all the haters buying his merch, I would buy, I love to hate cena. Idk what to do with Brian because I think he is "kinda neat" at best.

:shifty:

I don't feel bad for the company whenever people do it.

It was a sarcastic statement to get the ball rolling. This thread is not Joe Daddy serious.

-Til I tell on all of you who have taken food out of the poor wrestler's childrens mouths!


How is it not? If everyone were to stream a show online instead of watching it on THE TV the show would be off the air very quickly and advertisers would pull out, etc.

I don't know, if i choose to download a show I come across online for free instead of going to the store to doll out $50 bucks for the same show. Say I choose the free option instead of dolling out $50 bucks... I think that is a pretty direct correlation. They lose out on a sale = decrease.

lol

Because TV ratings are projected based on a sample selection of people who have a box that records their viewing habits as well as the demographic of those viewing. If you are not part of Neilsen, or BARB in the UK, turning your TV on or off has no bearing on the rating. It's possible for any number of non-sample people to watch a niche channel, but for it to record a 0.0% audience share.

I buy PPV's if the card looks promising. I don't buy if it doesn't look promising.

And I'm always traveling, so I just watch RAW on Youtube because I can never watch it when it airs live.

I get-cha... but if the sample people all decided not to tune into Raw, SD or whatever show because they can just You Tube clips or download a show later on the internet and watched something else, the ratings would tank.

Well, you're just high.

Yes...Excuse me for treating this like a serious topic and not simply mocking your mum or something.


Read what I said very carefully:

Mike already explained this, but you seemed then to talk about the people who are part of Nielsens. You could have 0 (ZERO) non-Nielsen families in the US and get a high rating. This is unlikely to happen, as they go out of their way to get a diverse sampling of America.

And while we're on it, yes. The Nielsen system is flawed and hardly the best measure, but it is the most relied upon, which means it's the one (in the US, that is), that holds weight with sponsors.

You're using broad speculation. "If everyone did something" is always a silly way to go.

Again again, here. You're placing it into a specific niche and trying to argue it as something significant. Pirates tend to buy more media than non-pirates, which indicates a lack of actual loss.

But more to the point, for it to be an issue with WWE, one would have to ignore rampant success of dozens of other shows. Or the fact that other PPVs aren't experiencing the same phenomena to any known metric. So one has to ask why this would even be happening, if it's only happening to one production (or a very limited number)

Occam's Razor. It's a lot simpler to explain piracy having a negligible impact than it is to come up with an explanation as to why WWE seems to be singled out when it comes to piracy's impact with extraneous steps. Though I'd like to see you try without vague hypotheticals.

"what if everyone does it?" Well, clearly they don't.

But A, they're not, B, why would they, and C, what about other programming?

I don't have cable, and I often work nights. How else am I going to follow their product, and eventually shell out money for merchandise or live ticket sales? Of course, this would be solved if the WWE streamed the shows on their own site, ala Hulu or South Park Studios. I'd be willing to sit through some commercials if they did that. But, until they do, it's Youtube for me.

Youtube.

You are totally taking away ratings by streaming something you otherwise would miss.

I think we get 5 PPV's for free and the rest we have to pay for. I pay for them. It's £15 and to me that's good value for money. When I'm in America I go to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch them. I can't justify paying $50 every single month for it. Ironically though I end up paying almost $50 on beer and food but it's a good time and atmosphere there so I don't mind so much.