[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

I’m not sure if this is a mistake, well, actually I am sure, but there is advertising in some places listing the price for the 4/4 WrestleMania show on PPV as $9.99 and the 4/5 show as $59.99.

Both WWE and UFC got greater exposure over the weekend with ESPN looking for prime time programming, and had the station’s two most-watched shows of the weekend. WWE aired WrestleMania 30 from New Orleans, the 2014 show built around Daniel Bryan winning the WWE title and Brock Lesnar ending Undertaker’s streak. The deal was put together last minute, but doing so does show a relationship between the two sides. It is not a lock that WWE will make a streaming deal with ESPN+, as the sides were said to be apart on money. WrestleMania 30 aired in prime time from 7-11 p.m. Eastern on 3/22, and WrestleMania 32 from Irving, TX, will air on 3/29. WWE will also air last year’s WrestleMania 35 on 4/5 from 3-7 p.m. as a direct lead-in to the show. On the first show, they did wrap-arounds with Tom Phillips and Corey Graves, and the show was filled with WrestleMania commercials and plugs for this year’s show and for the WWE Network. It actually felt watching it like you were watching a time-buy, because of all the plugs. It probably wasn’t that, since they did the same thing the day before with UFC. But it was clear ESPN was hands off because of the nature of the wrap-arounds being all WWE-speak ... WWE also reached a deal with Sportsnet in Canada to air past WrestleManias starting on 3/29 with WrestleMania 30.

WWE has announced that for a limited time, the WWE Network is free. This appears to be through WrestleMania. The new free aspect is open to everyone. It will not be for complete access. It will be for only a portion of the VOD library. What will be accessible is every WrestleMania, every Royal Rumble, every SummerSlam and every Survivor Series, every Takeover and UK Takeover, all the WWE 24 documentaries, all the Steve Austin Broken Skull Challenge shows, the WWE Ruthless Aggression documentary, the Monday Night Wars documentary series, the WWE Untold shows, the recent Florida Championship Wrestling documentary and recent episodes of Raw and Smackdown. This is actually less than what the company does regularly as far as a free first month. It’s also open to everyone who had been a prior subscriber or had gotten a prior free order, where is the free month, at least in theory, was only a one-time thing, although people have learned to negotiate the system. You still have to sign up for it and put a credit card in. They are pushing that you can get both nights of WrestleMania free. But over the last month before WrestleMania it’s always pushed that you can get WrestleMania free, with the idea that the people who sign up will either like it, or forget to cancel, and thus the amount of paid subscribers increase greatly over the month or so after WrestleMania.

On 3/25, AEW did 819,000 viewers and a 0.34 in 18-49, while NXT, with new matches, did 619,000 viewers and a 0.20 in 18-49 ... My gut is that NXT was hurt by last week’s show. News shows numbers are through the roof and the constant empty arena shows have started to hurt ratings even with more people home watching television. Smackdown may be the lone beneficiary because unlike weeknights where a lot of people don’t go out, and while TV viewers are up, Friday viewership is way up with people not going out, and the networks and news channels as opposed to secondary channels will benefit more from this. AEW was down 12.1 percent overall from last week but only down 2.9 percent in 18-49. NXT was up 23.4 percent overall and 25.0 percent in 18-49 over last week’s video package show. Most of the AEW decline was in viewers over the age of 50. The show did a 0.11 in 12-17 (down 15.4 percent), 0.18 in 18-34 (down 5.3 percent), 0.50 in 35-49 (down 2.0 percent) and 0.29 in 50+ (down 23.7 percent) ... Because NXT wasn’t in the top 50 in 18-49 for the day, other details on their numbers won’t be available until next week’s issue.

There isn’t the significance in the 3/18 ratings given world events. AEW got a good number with an empty arena show. As noted last week, there are a number of variables in play. More people were home, but far more were watching the news. There was no NBA and NXT didn’t run any new matches. AEW also promised the reveal of The Exalted One after a several month build. NXT didn’t run a live show, so it could be the AEW increase had more to do with NXT not competing, since the total audience watching wrestling was down, but AEW had a higher share of that audience ... AEW opened with 982,000 viewers and 476,000 in 18-49 with the promo of Cody, Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson and a later promo of MJF. NXT opened with 637,000 viewers and 281,000 in 18-49 for part one of the Johnny Gargano-Tommaso Ciampa marathon video profile. In the second quarter, AEW lost 26,000 viewers and 28,000 in 18-49 with Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix vs. Best Friends. NXT lost 98,000 viewers and 65,000 in 18-49 for more of the Ciampa-Gargano video. In the third quarter, AEW lost 9,000 viewers but gained 3,000 in 18-49 for Hikaru Shida’s four-way win over Riho, Kris Statlander and Penelope Ford, plus the Colt Cabana interview slapping Kip Sabian. NXT lost 49,000 viewers and 23,000 in 18-49 for more Gargano-Ciampa. In the fourth quarter, AEW lost 73,000 viewers and 52,000 in 18-49 for the Jon Moxley promo and Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus vs. Butcher & Blade. NXT lost 18,000 viewers and 16,000 in 18-49 for more Gargano-Ciampa. In the fifth quarter, AEW gained 18,000 viewers and 32,000 in 18-49 for the end of the tag match and the Dark Order reveal. NXT gained 106,000 viewers and 35,000 in 18-49 for the ending of the Gargano-Ciampa video. In the sixth quarter, AEW gained 49,000 viewers and 51,000 in 18-49 for the Jake Roberts promo and the Peanut Butter Falcon knockoff Lance Archer video. NXT lost 5,000 viewers and 7,000 in 18-49 for the first part of the Finn Balor profile. In the seventh quarter, AEW stayed even in viewers but lost 16,000 in 18-49 for the first part of the Cody & Matt Jackson & Adam Page vs. Jake Hager & Santana & Ortiz match. NXT lost 35,000 viewers and 18,000 in 18-49 for the second part of the Balor profile. In the final quarter, AEW lost 15,000 viewers but gained 8,000 in 18-49 for the remainder of the six-man tag match. NXT lost 29,000 viewers and 18,000 in 18-49 for the Rhea Ripley profile video. The 926,000 to 509,000 viewer gap during this quarter had to be the biggest in months.

There was one thing on 3/18 that was positive for having an empty arena show outdoors is they were able to fly the drone to precede the Matt Hardy introduction. They would not have been able to do so indoors in Rochester so that was never planned. But when things changed someone came up with that idea since there was no audience and they were outdoors

Raw on 3/23 did 2,006,000 viewers, the lowest ever for a live episode of the series ... The audience started low, but tuned out in new record numbers, as the first-to-third hour drop was 24.6 percent, the second largest in history, trailing the 11/11 show which went against a monster NFL game. The audience was down 14.1 percent from last week and 22.5 percent from the same week one year ago ... The first hour did 2,289,000 viewers. The second hour did 2,004,000 viewers. The third hour did 1,726,000 viewers. The third hour was the second lowest-watched hour of a Raw broadcast in modern history, beating only the third hour of the 12/23 taped show. Overall, the only shows that this show beat were December 24, 1998, December 31, 1998 and December 23, 1999.

Smackdown on 3/20 did a 1.54 rating and 2,569,000 viewers (1.38 viewers per home), the second best number so far this year for viewers. The show did an 0.8 in 18-49 ... The increase is more due to so many more people at home, particularly 18-49, and all the network stations but CBS were up. Smackdown tied for second behind Shark Tank at 1.1 in the 18-49 demo, but in 25-54, which is the other key Friday night demo that a lot of advertisers on that night look for, it beat only a rerun of Blue Bloods on CBS and was behind all the other shows. For total viewers, other than Smackdown, no network show did less than 4,011,000. Last year at this time FOX did 3,418,000 viewers and a 0.6, but it was a very different time with less people home and NCAA basketball going on.

Regarding The Revival, there were reports that Scott Dawson’s contract has expired because he tweeted “free at last,” but officially it has not. But it’s just a few weeks away from expiring. As noted last week, because The Revival had already surpassed the downside figure on their contracts and are no longer being booked, they haven’t received a paycheck in nearly two months. A lot of the talent would fall into the category as if they were above their downside, they wouldn’t be getting paid right now except for days worked. Some, like Slater, made sure that their $400,000 downside was paid bi-weekly as opposed to agreeing to take the regular payments every other week based on house shows and merch. For the others, and this is the vast majority, if you don’t make your downside you get the lump sum at the end of the year so if there is a long shutdown, most of the talent won’t be paid until later. With Slater, since he’s rarely booked, he probably wouldn’t be having $8,000 weeks based on his spot and the number of shows he works and merch he sells, so it made sense for him to ask for that option. While everything is different now, for The Revival, they went from wanting to give them the comedy gimmick and starting that story, to cool them off, similar to Matt Hardy’s being buried on departure, to just not using them. That put the pressure on them to sign because they weren’t getting paid and even though Dawson’s deal is up in a few weeks, Wilder’s won’t be until mid-June, so that’s the earliest they could sign elsewhere. So they’d have to not make any money until mid-June unless they sign new deals and also ask to be paid ahead if that would even be an option, because even if they signed and were re-booked, there’s no lock there will be shows to be paid off. So this does put great economic pressure on both right now. It actually does on a lot of people if those goes a significant length of time

Arn Anderson, on his podcast, said what everyone pretty much knew anyway from listening, about how at WrestleMania 32, Vince McMahon specifically directed the announcers to bury Sting and WCW in the match with HHH. “All it did was give the announcers, and I know this was fed to them, they just buried Sting. `Minnow in a big pond,’ just total condescending, ‘Guy’s out of his element.’ `This is WrestleMania now.’ `You’re just a small minnow in a huge lake.’” I don’t remember it being that hard, but it was amazing to listen to at the time and quite obvious that Vince was still fighting a war that had ended in 2001

Regarding the ability to tape weekly, it’s noted that Jacksonville’s largest coronavirus testing center will be in the parking lot of HIAA Field, about 100 yards from where they are taping at Daily’s Place. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry also talked about cracking down on businesses and employees taking unnecessary risks. AEW has been working with the city regarding the ability to continue to use Daily’s Place for taping each week. As the show was being taped, the only people around were the wrestlers in the one room for the skits, those in the open-aired building, a few production people outside the building in the truck, and Tony Khan as the only person backstage handling Gorilla and timing the show ... Khan also noted that last week was by far the toughest week in the history of the company as far as being able to rewrite, gather talent and put together a show, because some talent couldn’t come in, some talent opted not to come in and there were so many restrictions put on how many people could be there. Most likely with more restrictions on travel and pressure regarding social gatherings coming from the outside, that this week would have ended up even tougher. Last week they brought in a number of independent wrestlers for a combination of what you’d call tryout matches, that were taped for Dark and they did as much as taping as they could. While they don’t have the library that WWE has, where WWE can go forever and put great matches from the past on television and never run out, they would have enough product to fill television easily for three months while doing wrap-arounds from their studio.

In Japan, most of the sports talk revolved around the 2020 Olympics, which on 3/24, were officially postponed until 2021 in a joint statement between Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe ad IOC President Thomas Bach ... The country took that news hard, because it was a sign to the public that things are not going smoothly and that the current situation is not going to end this week or in a few weeks. After 41 new cases came up in Tokyo on 3/25, up from 16 on 3/23 and 17 on 3/24, Gov. Yuriko Koike of Tokyo asked people to stay in this coming weekend. Generally speaking, the lifestyle in Japan hasn’t changed and restaurants and bars have been full in recent weeks and subways have remained packed. He also asked that all events be closed down until 4/12 ... Korakuen Hall has now banned spectators at its shows for the time being. That was basically the last vestige of the smaller promotions being able to draw significant revenue ... However, New Japan announced that based on the recommendations of Kato they are canceling the 3/31 Sakura Genesis show at Sumo Hall in Tokyo. As noted in recent weeks, there was hope that would be the first show back. No card had been announced since the card was based on what was going to happen at the since-canceled New Japan Cup tournament. Regarding the tournament, no decision has been made whether it will be redone later in the year ... They also announced a 4/11 show in Sagamihara is canceled. At this point they canceled only that show and not the tour. Right now the first show back is listed for 4/12 in Hamamatsu. The reports are that all upper management of New Japan decided to take what was called a responsible and cautious approach for the weeks ahead. They don’t want any fans or talent to get sick, so decided against any empty arena shows as they felt it was not worth the risk to talent and that they are looking at health as the first priority. The Best of the Super Junior tournament is scheduled to start on 5/12. Right now, anyone who comes to Japan from a foreign country has to be quarantined for two weeks, so any Americans, Europeans or Mexicans coming for that tournament would have to come two weeks earlier and pretty much stay in a hotel or home, with no going to the gym ...

Brett Lauderdale, Joey Janela and Game Changer Wrestling were able to raise $12,000 for independent wrestlers who performed on their two empty arena shows this past week in a secret location. A lot of clips have gone around of comedic social distancing spots where guys would be six feet apart and one guy would do a move like a huracanrana or choke slam or clothesline and the guy six feet away would take the bump for the move. Obviously some people are going to hate that and some will find it funny. It doesn’t destroy or kill wrestling. The only people who can hurt wrestling are those with the mass exposure to do so, just as they are the only people who can grow the popularity of wrestling. The people on the other levels only role is to provide a product that entertains enough people that it is financially viable for the person putting up the money and hopefully can do continual repeat business. The funny thing is, that was the exact goal of every start-up and established pro wrestling group since the beginning of time