TPWW's Official Dirty Sheets News Thread

[Damian Rey 2.0]

Is there any number to reference to confirm WWE is actually profiting? Profit and revenue are different right?

[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by Damian Rey 2.0 Is there any number to reference to confirm WWE is actually profiting? Profit and revenue are different right?

Yeah, revenue is the gross amount of money you take in, whereas profit is your net after you pay off expenses. For example, if I were a film producer, I could make $50,000,000 on a movie, which might be my most successful film to date, but if it cost $52,000,000 to make?

Growing a business does occasionally mean you need to go into the red or increase expenses to temporarily shrink your profit margin, but the idea behind that is that these expenses will eventually go down, or the revenue coming in will increase to a rate that allows the profit margins to be wider so you can pay better dividends to your shareholders and have the appearance of prosperity.

This is why things like the WWE Network not growing as much as hoped and television ratings being down are actually important things. What CyNick says about ratings generally being down isn't technically false -- television is changing -- but that doesn't give the WWE an assured future on cable television. Last time they expected far higher rights fees than they got offered. As the USA Network shrinks, it is true to suppose that it might become more dependent on the WWE product, but it could also be logically deduced that they might have less money to spend on live content. CyNick's stance seems to be that it would be stupid for the USA Network to cut a show that is watched fourth most on cable or whatever, but what he overlooks is that it is sliding progressively down in relation to other forms of programming. That is why the demographic share is so low these days.

All it would take is a shake-up at NBC Universal and a few suits to say "we're going to try and make USA a platform for more original content" (like Mr. Robot), or for a few suits to cotton on that the WWE's influence on their network is shrinking and they could realistically make a low-ball offer. WCW was doing better than RAW is in its dying days, and the company still had worth, but because it was trending downwards it was easy for executives to say "We don't want wrestling." USA will obviously want to keep Vince on board, but what the WWE is counting on is that NBC Universal will spend more money on a product that is actually shrinking in terms of viewership just because their other programming isn't too crash hot. It's not the sure-fire plan that CyNick makes it out to be.

This is why international expansion is so important for the WWE right now. They need that Network in as many places as possible -- specifically Asian markets. This is why Shinsuke Nakamura has a place in the WWE that Kenta Kobashi never got. That's why the Bollywood Boyz and Jinder Mahal are in WWE. It's why the WWE is bringing out a UK Championship. They have given up on an aim for quality in a "if the product is hot, people will watch and spend money on us" sense, and have implemented a bulk shock-and-awe with sheer volume approach to try to get into as many homes for as cheap as possible in order to keep themselves afloat.