Lucha Underground Owners Looking to Make a New TV Deal Away From El Rey

According to The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the Lucha Underground owners are trying now to make a television deal away from El Rey. They are shopping the show around, hoping that another network will pick it up and pay enough to produce the show at nearly the previous levels. The people who put the money in for the last two seasons are not putting anymore in because the show drove almost no revenue; El Rey will pay something for programming, but not nearly enough to produce the show at close to the level it as been done at. El Rey and Robert Rodriguez would maintain an ownership stake if it moves to a new station.

The issue for the promotion is selling a show to a network with a budget of $400,000 per episode that draws between 100,000 to 175,000 viewers weekly over two airings. According to one person close to most of the parties involved, there is a major divide among the management team. One side wants to shut the project down, arguing that the costs are too high and after three seasons they’ve never made any money. They feel that you know where you stand, the audience isn’t growing, and anything more would be throwing good money after bad. Two key executives are of that belief. On the other side, you have producer Eric Van Wagenen, Dorian Roldan and Vampiro; they believe in the project and feel it just needs time and better exposure to. Alex Garcia and Antonio Cue-Navarro, who put up the money for the last two seasons, have refused to put more money into the project.

At this time, it appears that unless they can find new funding, or get a new network to pay the costs, the choices are to either stay on El Rey for a heavily stripped down version or to close it down. The ratings leveling off this season is a bad sign because it’s hard enough to get network these days to pay for wrestling, let alone fund a show that doesn’t have a track record of success.