Did AEW get a renewed TV deal?

Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Wrestleomics Radio. I'm Brandon Thirston Broadcasting, live and on demand from Buffalo, New York where today is Sunday, May 21st, 2023. I am joined for a robust conversation. I have the good fortune to be joined by Chris Gullo down here at Jesse Collings over here. How are you both? It's geographically correct boxes today. Nope. We're here to the, this is to my east. I suppose this is geographically appropriate because Gullo lives to myself and Jesse lives far, far further away to my east. So we are, we are oriented in the correct positions here. Maybe like to scale, you can make my box smaller and push it further away. We'll work on a custom stream yard layout that will maybe even more appropriately scale us to size. So I had some max logos out here and I, cause I thought that today was the max day, but no, Tuesday is the day that HBO Max is no longer HBO Max and becomes a Max. And then June 9th, I understand is when you can, you can binge every episode of AEW All Access on the streaming service, Max. This is not a paid advertisement by the way, it's just information. So could you, could you watch episodes of AEW Dynamite or Rampage on Max? I don't think so. As far as I know, only the scripted show. Yes. Well, is wrestling scripted? Is wrestling a scripted show? Is it a live entertainment show? Which is it live sports? Is it a drama? Yes. So last week we talked about the upcoming new deal that we expected to be announced at the, or at least on the day of the WBD up front. That didn't happen. Nobody's reported a new deal beyond the introduction of a third weekly in ring TV show for all elite wrestling called AEW collision every Saturday night from eight to 10 Eastern. Maybe it'll involve CM Punk, probably, maybe not. But no reports of a new TV deal in the speculated rumored neighborhood of a billion dollars for five years that will come out to roughly 200 million dollars. That has not been reported. So let's, if you, by the way, if you want to submit a super chat, if you want to add a question or a comment and we will address it on the air, you can do that if you're watching live on YouTube. So where should we start here? I guess we'll start with just looking back on some of the reports that happened in the days leading up to the WBD, one of our brothers discovery up front. Chris Gull, do you want to narrate this for us? Yes. So on Wednesday, May 10th, we had a report from the figure four weekly where it's at a new TV rights deal between AEW and Warner Bros. discover will be announced as part of the ladder up front on Wednesday in New York City. This news comes from our day, Melter. Melter said both the deal and the must discuss AEW collision show will be announced at the Wednesday, May 17th event at the theater at Madison Square Garden. Okay. None. And so that's, this is a week. This is a week out. Before the Wednesday, that is the WBD up front. What else is being up here? Well, a fightful select then on that same day on Wednesday, May 10th goes, the last we heard AEW content is said to be exclusively hosted on WBD platforms with ring of honor seemingly not being part of that. However, we have not necessarily heard that an entirely new deal has been reached for AEW programming as of yet. Those that have spoken to say that collision on WBD in prime time is part of a new cash infusion for AEW an extension of their partnership. The two sides have held to BBD sources have long spoken glowingly about the relationship with all the wrestling and the deal is planned for an announcement around the time of the water up front. There was a lot of discussion and rumors both online within WBD and AEW about this deal being a billion dollar deal over a few years. And that could be true if all their deals were extrapolated. However, WBD sources have indicated to us that collision was that planned upcoming announcement as opposed to an all in there company the whole encompassing deal that included dynamite AEW and WBD sources have not confirmed a dollar figure. Okay. So this is a week out and so Dave Meltzer is reporting that there's many to get this right that there's going to be both the deal and the must discuss a much discussed AEW collision show and Fightful reporting that they've heard of and have not necessarily heard that an entirely new deal has been reached for AEW programming yet but a cash infusion related to collision. And then PWInsider on Monday, two days before the WBD upfront says what? Yeah, they say this week could prove to be one of the biggest in AEW history as Warner Brothers Discovery is expected to unveil the new AEW collision series this Wednesday as per the upfront presentation in New York City and perhaps even a larger scale media rights agreement between the two sides. Perhaps. Okay. So this now that brings us to Wednesday and people are I'm I'm getting ready to watch the upfront people are people are asking me even the night before is there a way to watch I got emails DMS tweets say is there a way to watch this slide and I said I don't think so. I don't think there's a way to watch it live beyond being there in person. I learned though later not the case you can stream it live so someone who had media access who's there in person gave me their their link and I've watched the slide still getting DMS including one from Chris Gullow thirsty thirsty DMS is working. I watch it. Give me the link please. But I was able to watch it and there's you know there's not that much AEW there's like a you know a big banner among a lot of others that includes Jay Kargle at one point there's a couple of emotion clips and big montages and stuff but then finally they do get to this announcement but I guess let's read a couple more things before before this this actually takes place around 11 a.m. at around 8 a.m. there's another report from P.W. Insider. Yep from that report there is been speculation that a larger media rate steel between the two parties will also be revealed today although there's been no official confirmation on that no AEW or WVD sources even off the record would commit to that announcement being a likelihood scenario today. Okay and then Fyfele about it also in the morning before the upfront. Yeah so Fyfele reports AEW collision is set to be announced imminently likely in conjunction with the WVD up fronts we have heard that dynamite has also been extended but we did know recently that collision will see a big cash infusion for AEW but that isn't all that's changing. Okay so and then Kathleen Finch gets on the stage among her presentation of the general entertainment programs for WVD she reveals the announcement that we've all really been waiting for which is the return of the Jo Shmo Show. Being resurrected from the Viacom days and will be a TBS show the Jo Shmo Show is coming back. And then she does announce that AEW collision is coming every Saturday in addition to dynamite and rampage still being there. So that's really all that there is. There's no I mean I certainly didn't expect on the stage for a TV network to say hey we've got a new deal it's five years a billion dollars but I expected that maybe after this that there would be some sort of report in media somewhere saying you know we've been told according to sources you know with knowledge of the agreement that there's been an Avron new to deal of five years for whatever maybe maybe a dollar figure. As we speak here on Sunday morning there's been none of that and after the there hasn't even yes there hasn't even been like follow-ups to what was announced Wednesday. Like I haven't really seen anything whether it's from the observer whether it's from Fightful whether it's from somewhere else haven't even seen really any follow-up to you know oh they didn't announce a new TV deal but this happened or this is why it's been centered around you know CM Pollock who's been featured and who has not been featured in the advertisements for that collision show but there really hasn't been even a follow-up report I don't even think there was anything in the observer this week saying like oh you know even though we thought they were going to announce the TV deal last week they didn't because X, Y, and Z just seems like it kind of happened and everyone is now. Let's focus on the ceiling. Please. Yeah. Whistling past that. Yeah. Okay. Brandon you yourself you said this Wednesday was AEW Super Bowl. I did. That this was going to be the decisive thing to tell us whether the AEW experiment is paid off whether or not it could become a viable and profitable company and unfortunately because we didn't really get any financial term announcement on Wednesday it still remains a mystery. I mean the inclusion of the collision show would suggest that there is a strong demand on Warner's end for more AEW contents and presumably they're being paid pretty handsomely for it given the extra expenses that are going to occur with this second touring brand. Well at the same time before we go much further let's have Golo read the one last thing from PDB Insider that comes after the announcement on Wednesday morning. All right so perhaps even more interesting is that there was no media rights renewal announcement today. pwinsider.com is told by a source of Warner Brothers discovery that there was never ever a plan for either side to announce a new deal between AEW and WBD. There have been rampant speculation online about a new deal between the two sides being worth as high as 1.5 billion but beyond that speculation there had been any note I'm sorry there had been any linking inkling sorry from either or AEW or WBD that a new rights agreement had been locked in much less was going to be officially announced today. Once again like Saudi Arabia buying WWE another story with no basis in fact run amok where you're told there was no announcement expected today on that front. So I feel kind of bad for titling our show last week a new deal to be announced and things like that and I busted out all the factors and got all the models out to be like yeah look at how you know it could be 3x, 5x or whatever it is and then here we are we've got no deal because I really let some of the reporting from last week influence what I expected to happen and that has not happened as far as we know I guess it could have there could have been an agreement but there's been no report of an agreement beyond the addition of collision which which I agree has got to be you know if the cost is around $25 million per year for the additional production of collision and the compensation I believe would be increased to something near or above that number for a W. But no TV deal and then there's yet to be any report that makes me think that that dynamite and rampage have been renewed beyond 2025. You learned a valuable lesson about listening to the media. Which is what? You let speculation get you excited got me excited I was I was I was I was like really busy at work on Wednesday during the announcement but I was kind of like constantly trying to keep an eye on okay when's that press release dropping what's this up front starting I was I wasn't I wasn't interested in watching a stream of it but I was like everyone else you know expecting something big and I don't it's pretty disappointing I guess in the sense of we didn't get that kind of clarification and people people like me who want to do a victory lap over a W financial success were kind of denied that in a lot of ways. So a W pessimism lives on a W could be going out of business still. They could be I mean I know look look what's going on backstage it looks like there they might not it looks like it's you know it's done I don't care that they just announced a new two two hour show on Warner Brothers Discovery you have to think Warner Brothers Discovery cannot be happy with the way things are going on right now in a W. I'm being so I want to clarify now I'm being. Now we're going to isolate that later that's going to be a song clip. I think that there's no renewed deal for Don Mutter Rampage beyond 2025 and perhaps not even for for collision beyond 2025. Given that people in the media believe this to an extent and certain certain you know people talking about it online believe this should AEW have done something at least you go on background tell somebody hey look this is not this is not represent a renewal. Yeah. Yeah there's probably going to be a collision announcement here but there's you know temporary expectations here but apparently that didn't happen. Yeah I mean that's certainly possible I mean AEW theoretically has the PR department to go out reach out to the biggest news makers and wrestling and say clarify kind of what is going to be announced on Wednesday to avoid that kind of I guess extensive disappointment. At the same time I also realistically don't know how many people were really watching that upfront expecting that new TV deal what percentage of their fan base is closely following those aspects of it's probably certainly people listening and watching this show are all over it but out of the you know 850,000 dynamite watchers each week how many of them are really focused on things like that maybe they don't consider it worth their time but it would probably would have been helpful on our heads. And I did ask last week you know at least one person who would definitely know definitely a position to to decide whether to you know make sure the media knows and I did not get a response. So do we do have not just a show on Saturday but we do have some dates for this show on Saturday that were announced by Tony Khan on the Wednesday night dynamite show it's going to premiere June 17th no location to be announced rumor that that's going to be the United Center in Chicago that was held back apparently because there's issues with CM Punk maybe a disagreement between CM Punk and an AEW involving a steelman that a steel is going to be a producer in light of his involvement in the all-out fight last September but in addition to that Saturday before Forbidden Door Toronto also at the Scotia Bank arena Hamilton Ontario the following week which will be a Thursday taping instead of a Saturday night live taping so that's going to be the day after a dynamite is already scheduled there in Hamilton so two straight days now in Hamilton Regina Saskatchewan that Saturday event that you know they maybe we were thinking it was going to be a house show house rules now that's going to be a collision taping same thing for Calgary on Saturday July 15th and a new date at the Prudential Center in Newark New Jersey for those events those tickets did go on sale and we have the latest numbers from WrestleTix and the advances are pretty low so some of these the candidates I believe had already been on sale and that the Calgary saddle dome is over over 3000 the Newark Prudential Center events in on July 22nd is over 3000 the day before Forbidden Door at about 1600 in Toronto 1600 and then Hamilton the day after a dynamite taping is already scheduled there according to the latest count from WrestleTix 569 I think I have drawn some some crowds that are higher than 569 so that's that's pretty low we'll see what happened yes is that the presale numbers are those two I believe the general on sale I believe it's all I heard I heard the 569 number a couple days ago and someone told me it was the presale number that's a good question but let me make sure before we let's see here general public on sale WrestleTix reported this yesterday for Hamilton so that it that is general on sale so we'll see what happens if you know the the teases that Tony's going to reveal the location of the June 17th show presumably that's going to be Chicago United Center and that will indicate either explicitly or implicitly that CM Punk is going to be there does that lift any of these ticket sales we'll see I think there's a number of ways to look at these numbers the first thing that should be pointed out is that these with the exception of the brand center and Regina these are extremely large buildings that they're running all of these personal areas are is big I have no idea the first Ontario Center I think has a capacity of close to 20,000 like it's a very large building Scotia Bank arena of course is big the biggest arena in Toronto saddle domes play right yep and the Raptors the saddle domes where the Calgary Flames play probably similar capacity capacity 18,000 or so and the potential center of course is it you know a large MBA sized arena in New Jersey and so there's a number of ways to look at these numbers the first two things that jump out to me are you know what to explain I guess why they're so low the first thing is there's CM Punk has been announced at all for these shows I think if you announce him you see tickets moving one because he's a big draw and two because it tells you that collision is important and it matters and right now the second thing I look at is related to that and that I think that you know what AEW Rampage has become which is a decisively B show that is viewed as largely unimportant and insignificant by a majority of AEW fans has already tainted the opinion on collision because I think a lot of fans see collision they think oh it's just another version of AEW Rampage you know it's if CM Punk gets announced and you do you know whether it's a soft or hard roster split and it becomes collision becomes the only place you can see some of their biggest stars like CM Punk that changes the narrative and the changes I think fans perception of collision but right now without CM Punk being announced I think people are seeing collision and they say just like AEW Rampage it's not going to be that important there's not going to be title matches there's not going to be matches that have major storyline ramifications for the biggest stars and then those people are not going to go and buy tickets those shows I think that's reflected in the the week ticket so so far and they're ambitious about it because they're running the biggest buildings in Canada these are probably like with the exception of the brand center these are you know the the the Calgary the saddle dome the first Ontario center the the Scosche Bank Arena those are probably three of the 10 largest arenas in Canada these are all except for New Jersey well in the case of the events where they're already doing a taking which is Toronto and Hamilton it's it's probably I'm sure it's cheaper to do that to stay in the same venue then to say to go to the Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto or to go to another venue in the nearby area just because of the load in loadout in that Toronto show is related to also for you have I'm kind of surprised Toronto show is because that's the Saturday right before for it for Bendore correct yes so you theoretically have not only Toronto fans but you also have a lot of flying fans that are going to be in Toronto for that weekend because they're there for for in door you think that would be an easy not a sell out necessarily but an easy you know big crowd by AEW standards so I'm not quite sure why it's so poor I mean that's that's got to be hugely disappointing at this time we'll see but it's only a month away it's not like these shows are are months and months away to to build hype they really need to whether it's getting a CM Punk on the show or doing something else to really sell people that these are important shows that you need to go to I don't know I think that's what you have to do if you want to not have a you know really disappointing ticket sales you're gonna say something go well I'll just get a the first Ontario Center that was cops Colosseum so of course yeah so that's good to know pretty substantial read 19 000 people so I've met many memories of cops Colosseum being plugged in during WF Superstars on Fox 29 the 90s um so it brings to mind one of the risks that come with doing collision you know getting hopefully a lot of money for for doing collision but there's there's some risks that come with that and that's the dilution of of other areas of your business including live events including ratings um I mean we'll see what happens if some some big angle happens when punk comes out and there's there's a lot of interest in what's going on here maybe these ticket sales will increase um like you said there's a lot of people in town probably for for Binder which is the sunday have people I mean this is this is being announced so late um it's not it's not it's not like this was introduced obviously along with the announcement that for Binder is is in Toronto on on june 25th um so so it's not as if people have made plans to already be there necessarily on Saturday uh they may be getting there you know early on sunday or late on Saturday and they they made their plans not knowing that there was going to be this this additional event that they had to make time for on Saturday um is there how much of a risk is that risk in that how much is having these additional events and going to going to markets more often or hitting these markets twice in a week how much is that going to dilute one live events then ticket sales and how much is more importantly is that going to dilute the tv ratings of the other two shows dine white and rampage do you see that as a big risk or not so much i'm not i mean rampage is what rampage is whatever i think collisions exist or punching on rampage it's just it kind of like it just a further uh it's becoming worldwide it's becoming like ww made event or you know wcw saturday night or one of the the shows that just kind of exists and is on tv people can watch it if they want but i don't think warner is concerned that much with uh i don't think it's that concerned that much with what they're doing um collision i think dynamite is like almost like monday raw in the sense that if you're an aw fan your condition to watch on eight on wednesday nights at a p m your your weekly schedule um if you're a big fan is has has that eight o'clock window at wednesday night largely cleared out um i don't know if it will really have that make of an impact on dynamite um historically if you look at like what wcw thunder did for nitro what the introduction of smackdown did for monday night raw history tells us that adding a second major kind of brand does hurt um ticket rate tv ratings to an extent but i think that overall i think dynam people who are going to watch dynamite people who are a big a w fans are going to watch dynamite first and for foremost it's the only this is going to be on collision to convince people to watch that show because that's an unfamiliar tv time and a tv time that a lot of people are not going to be around for nationally because it's on saturday night yeah saturday eight o'clock is going to be very tough like i mean i don't know how better these ratings are going to be the rampage to be honest with you yeah they'll be on earlier than rampage which helps um they'll be facing a lot of uh live sports competition especially during college football season um i would say you net that this time slot e to 10 on saturday is better than a time slot at 10 on friday right and maybe we'll be interested to see like we know how much rampage gets has gotten moved around being on tnt especially during the nhl and mba playoffs it's collision going to get moved around a lot but um probably now it's it's noticeably starting after the the playoffs have wrapped up for both of those sports which is probably not a coincidence yeah but if you know where you're from now and it's probably gonna get moved around a lot more it's already getting around right they're doing a other thing that thursday taping but it's a good hair on saturday right and that that seems to i would guess based on the the date of that is that that's just to give crew to not not make them have to work uh july fourth week you know how old are we gonna be and it's prob and it's probably just more cost effective to say hey let's add an extra date to hamilton and there's a and this is all kind of why cm punk i think has so much leverage in his ongoing negotiations with a w whatever those may be because of it really seems like collision needs that one big individual star that can make the show feel important make people tune in on saturday night make people buy tickets to go to the arena make people understand that a w collision is not like rampage it is just as important as dynamite and you need to watch it if you want to stay in the loop on what's happening with some of their biggest stars and whether it's because cm punk himself it that he needs to have his own show because he can only exist in this pocket universe because he can't get along with anyone or other people don't want to work with him or simply because they need that big star for this show and whether or not cm punk had a tremendous relationship with everyone else on the roster or not he'd still be called to anchor the saturday show it's the same it's because they need that one giant big star um to make this show feel important especially when it first starts because as we saw with rampage punk actually helped rampage a lot when he debuted obviously his debut was on rampage but that first month or so uh of rampage where punk was kind of only on rampage and not on dynamite rampage did very well in the ratings it was very competitive and was finishing in the top five on friday nights despite that 10 o'clock uh time slot so they can look at that model and say okay we can do this it's just going to be on saturday now um but he needs to be there every week and he needs to be um healthy and he needs to be you know willing to work with everyone and those are all questions that still need to be answered so this will be i i assume confirmed as the united center june 17th confirm that wednesday let's say um and first of all do we buy that like was this the original plan what do you think is the original plan here in terms of the wednesday announcement of these things i couldn't i couldn't even begin to guess i have no idea right you're suggesting that it's possible that the united center was supposed to be announced the last wednesday um as probably not why why would you wait what wednesday is going to be is you got three weeks now to sell tickets why why would you give yourself three weeks rather than four weeks unless there was some conflict between a w and punk that made you hold it back for sure but also if you remember last time when they announced when they announced cmpunks return it wasn't like they did that with a ton of weeks build up the almost some of the intrigue was that they were announcing the united center with such a quick um turnaround that it made the show the event feel special and more important and more significant because people said oh my god they're running united center on only two weeks something huge must be that was it two weeks notice it wasn't that it wasn't that long ago yeah because that was part of the whole you know ramp up for it was it is like oh my god they're running a bigger building than they really ever won before and it's going to be um in chicago and they've got a special announcement or something teased um i think there may be there look they're they're trying to recapture it they're trying to do the exact same thing that they were did last year i don't know if it's going to work as well um so we assume that i i couldn't i couldn't i couldn't guess if they what you said granted makes perfect logical sense why would they not just announce the united center last week unless something had changed but or something was in doubt yeah but it's hard to speculate on that so let's assume wednesday night they reveal united center chicago june 17th and i've got three weeks to sell tickets most of those ticket sales will happen when when tickets first go on sale and then we'll be some more um towards towards the the day of the show and then very little in the tween that's the trend of these shows generally um night centers a big building how many this is gonna sell out even if i mean what's gonna be advertised here strongly implied that siempunk is gonna be there probably maybe not explicitly whatever the case can just the notion that siempunk is gonna be there for the you know because you know b&a w for the first time since last september is that enough to sell this building out i doubt it i think it'll be maybe a respectable crowd but i doubt this is gonna sell out the united center i mean look at the other ticket sales for collision so far there's not a lot of interest in the collision brand so you're really just i would look at this under the premise that siempunk's not a part of these shows yet because it's not confirmed that he will be right but i'm just saying like we're now counting on siempunk just siempunk no one else almost no no other branding to sell 14000 who is their biggest draw by far right but there's i don't know if there's any wrestler in the world right now that's selling 14 000 tickets based on just their presence maybe like the raw of the rock was appearing on the show or something like that but did did you see i i have a slide-brained sublayer but did you see roan rains was accidentally advertised for faithless south kirolina and moved a couple thousand tickets only a couple thousand that's not on the scale of what you're saying but yeah that did happen he said well that's more than three hundred tickets he moved uh in the pat for the uh long island show but he's getting more over a couple of thousand tickets on the on a mistake imagine if he had like the title for two thousand days think of how many more tickets he would sell like a how more over he'll be in the two thousand days he could sell three thousand tickets if he was there um good to know your favor of an even longer run for roan rains i'm just saying this is what could happen you want to make a big draw a two thousand day title reign um but also this is chicago cm punk has a special drawing ability in chicago as we learned last year um with the the first dance for the rampage episode has cm punk heard his drawing power i think the answer is unequivocally yes but we don't have any proof of that yet but i definitely think that cm punk is less popular than he was there's certainly less not maybe because we get further from his return right in 2021 but i think that but your suggestion is does does the brawl out controversy does that is that in the consciousness of fans enough for that to be a negative on his drawing power i think it's in the consciousness of some fans the size of those fans and how many of those people would be like regular ticket buyers it's hard to say i think there were kind of like three opinions on cm punk amongst a w fans there are people probably a vast majority of fans realistically people who don't really care or have an opinion on anything cm punk is done outside of the wrestling on screen in his on screen character and just kind of would be excited to see him back and want to see wrestling him wrestling again the other group is people who love cm punk uh i've sided with him in this debate between this feud between him and the elite um and our hugely supportive and i want to see him come back and that third group are people who are really frustrated with his behavior don't like the way he's conducted himself don't like the way he's played games uh don't like his his sassy social media posts and those people are only on instagram the way those people have become like anti-cm punk fans for lack of better term and that third group of people really didn't exist among the a w fan base when he first debuted last year and during his run you know in a w there wasn't really anyone that was like oh i'm annoyed with cm punk or i don't want to see cm punk wrestle or he's dragging everyone else down that was those people didn't exist and now they do and that is in the mind of some fans and even if that's like five percent of a w fans that are now like i don't like cm punk anymore there's still a significant portion of the fan base um what this is not called the vocal minority yeah and i'm sure i'm sure it is i'm sure the majority of fans don't really care if you know about anything cm punk did don't care about the press conference don't care about his fight with the elite they just you know are are more passive in their fan fandom so they're just you know oh cm punk he's a big star i'd like to see him wrestle i'm sure that's a majority of the fans but there is a loud um some you know perhaps small segment of the fans who are now anti-cm punk and that did not exist during his first run with the company you know last year um okay so anything else to add here on on a w i mean it'd be interesting to see what the crowd reactions are like after the first couple weeks um we saw a little bit there was like a cole cabana chant at one point a small very small cole cabana chant well he made sure to yell at the guy who was chanting and then engrained him amplify which amplified that because he just had to call the guy out so no it's like replying to trolls on twitter you give them oxygen and then they just you know multiply um so and it'll be interesting to see what the rating can really be that saturday june 17th will be a big rating i assume um it's not going to be on the level of the first rampage no way uh which which was like 1.1 million viewers i forget what the demo rating was yeah the second that was actually the second rampage i'm sorry that's right that's right um but yeah it was a huge huge rating i mean c 600 000 um 600 000 feels high considering what what dynamite is doing granted that's against playoffs and stuff like that right now um but i don't expect really big numbers here uh it remains to be seen how it's going to do against ples when w is running on saturday nights it remains to be seen what this is going to do for a w's pay-per-view schedule or all the pay-per-view is going to have to be sundays now whereas on holiday weekends we're on holiday weekends later but on holiday weekends they've been doing pay-per-views on sunday nights but the two let's see they are doing forbidden door on a sunday uh revolution was was revolution saturday paper no it was sunday paper view wait well i don't know can somebody look that up what what was the revolution i believe it was sunday it was sunday have all the pay-per-view has been sundays in the last while then yeah with sunday mark vith okay well anyway does this mean that pay-per-view is going to be on sundays rather than saturday's permanently i guess a lot of them have been anyway um okay now now i've done a w pessimism you're ready for more pessimism also at the up front this week nbc universal had their up front presentation very little w presence granted there was like no talent presence on any of these up fronts really uh on stage anyway with some with some exceptions um because of the wga strike that's happening here where it's so to honor the ww wga strike no talent is really with some exceptions appearing on the stage uh so w uh nbc you very little w presence maybe some clips and then some montages fox same thing very little w presence in the montage except for maybe some video clips and whatnot we did get a gordon ramsie and michael strayhan appearing on stage at fox so very little presence for wb at either of these up fronts um these were both on monday and then the w stock on wednesday morning took a big hit endeavor fell not to not to the same extent but fell with it um wb's stock has been on a really strong run to be clear it has not fallen anywhere near back to the point where it was several months ago it's still trading at over a hundred dollars as of a close of the market on friday so w stock is still on the whole picture last several months since the merger announcement doing really well uh that said it did fall by multiple percent on wednesday i was struggling to understand what was going on uh you know i i would figure you know when we talk about what whatever's going on with a w certainly in the effect of us of an immediate effect on a day i would say if you're suggesting that a w is having anything to do with what the w stock is doing i think you're living in a wrestling bubble and i think you're overemphasizing the degree to which at least the investment community the people control the shares here really care about or are even aware of what a w is doing and to whatever extent that has an impact on w's business but on wednesday morning you know w w b d i have to be very articulate when i when i pronounce the wb d and w wb wb did announce that they're gonna give a w a new show and to be optimistic for a moment that probably doesn't mean that you're gonna get rid of a w anytime soon probably means you're gonna renew them for for an additional cycle here um it expresses that wb's biggest direct competitor is here to stay for at least another number of years um so i figured maybe that that's what was going on um but but probably not in fact because it looks like um according to light shed they did their podcast on friday and talked about how um endeavor had a meeting with their investors basically telling it's apparently a small meeting but but word got out that they told some of their investors to brace yourselves for fox not being willing to give smackdown an upgrade in their renewal cycle so that could affect the stock so basically you know fox fox uh lachlan murrach at the the moffett nathanson conference also said that it's very unlikely that they're gonna bid on nba they don't currently hold nba but very unlikely that they're gonna bid on nba and endeavor telling their investors that fox really doesn't want to pay an upgrade for smackdown and if fox is not gonna pay an upgrade for smackdown well then who is um there's lachlan and there's arrie manual and marx superior um and i i try to do some clarification or two it does this have anything to do with you know you have c which is owned by endeavor did did you have c like not have some good relationship with fox when they were uh on fox they're on esp and now is that having anything to do with it and that i'm i'm understanding that no that's not the issue here it's just a a fact of fox expressing that they don't want to pay for an upgrade and endeavor telling their investors hey look don't be surprised by this this might happen so stock took a tumble as a result the question is if fox is not going to pay for an upgrade is there somebody else who's going to pay for an upgrade for smackdown the obvious are there the most obvious potential suitors here are on the screen if it's not fox well certainly could see usa taking another night of of wrestling which raises the question why why didn't you just buy wwe well maybe because there's a sex pass who's the chairman could you even see it being you know having some presence on peacock amazon prime was certainly talked up by nakon at the moth nation's making some conference which we'll talk about in a moment maybe esp is disney a real player for for wrestling and for smackdown i don't see where certainly not on the on the esp and mothership esp and two seems too weak but if you're going to do some sort of multi platform multimedia distribution of this maybe esp plus that makes it work any thoughts there any of these real i can i mention at the up front i want to ask because that was a discussion obviously wwe didn't have a um presence at the up front but in general seems like sports don't really have a big presence at up front um if you go back to like with the slide you had like all the npc programming i didn't see the nfl on there i didn't see the primary leak um i didn't see the nhl yeah i mean this is one one photo i'm sorry um we talked with tony maglio on friday about this and i got the sense the sports were highlighted more than usual but usually they are not highlighted to the extent that they are and as we know sports are an increasingly important part of of these network conglomerates and the ratings that they're able to deliver um fox did have or was it disney who do joe buck and troy ekmick what work for now disney abc is apparently they were at the up front and they were on stage for for disney's up front for that's worth and we do see michael strayhan here in this photo who's uh you know a fox nfl analyst and maybe does he do like good morning america and stuff now too i don't know what he is now he was he didn't he was on the like regis and kelly show us which is phillpins replacement but he's not he has been on that i think a few years he was um sure he was doing good morning america recently i don't know like which is not a fox show in any place no cbc doesn't he um anyway so um if we do the math here if if it is the case that um smacked down doesn't get an upgrade what what are we looking at for wb's tv rights fees as we stand now with these assumptions that hey look maybe uh maybe it gets maybe w gets a 1.5 x increase which i think is pretty base case then that turns four hundred and seventy million dollars us average annual value four hundred and seventy that's for raw and smacked down combined if you give that a 50 raise you end up with just over seven hundred million dollars again going from four seventy to seven hundred and five million dollars uh or if you're more optimistic which is basically i think what's baked or at least was baked into the stock before this week if you're thinking a 1.75 x increase then we're talking about going from four hundred and seventy to well over eight hundred million dollars um if you're thinking about doubling it you get to almost a billion uh can you imagine a billion dollars per year just in us tv rights not to mention international rights not to mention all the other revenue and all the other businesses that w generates just in us rights fees but reason to be more pessimistic here um if if it's if smacked down is flat but you're still able to get a pretty strong increase on raw so a 1.75 x increase for raw and a flat no raise deal for smacked down then well then you still end up at a basically a 1.4 x increase and you're at about six hundred and seventy million dollars per year per year not that long ago that was close to the annual revenue for the entire w business so we're talking about an increase we're basically regardless of the outcomes here um unless something really unforeseen happens um but nikkon did speak at moff nathanson he spoke with i believe michael nathanson at the svb if i know what svb stands for silicon valley bank yes that silicon valley bank um which is their parent company um anyway i thought this was a really robust conversation i thought this was a really good talk and he had he had some some some real things to say um along lines of the of the subject that we've got up right now he he said uh if i have it here uh is is it you know he says i got the quote the reality of it is that we're going to get a really good increase for both of these properties i believe he's referring to raw and smacked down it's too early yet to say is it 1.5 x is a greater than 1.5 x but if you're in the under promise and over deliver category which is what he was bringing up a moment before this i'd rather go on the low end and you know we'll see in six to 12 months exactly how it plays out i believe a minimum okay yeah so that's me talking there so he he's basically saying hey look he's willing to say 1.5 x is where i think this can go at a minimum and he he can maybe over deliver and this is on thursday he's speaking so he's probably aware of the stock being affected in the endeavor meeting having something to do with that and he's i think he's he's speaking to this concern to say hey look we can still get 1.5 x here um can we get greater than 1.5 x let's see if i can over deliver he wouldn't fight you if he said 1.75 x yes so i both of you have listened to this this talk here yes that is yes great so a lot of a lot of news here for one thing he he mentioned that there's going to be an indie event coming up this september not clear if that's going to be a televised indie event if that's just going to be a house show but there will be a live event first live event in india since 2017 since the good old days of gender maha as champion so maybe jr maha will regain the title here before then um that yes they did did do the superstar spat spectacle back in january 2021 that was in the thunder dome that was directed at the india market with a lot of indian indian talent um but that was not in india obviously with covid happening at that time um so that will be in advance of wb having to renegotiate their deal with sony or maybe other players in the region um nick made some some comments about netflix and he was saying things like hey you know at netflix i know they've been having some trouble acquiring subscribers in india were the second most popular sport in all of india behind cricket so sort of indicating to netflix hey we you know he was he brought up to you know netflix has said that they don't want to get into live sports they would rather acquire a sports league which they haven't yet um but if they wanted to buy the india rights maybe there's a future where netflix is live broadcasting or distributing india wb content in india uh their current deals with sony of course so um other things that i thought was was notable here he brought up his private conversation with vincec man when vince came back to the company um and he said uh hey just tell me he's speaking to vince hey just tell me is this real because there's some scuttle butt out there that maybe this is just your way to come back into your company maybe he was listening to a ruslanks radio and people speculating wildly about why vince was back in any case nick goes on which again he would have the right to do also and and he said no vince said no i'm committed to it i give you my word and then he did he did come back and he made a great deal for investors so just just nikon you know he he asked the question he asked vince whether vince was was real about uh making this deal and he he didn't have to ask the question because vincec had every right to do what he was going to do yes he will he wants to signal hey look this is nothing cuz nikon says nothing he just says he talks to vince he just said he talked to vincewick man and said that oh vince you know you're not coming back just to gain power if it's like no no no this is just this is just you know to make a deal and then he came back and he had power anyway and nikon's like oh he has the right to have the deal so he did so he's been nikon's just basically saying vince didn't lie to me um when i asked him if he's just going to come back into power but he's back in power now anyway so it doesn't really matter if he lied to me or not like just a useless thing to say well he did's agree to a merger right right so the idea is that vince nik asked you're not just lying about the merger to get back into power but vince kind of in a way had to do the merger to get back into power and in some in some capacity i i yeah he could have bull rush he could have bull rushed his way through everything as well but the idea of doing the merger sweetened the pot certainly enough of people he could have not done a deal i mean he would have faced a lot of shareholder lawsuits and stuff but he i think it was survivable um but maybe it was a path of less resistance to agree to some sort of merger um and it i mean it's been a great deal for investors i can't dispute that look at look at what the stock price has done since april so oh yeah i'm not denying that i'm just like i don't think this is like it's it's a useless thing to say no no something like this maybe she had more respect for power um so i i have a few other things to go to do do you guys have any any other takeaways from this that you thought were memorable uh i mean he set up a bunch of stuff he said that he thinks that he he threw out the idea that mbc could cook counter program monday football bias uh putting monday raw and mbc which i'm sure from a ww perspective would be great if they could get both raw and smackdown on broadcast television instead of cable television um i don't really know what he was talking about because he made it seem like and he said mbc has a counter programmed monday football in any way um and i know that the voice is on monday night which is i believe one of mbc's strongest properties i guess the argument is that the voice is not a direct competitor with modern f football from an audience perspective which i think would make sense that you would want monday football is going to kill whatever you put against it so you might as well aim something that's aimed at something a little bit different than the typical modern f football audience which wrestling is not um so the idea is that oh you can try to take a bite out of you know abc espn by dumping raw you know right on mbc head to head um and i took it as not necessarily every week but maybe especially during the football season um and he brought he brought this up in the context of money and football putting the game on espn and abc and then doing the manning cast on e-spn too you can certainly imagine you know raw on usa network while also sine with casting on nbc and maybe there's a second screen experience on p cock or something like that and was was the basketball so i've been catching some of these basketball games these playoff games on abc lately through my antenna i assume those are also being simulcast on espn that correct no no then there's abc exclusives yeah okay yeah okay you can watch them on espn plus with an espn cable subscription which is how i watch them i watch off the espn app on my roku um yeah and like i mean the voice i was looking at the voice does roughly a .70 in the key demo on monday nights during monday's probably heavily female yeah skiers heavily female um i could raw to a .70 if it was on network television i think that's possible in the voice also or on nbc alone on nbc alone i assume if we look at like you know what is a typical jump from broadcast to to network television the voice also does you know five and a half to six million total viewers which raw would not be doing um yeah but i'm sure in like if your neck kind it's obviously important to keep that's something you could sell the idea on like we could be on mbc this fall which would obviously be a favorable thing for different happen for wwe and then do you just move i guess you could move the voice to a different night or i don't know if there's what their season schedule is like i would imagine that the i would imagine that the voice is a more i actually don't know because of from a from a scheduling perspective like what do you think is more valuable than bcu the voice or wwe i wonder if i don't it's on its face the voice i wonder if there's if if you could go to advertise is there is there additional value in being able to say hey look uh during you know the football seasons the tumbra october and november we're going to have a few episodes here where raw is going to be on both usa and on nbc at least those two and we're going to get a much larger audience for raw in that case versus usa and are you able to up the cpm because of that or something i don't know if there's an added value there but certainly not space that the voice i'm sure is getting higher cpm's then or in some ways mbc mbc the network is not counter programming my net football but nbc u because it's on usa is counter programming my net football within under its umbrella and we all know the value of having raw like the other aspect of is like the value of having raw on usa is critically important for the usa cable number six instance they're they're big a show times three that's yes and no yeah and and that's a that's a huge valuable thing for ww to have and to a degree even though you might get more viewers on putting raw on network television you absolutely would actually get more viewers by putting raw on network television the value of having raw as that real heavy anchor for usa is in some ways a more diagonal position for it to be that's what i'm gonna think a little bit more about this this idea of simulcasting and where that's happened elsewhere the the all-star game was the mba all-star game was on both tbs and tnt this year i looked at i looked at that up um yellowstone i don't know about i don't know what what the deal is with yellowstone you know kevin costner's on the outs and whatnot but like yellowstone some of those the episodes of yellowstone within last year or so they were on like every viacom cable network known to man just like super cast in yeah um and obviously the NFL games you know some of those cbs games are simulcast as the nickelodeon games have the chakara NFL games uh and have there been other cases of that where there's been these you know putting a single program on multiple networks that i'm not yeah i they've i know espian is espian's done it for years um with like the college football national championship they take like they have different feeds on all the various espian networks like espian has the traditional feed then espian two will have like um like uh you know uh it's uh it's a it's a coaches feed which is just coaches and espian news has a just like uh uh has a certain like coaches and comic series not like the audio of the headsets right yeah i mean espian on espian plus if you watch an NBA game a lot of times especially in the playoffs you have multiple options you can watch the traditional broadcast and you can also watch um like a behind the rim camera perspective i don't i've actually never watched that i'm not sure if the commentary is different but the the camera angle is different they're showing that twice um wm is doing this too they've like had people like a panel watch the pay-per-view while it's going on like on twitter something yeah yeah the um fox has has a um cleavage fox um has simulcast um oh no maybe it's espian one of them has simulcast mlb games in events and they have like a uh the traditional broadcast and then on uh whether i think it might be espian has like the traditional broadcast on espian of like a baseball playoff game and then on espian two they have like the analytic um broadcast of it where it's like they have what you like the baseball and like analytical um people talking about spin rate and exit velocity and things like that um simulcast for the for the real baseball nerds so other sports have done these kinds of simulcast with with different kind of things to offer um as opposed to maybe just a straight up like we're going to show the same thing on multiple networks um yeah these four c a second second screen screen it does bring to mind i think it brought so before the the second screen experience of watching you know there's people among Sean Waltman watching that hell in the cell stuff rounds and pretty wide the fiend match where it just ended in dq and just and Sean Waltman being flabri acid that there was a dq no contest finish in a in a cage match um would be interesting i remember like when on one of the wcw reboots somebody suggesting that like this is their opportunity you know make commentary non-kfabe commentary where they're just talking about you know botches and storylines and stuff um then anyway uh we can move on to he talks also about holiday weekends um or he says hey look we did clash the castle during labor day that worked out really well we got the Saudi Arabia event coming up here Memorial Day uh fourth of july weekend that's money in the bank he thinks that you know there was a mistake made in in people thinking that you know during holiday weekends that you can't program during holiday weekends because everybody's traveling and not available but he thinks that once you know on holiday weekends yes people are traveling but by the time you know Saturday or Sunday rolls around they're they're at the destination so expect to see more of these wwple's during holiday weekends is there any other wrestling wrestling events that really program holiday weekends i believe the a wpv events are often during holiday weekends oh that yeah those that kid there he does those shows that's right he also said that for the 28th consecutive year in a row ww is really committed to to lucha libre and yeah show that will that will convince triple a is coming to america the hispanic audience that you know they're this they're really committed to they said what did they say like after the tv deals or maybe yeah it's gonna be way down the road after the tv deals yeah after the us and uk media renewals are complete he uses the he uses the words lucha libre um that there's something you know that there's a possibly a lucha libre he brought it up to in the context of like you know because i think um he was being asked by michael nathanson you know how do you think about you're already 52 weeks a year how do you think about doing more content he's like i you know if we could we would do content every day of the week um and and maybe you know one idea is to do a lucha libre style product that would appeal to the latin american audience so it would appeal to spanish speaking audiences um which we already over indexing so there's an opportunity so yeah after hearing that you've been hearing that for the over index and you know did you know the hispanic market is the fastest growing demographic in the united states that's also brought up it's the problem since dominic was was a little boy the i mean ww hates lucha libre like they hate everything about it like vince hates they hate guys wearing masks they hate the style um so that's why they've never been able despite their best efforts and a real opportunity um to make serious inroads because of the financial might that they have compared to the max major mexican promotions and the ability to sign the best talent uh in mexico that ww actually does possess the ability to probably mix serious in roans in roads as a mexican wrestling promotion if they work to if they desire to do so be much easier than in japan um but i've always got a version of vince doesn't like lucha libre and he he wants to really just create a ww version a version of ww that is like ww mexico but doesn't want to actually create a lucha libre promotion that you know i mean i mean i just don't believe that vince knows a literally brie product looks like what would make it authentic and there's probably right which is understand that and it's why despite the attempts of bringing in people like you know mystico and making them sicara uh and you know signing out for no dorino in adriday and all these people uh you know going out and signing mystico my god mystico was the biggest wrestling star in the entire world when they signed them um and uh it hasn't worked out largely because ww has never understood how to actually reach those those down markets largely because vince's understanding of of wrestling is very different than what would be considered appealing to traditional lucha libre fans yeah it would take a lot of um delegation and and and and picking the right people to delegate to to make for an authentic product that would really work which is not there i can't off the top my head think of examples where vince on the creative side has been really great at delegating to other creative minds to do it's style of wrestling that is totally different from what he's doing. vince's pro wrestling is focused on tall good looking guys with big bodies and speak really good english and lucha libre's full of short guys who wear masks and don't speak english. dakk's on ask off yeah uh he also basically confirmed that there's talks to do an australian pld with the with the subsidy from the local government um we've supported that we've heard about the potential perth yeah show similar to the the melborn show that they did a few years ago um and that makes a lot of sense given australia is a has i feel like anytime any wrestling promotion has gone to australia which is infrequently they do really really well ww has done really well when they've gone down there remember like 2000 or 2001 ww was about to was about to die they did like a bunch of you know huge shows in australia don't forget ww all stars yeah there was the hogan and the hokomania tour yeah hokomania down under that did really well um new japan does tour there uh has tour there in the past it's a great market for wrestling and obviously being an english speaking market helps as well um but i think yeah i mean we're we're on a run here where you know your ww pay per view events we're doing what three three straight shows not in the continental united states and all in some matter in some ways um you know you have we had wrestle mania i guess you know because we had backlash we had back we oh yeah if you go back and you know excluding wrestle mania you got four of the last five one we're doing backlash in portarico um the sardia rabies show coming up and then money in the bank in london um you know so we're looking at it's it's possible that we could someone those with government subsidies in the case of sardia rabies a large government subsidy and then so yeah there's no government subsidy for the um money in the bank show not that i know of and it being found and i doubt it yeah and so it's possible and it's one of the better business moves that ww and nikhan have done is is getting people to pay for these shows um and outside of the the sardia rabies which is obviously hugely beneficial to the company things like the australia show things like clash of the castle and card f and the the um backlash in portarico they're they're they're double dipping they're getting these big houses because they're these markets love wrestling and are often starved for them and they're getting subsidized by the government as well and i could see that being the future where half or more of the pay-per-view events in on the ww calendar are um you know subsidized shows or outside the united's you know the cost of the united states we're already there this year almost right we don't have states for some of the final paper p l e events of the year right i don't think there's beyond summer slam i don't think there's anything right so yeah we've had how many shows we had in the united states we had the world rumble which was in uh sanitonia which the sanitonia was a subsidy for that we had backlash which was in canada and montreal um we had brusselmanian elimination chamber was in montreal oh yeah sorry let me just share backlashes in portarico which is in the united states but it is not in the constant united states in a market that they rarely in a market that they hadn't been in for a taping almost five years yeah um sardia rabia which is you know big den two shows a year so there's two sardia rabies shows this year they've got money in the back coming up and then we got summer slam in detroit so we've had way more shows outside of the continental united states outside of the traditional cities that they normally go to for shows um you know we have we haven't got a pay-per-view event in chicago we haven't got a pay-per-view event in boston we haven't got a pay-per-view event um in like st louis or some of these other philadelphia these places that they normally have gone to um they're really diversifying the locations for these major shows i think that's helped the houses for them um and it's obviously helped them in addition to the with the subsidies they're getting and as far as other markets markets that jump out is international that would be a great home for a for a pay-per-view pearly um ireland jumps out where you've got becky becky lynching a big match or a fin daller or something like that shamis yeah they have irish stars um they didn't they were going to have the uh nxt uk takeover uh that's right ireland that never happened right colorously badly named uh pay-per-view event um i think like paris they do really well when they go to paris i don't know if they get subsidy from the french government um but they're their last few house shows in paris have been some of their biggest house shows of the year yeah i'm guessing some of these big big cities that you think of as like tourist cities like certain you would include paris in that like are they gonna pay money to attract an event there when their tourist tourism economy is probably so strong it it makes sense when it's like cardif you know not right they went to card if instead of london because cardif was willing to offer something and blundered doesn't have to do that because it's such a big tourist city and in the case of australia it sounds like we're talking about perth as opposed to like sydney or even melbourne yeah well they did get one for melbourne uh at the melbourne ticket for that show he brought this up and i this was factually funny to me and this is before his time in the company so maybe maybe that explains it in that he talks about the the australia event it seems that he's referring to the superstar showdown of 2018 where they believe they did get a government subsidy i don't think he's he weighed in on that but that he said it was not televised um it was certainly it was a certainly a network so i i yeah just between that and and yeah and the and the voice seems some things a little bit factually off in the stock yeah i mean i mean i i kind of get what he said was saying with the voice as far as like true counter programming but it's it was just a kind of a it would i would not say that that was like a i would i would say mbc hasn't kind of programmed they usually win the night in broadcast uh television uh all money nights um but yeah i mean even when i talk about other markets germany perhaps i mean some of these other governments i i wonder we haven't really debated we haven't really ever figured this out i'd be interested i i wonder if he would answer this um because i think it's a fair question to ask um if the saudi arabia deal is exclusive um to a certain rate to a certain reaching because we have seen in addition to the saudi arabia government pay a lot of money for events and things like that to come to saudi arabia we've seen um cotter we've seen the ua e do similar things and i'm sure that ww and they've been interested in ww and i believe whereas ufc doesn't ufc where's fight island ufc already has a relationship with avi yeah yeah so that's the ua e so there's already a relationship between endeavor and those networks i would imagine that they would be interested in a ww show but perhaps the saudi arabia has an exclusive uh deal with them to prevent them because those are obviously their biggest rival's um although they're making friends in syria though so i think yeah i think sammy's name being a popular ww wrestler has uh helped diplomatic relationships between the kingdom of saudi arabia in syria i mean sammy's name is not knighted champions which kind of took me by surprise a little bit so right right and i think it's because um i think suss you know sammy's popularity is a ww superstar ww continues to influence the world and i think this is just another example of that yes we saw a video just during the g7 some of that's happening right now we're uh syrian present bashar alsad shook hands with crown prince mama bin salman uh yes there's been some some public that the diplomatic relationships are better so it's better for sammy to go ww is not political though no no politics there is safe space for things like that um okay so the the nikkhan talk the the conference tour will continue this coming tuesday at the jp morgan tm t conference maybe you'll be talking to david karnovsky we'll see um so we'll be more next week uh moving on to again if you want to hit to submit a question or and submit a super chat with your comment or question we will address it if you're watching live here on youtube um as i mentioned we did did a talk of you want to hear more about the up front with somebody who's actually there we talked to tony maguio of the of indy wire uh john pollock and i did uh that is free on your wherever you're listening right now it is available there in your podcast feed or on youtube um and the patreon patreon.com slash for salamix there's tv ratings reports which are being expanded into news updates um which we'll touch on as well as the merchandise report um the lw shirts are still selling strongly apparently and you get access to the tb ratings data and slides of this podcast and more but this past week we did get some backlash information from porta rico as a result of a public records request we got the gate receipts right here uh from one point one about one million dollars flat just over a million dollars flat for smackdown is the live gate that's not including the government subsidy they got which is an additional 1.5 million dollars so 1.5 million dollars just to be there apparently they got three hundred thousand dollars in in kind value which is related to the the venue um so a million dollars smackdown in san wan porter rico and then 1.4 million dollars for the pay per view um brandon just to clarify the smackdown the the subsidy they didn't get a separate subsidy for smackdown correct no no it's a subsidy just mainly for backlash the back but for in in short the entire weekend which would be the two shows right but there's not like they got a subsidy set two separate subsidies no between the two right um they sold 200 about 250 250 000 dollars in venue merch which is relatively low it only comes out to about eight and a half dollars per pay ticket um in any case this was uh i did look this up i pulled out the poll star data and i looked at what did new year's revolution in 2005 do um and we can compare it to what this backlash show did um and if you look at the the uh new year's revolution uh gate i think i have it in here uh it did eight hundred and at ninety seven thousand nine hundred and eight dollars so about just under nine hundred thousand dollars for a live gate in 2005 if you adjust that for inflation that is like a few tens of thousands of dollars lower than this backlash show so you can say even adjust for inflation backlash not even counting you know smackdown they locked another million dollars on top of it but this backlash show is the highest grossing ticket event for wb in Puerto Rico in w history unless there's like somehow show that somehow which is very unlikely i doubt it yeah so so that's that's smackdown um double or nothing coming up not sold out over four thousand tickets still still available for it 7177 is the number that wrestleticks has for the ticket distributed account for double or nothing in Las Vegas i will be there um and wrestleticks has summer slam has crossed 40 000 at forward field in detroit and i'll be there too and in fact because i will be traveling next week during our normal recording time uh wrestling on x radio will not be on sunday next week will not be on sunday next week but we were being preempted much like a w rampage will be on monday at this at the same time 11 a.m. monday instead of sunday so we'll be we'll be able to talk at that time about um double or nothing which will have happened on sunday and any news coming out of the news conference i will be talking to you live from probably a hotel in Las Vegas next week coming to us live from the state of Nevada you know in Nevada you can call people on the phone and record them without telling them they're all right that's gonna finish you know it's like one of like a few states you can do that okay i'm assuming people did that to her babes okay do we have we have any questions or comments um just we just had the super chat that actually came uh that was from uh alison tuckwell which we addressed we talked about uh the new aew right steel rumors so did they get a new deal or did they get the plug pulled or did they get a new deal um remains to be seen did the the the plug get pulled uh probably not they got a new t v show which i think indicates that wbd is committed probably to renewing them don't know what at at what kind of rays though um i doubt there's been a new tb deal for dine mite and rampage but um tony con will be asked many questions this week so maybe we'll learn more anything anything else to bring up well that's all any other uh deep topics jesse anything to plug deep topics um i mean i've done a lot of podcasting this week but uh i wanted to talk about who go back to double or nothing attendance yes real quick i'll ask both of you this all thousand one hundred and seventy-seven they're also putting out discounted tickets yeah but obviously this this is a show that has done phenomenally well the last two years that they've been able to run at Las Vegas this is obviously significantly less than what they've done in previous two years i'll ask both of you this what is your immediate takeaway from that number what would you say if i'm like why is the number so low this year why are they only at seven you know seventy one hundred tickets a week away what would what would your immediate explanation be um the product is not as strong as it was last year last year 13,131 distributed year before that was at daily's place and that towards the tail end of no touring um the product is not as hot last year 2021 he had cm punk 2022 yeah 22 i'm sorry 2022 you had cm punk and hangman page where according to cm punk came and page almost ruined a million dollar gate i believe that was one point three million dollars i don't think he'd be in danger of one million dollar gate this time no yeah really um if you figure i don't know let's let's say 85 dollar average ticket sold price at this point and figure i don't know let's say let's say 69 hundred are paid we're at we're at just over half a million maybe somewhere in that neighborhood um product is not as strong main event is not as strong this this four way uh i will try to remove my personal taste from this this four way is not that big of a deal what are the other strong matches on this card uh the elite versus yeah the black bull combat club anarchy in the arena adam col versus chris charrick hoe okay i would say those are your three big that those two matches in the main event are your if there's what else is on this card at this point probably be um there's jamey here versus tony storm um there's the acclaim um ftr versus jay leithill and jeff jared there is um jay white oh jay white versus ricky starks hasn't been announced yet but speculation is that it's going to be announced this week um there's uh what else i just did a three-hour preview of this maybe a few yesterday on the warne hey show um there is uh jade carkill versus tie of elkery there is um which is already happened on tv right um there's uh going to be a christian versus christian cage versus warglove or the tnt title there's um orange cacity and the casino battle royal defending the international championship um there's probably going to be a trio's match the title defense i think the when most people think it's going to be again probably announced this week is going to be the acclaimed in billy gun versus the house of black um said it is there anything else in the show i think that's it um what do you think that that doesn't sound like the strongest card relative to others well i think for starters so much of the typical star power in the company is in that black pool combat club versus um the elite feud if you were to if you were to disperse those names the young bucks hangman page kenny omega john moxley brian danielson in other matches on the show you would maybe have a much more robust card as opposed to what a lot of people feel like is a one one match card as far as interest goes and it's that match um that's that's one thing um i think what you know the product is not as hot as you said you don't have to see a punk who's your biggest star or had been your biggest you know to get to get selling star um you know you don't have outside of mjf you don't have what i would consider like anything close to a proven commodity in the main event you have three young wrestlers you're trying out in that role um none of whom feel like they're really hot or peaking uh for this role um can this do a hundred thousand paper revise yeah um i'd be surprised if it didn't um i think um we assume that the most recent ones have done 130 or so something that yes and in in dave mentioned this that seems like for the last three or four pay per views people you know going back to the forbidden door show every people have been like oh man this paper view is not going to do that well and the paper view is kind of do the same for the most part um and there's also this idea that the aewy pay per views are for the most part sure of things that the the shows are going to be really good and even things like this four-way match which people have you know been very down on from a build perspective and aren't don't really think mjaf is going to lose the title and there's not a ton of intrigue in the build for it it feels like everyone i've talked to have agreed that the match itself is going to be very good um going in that you look like you just you're having like a arresting panic face i i gotta go to the bathroom but i'm just i'm holding it off then go to the bathroom go though um not feel bad if i'm good i'm gonna ram okay that's fine yeah that's a fear of mine is having to really go to the back i always go right before the show starts yes i'm always afraid that i'm gonna have to go to the bathroom always but but we can always you know with that's one of the good things about a three three person panel is that there's always room to vamp if you need to kill time um but yeah i think but another thing i want to say is i do i do think that if you're a look uh double or nothing has always been a big fly-in show right Memorial Day weekend Las Vegas um well easy place to fly to easy place to get out of the hotel room um but you look at the wrestling calendar i think wwe being better and being you know more popular uh has has maybe people some people who maybe were down on the wwe product a few years ago are now looking at it you know maybe flying to go to the Royal Rumble going to Wrestlemania maybe summer slam uh and some of those fans are looking at this calendar and they're like mean do i really want to go to double or nothing what if i maybe i want to go to the summer slam instead maybe i want to maybe because i went to the Royal Rumble this year i'm not going to double or nothing um you also have forbidden door um which maybe if you're an aw traveling fan which which show you think is going to be better forbidden door or double or nothing do you really want to go to a show you know two shows and back-to-back months um double or nothing is the special show it's the new japan pro-co-promotional show it feels like an event that's once a year as it was a double or nothing which is not particularly different uh than any of the other you know four regular aw paper use per year maybe some of the fans are looking at going to that London show at weapons stadium as well so i think that the traveling fans are being cut up a little bit part in part because wwe and the fans who are maybe going willing to go to both wwe and aw shows making wwe shows this year um and aw has kind of created some of its own internal competition by adding more special events like double or forbidden door and like that Wembley show so i think that plays a factor as well uh in addition to i think the product being cooler just to add to how is wwe doing here in this era where Vince is back in an a more explicit rule in creative as opposed to late last year um ratings in may for ron smack and we have this brand split which raises some questions as being executed well or not um demo for ron smackdown in may you know or a few episodes into may for each of these shows is up more than 20 percent for each of them well total of your ship is up high single digits um so they're definitely holding onto the Wrestlemania um fans more than they did like last year um and i wonder i wonder why that is is um you know Cody's presence probably helps uh to a degree and he obviously he was around last year but he's more of a established character um a year from now um the Sami Zayn Kevin Owens storyline you know still going on and still still taking place after Wrestlemania um probably helps uh Roman Reigns has come into his own as a draw do you yeah i mean Reigns is a bigger draw this year than he was last year i mean how many of the smackdown shows has he appeared on in may i would have to look i mean he certainly has a wrestle on many of them um no but yeah he was he isn't wrestling much anyways but i'm curious to know like um i think any of the things by the way are you know these market market comparisons up grand a lot of these ticket sales are being sold um months ago but these you still got really strong uh market market comparisons here yes tendons are still strong they haven't yeah despite concerns about oh they killed Cody or Wrestlemania and i thought Cody not winning our my name was a big mistake um we have yet to see that reflected in and and uh any real noticeable downturn in ratings if anything it's they're still very strong um Columbia South Carolina was over 10,000 compared to the raw that they did in February of last year which is 7,000 uh Greensboro Coliseum over 10,000 which is almost double what they did in May 2022 yeah and we're we're gonna start creeping up i think you know in the next few months when we look at year to year comparisons we're going to start creeping back up to when they really started to take off you know ironic thing when the visit ban allegations came out um you know last summer so that will be interesting to see how we're still looking at kind of like them compared to the kind of a cold period um last year it'll be interesting to see um when we hit the the year over year ratings um you know was this probably gonna be around like July or August or so right around summer slam time i mean he resigned on the 22nd of July so that's when he also left but there was about a month there's like a month before you know right when the first Wall Street Journal story hits and he comes out on SmackDown and that that showed us a huge number um and and it had Roman Reigns vs Matt Riddle at the end of the show with Vincent at the end of the show Riddle and Reigns did a bigger quarter hour than Vince did right right there's that famous Matt Riddle where Roman Reigns title defense sounds Matt down um so it'll be interesting to see year over year what that looks like okay any plugs sure um done a lot of audio um lately um the gentleman's wrestling podcast uh episode went up on Thursday i had case low um on the podcast and we talked for almost two hours and we talked on the kind of broad theme of where is wrestling going and what we did was kind of look at what we think is happening and wrestling right now and how is that going to influence wrestling in the future we talked about like kind of what we saw in the early 2000s in wrestling and kind of how that has shaped the wrestling that we see today um and we kind of looked at the trends that are existing in wrestling a weaker American independent scene um what is AEW being on national television what does that mean for wrestling in the future what is WWE doing right now um and how is that going to influence wrestling in the future uh we got really into the kind of like a deeper conversation about um where the wrestling industry is headed from a product standpoint from an in-ring standpoint um it's i'm really proud of it it really came out really well i really recommend uh people to listen to it's getting getting great reviews um i also appeared on the Warren Hayes show uh we recorded yesterday and i believe it is up now i believe it's it was actually running head-to-head with rezmamix i'm pulling a Lex Luger where i'm on both programs at the same time um we did a lot of Luger was it well Lex Luger was on the recruit so Rick Roode was on the house show the night before right and then he was on the wall of that intro huh yeah uh he was on both Raw and Smet and and Nitro same line yeah okay and so um anyway so that we that was a we did a really long look at double or nothing we went down the entire card we also talk a lot about some of the challenges that AEW has had in building the card which we kind of talked about briefly on the show but if you want to hear more about that you can check that out that's on the Warren Hayes show um Warren's a big supporter of us in mamix as well yeah shut them out because it might be listened to this yes okay that's go do you feel better now i'm sorry about that guys i was holding it off i was like i'm gonna make it i'm really good you had like you're me you know i feel bad i'm i'm sitting here making this like a long winded point about uh the the double or nothing uh build and in gallo meanwhile it's just waiting for me to shut up so you're in the bathroom the goal is there's a joy that's fine like i was sucking it up i was like oh i was like the viewers were distressed uh you were you were like staring at your monitor with your mouth slightly ajar looking back and forth from your laptop to the external monitor it was uh it was it was gripping okay thanks everybody for listening remember next week not on sunday at 11 but monday at 11 and we will talk about whatever happens the fallout from double or nothing and things of that nature um and uh john paul can i will expect to be back again later this week for another talk with another guest so see you then thanks for listening bye