Why do wrestling fans care about ratings?
 

Something I've never understood about some wrestling fans...why do people care about the ratings of a show?

It just strikes me as an odd thing to concern yourself with.

As a fan, I care about the matches, the angles, the promos and whether they're good or not. I couldn't really give much of a shit about how high (or low) the ratings are.

It's the same when people bitch about companies "giving away" matches for free that they could have done on PPV. Why are you complaining that you didn't have to pay money to see something?

Gets me all rather confused

I get all the PPVs free anyways. It's all about doing things for the height of dramatic effect. Important things should happen on PPV and not on tv.

I don't really care about ratings. As a kid I used to follow them cause I wanted wrestling to be popular so I wouldn't get insulted in school for being a fan. Now I don't really give a fuck what others think about what I think about wrestling. They really don't matter to me and they shouldn't matter to anybody except the advertisers.

Because if someone you dont like isn't drawing it gives you another reason to moan about wrestling.

I like the ones that go WWE will be off the air now! Do they realize how long it's been on tv?

Ryback=ratings

'Sactly

Ratings are used by idiots like Gertner to justify his supposed hatred for what he calls "Vanilla Midgets". In other words only douchebags and idiots care about the ratings.

ZING!

Pretty much this.

Don't forget Kane Knight

Because all the workrate fat basement dwelling virgins hate when facts get in their weay of "Tyson Kidd should be IC Champ" arguement.

Fans care about rating because it makes them feel more "in the know" as to the "ins and outs" of the business.

I think there actually are some people who concern themselves with ratings because they want to know that the show is doing well. During times of competition it's a measure of who is doing better and can be used to determine what works and what doesn't.

But mostly, yeah, people want to look more in the know than others and torpedo anything they don't like. Though I can't see that he proliferation of DVR isn't going to make traditional ratings models pretty meaningless before long.

Fixed.

I think the concern in regards to ratings stems from the Monday Night War era when ratings were obviously a big deal in who was watching what. I stopped caring about ratings once the "war" was over and there was no reason to compare.

Because it's not cool to be a wrestling fan until the ratings hit a 9, then you can talk wrestling in public.

You mean I can't talk about wrestling in public....doh!

I have been wondering the same thing for over ten long years.

When discussing the health and success of the industry itself, hard numbers are kind of the best thing going.

Ratings have no real impact on fandom or match quality. If that's all you want to discuss, then it doesn't matter.

Then again, most of the people who talk about ratings seem not to know shit about them or where they're relevant.

just because a thread ends in a question mark doesnt mean it belongs in Q&A. questions with factual answers aka thread ending responses go there.

'Finite answers'.

And I think KK pretty much has it.

Glad somebody moved this. It was keeping me up at night.

Caring about ratings is so 1998.

My bad. I figured if I posted it in here originally I'd get bitched at and told to post in Q&A.

This is TPWW. You'll get bitched at by someone for just about everything.

Taker it easy with generalizations, I don't care for ratings. I think good wrestling brings ratings rather than ratings means a good product.

I don't think anyone actually believes the latter and I'm not sure the former is true.

Though I suppose it depends on what you mean by "good wrestling," I suppose. It's certainly not actually the physical performances of wrestlers.

A more accurate term may be "good product" rather than good wrestling. Wrestling is near the core of the product.