Wacky Wrestling Theory 11.13.08: The New Economics of Pay-Per-View

Newsflash, the economy is bad! When you are counting pennies just to fill up a gas tank or pay the bus fare, the cost of a pro-wrestling pay-per-view really starts to feel like a luxury. And these days, considering the price of a monthly big name pay per view, you almost have to be royalty to afford one. Who sets these mammoth pay-per-view prices? Who should be accountable when the matches do not live up to even the basic standards of quality? These days, when you literally have to digest every crumb on your plate and wear your socks down to the final fibers, it seems like the right time to reevaluate the cost of a pro-wrestling pay-per-view.

Wrestling shows, like the 3 hour, 800th Anniversary RAW Special or the live from Las Vegas, 2 hour TNA Impact! are free to air programming, assuming you have basic cable packages with the Spike and USA networks. These shows have commercials that we can assume offset the production costs of the program. Pay-per-views by both companies, on the other hand, cost $29.99 to $49.99 depending on the month, and are commercial free. Are commercials the only difference, because that’s a pretty big jump in price for something that aesthetically appears to be about the same quality? Both the TV specials and the pay-per-views were live, so the audience was not getting any special value there. Sure, there are no commercial breaks on pay-per-view… wait, really? There sure seems to be a whole lot of product placement such as event sponsorship, merchandising tie-ins, song usage, and promotion for other pay-per-views, so it’s not like the audience is paying for a commercial free experience. Even some entire pay-per-views, like the Royal Rumble and No Way Out, could be considered by the harshest of critics as merely large commercials for the even more expensive Wrestlemania pay-per-view. The matches may be longer on pay-per-view, but is there really any more wrestling than on a weekly televised show? That is an interesting question, and one for more ripe analysis in the future than I am capable of at this time, but I would like to try to objectify the value of a mainstream pro-wrestling pay-per-view in some fashion.

There used to be a regular column on 411mania called ‘Worth Your Wealth’ (check out this example from a particularly wealth worthy pay-per-view) where writer Ryan Merholz broke down parts a the pay-per-view into dollar values based on predetermined levels of importance for each match on the card, and then decided whether or not these matches were worth a designated dollar value. This was an admittedly subjective pursuit by Merholz but I would like to take his concept one step further, into the realm of complete objective investigation, and try to discover exactly what is the supposed market value of a wrestling match. So, while watching the recent TNA Turning Point 2008 pay-per-view, I counted ever single pro-wrestling ‘move’ and using this approximated statistic I decided to simply divide that number by the total cost of the pay-per-view in order to ascertain a fair starting point for the relative cost of wrestling action. I gave mutual respect to everyone involved in the theoretical creation of a perfect pro-wrestling match; if there is a body slam then I would consider the movements of both men, the referee, cameraman and director, in order to signify the moment of the move that I am witnessing as a member of the television audience. In my observation, I counted each strike, be it a punch or stomp, as one move, as well as Irish whips, ducking or reversing moves, and throwing wrestlers outside the ring. I did not include rolling a wrestler back into the ring, and in song cases, where a chain of moves or reversals went quickly and smoothly into one outcome, I would count that as only one move. For tag team matches, when two partners hit the same opponent with a simultaneous double team move, I counted that as one, however if there were two different strikes or two people being attacked, I counted that as two moves. The total number of moves I observed in Turning Point 2008 was 1002. This makes the rough value of each individual move to be 3 American cents. Doesn’t seem like much, right. Obviously that’s why we see so many sloppy moves, they’re only worth $0.03. Yet, when added up, just like the way the moves in a match should create a satisfying storyline, the cents create a bundle of value that should be supplied in full to the paying audience. Therefore, every single move should be honored and treated professionally, especially if they are going to add up to such a high price in the end.

In order to approve the full 3 cents for each countable move there were two objective qualities that I decided needed to be met. The first aspect was visibility. The move should be happening on camera in a way that is agreeable to the viewer. If the move or strike cannot be seen clearly then it is not worth the money. The second aspect should be the execution of the move. Some may consider this subjective, but I am not talking about the ‘goodness’ of the move per se, just that the move looks like it would pass the inspection of any average pro-wrestling trainer looking for capable displays of action in an effective manner. There can be no subjective wishy washy evaluation of the moves for stylish quality, as that type of criticism leads to the watered down ‘star system’ confusion that has saturated the minds of online fans and critics these days, where no match can really be judged for quality anymore because there are limitless opinions on what constitutes a full ‘star’ rating. The system of judgment I am experimenting with is no harsher than should be applied to all products or services in the marketplace. Although pro-wrestling is an art form in theory, during these tight economic times, and seeing as how the pro-wrestling companies want to commercialize their products more than ever before, it should be fair to hold them up to this scrutiny. Well, if you saw the same pay-per-view as me, you can imagine the worth of a TNA pay-per-view under this justifiable analysis might not be as high as the $29.99 asking price.

For example, the main event of Sting vs. AJ Styles was fine critically; there was nothing particularly offensive about the match (it bears acceptance that if you are ordering a TNA pay-per-view you must either love repetitive screw-job endings or grudgingly tolerate them). Was the match worth the money that it charged the fans using my ‘new economic’ evalutation? The match had a total of 114 moves, and at the cost of 3 cents a move that makes the match technically worth $3.42 (I feel that it is justifiable to decide the price of matches based on this simple formula, although it may seem to give credence to matches with more moves, actually the in-ring time is basically the same between the main event and the multi-man opening X-division match, so given the ratio of actual time a customer is paying for to bell-to-bell ring time, this seems fair). Do Styles and Sting give the audience a fair showing for this humble fee? Sadly no.

The first three moves of the match illustrate the sloppy problems with mainstream pro-wrestling these days. First there is an attempted knuckle lock and then a go-behind, which are both cleanly executed and clearly shown on camera so 6 cents can be given. Then after some stalling there is another go-behind that is shot from an overhead and behind camera angle, which doesn’t allow us to see the struggle of Sting as he is trying to escape the hold before he gets a rope break. This may seem like nit picking, but why could this not be shown clearly on camera? The entire production staff is focused on this one match, something they film everyday, yet they cannot get those few seconds right, and in the end the customer suffers from frustration or lethargy from not seeing the full move, as well as limiting the wrestlers from being able to properly display their craft, so this move cannot be awarded the 3 cents. Then there is a series of hammerlocks by AJ into poorly executed snap-mares reversals by Sting. Although the poor execution of the snap-mares could be representative of a struggle, since there is no basis in wrestling for poor execution equating a strong resistance like in MMA, this can only be considered laziness and thus should not be charged the full price. Even a transition from hammerlock to arm wringer by AJ twisted the arm in the opposite direction from the previous lock and thus would theoretically be loosening the strength of the hold, not tightening it. Possibly you could give this move full price for it’s visibility, but being able to see it done mistakenly is part of the problem of the visual product and reasonably there move itself should be considered worthless. Any lateral press was also counted as a move in my observations, and being able to see the slow way in which wrestlers kick out of three counts and hardly even make an attempt to lift their shoulders with even the most basic realistic symbol of escaping the pin fall, is something that should be scrutinized. After only three minutes and barely any damage, why would Sting need to kick out desperately at the last second of a pin attempt? Paradoxically, he also does this so sloppily and haphazardly, it appears as if he does not care if it really looks like the shoulder is going up or not, and it makes you wonder why they would even bother going for the pin attempt, and thus another demerit on the price list. Midway through the match, there is an entire abdominal stretch sequence that AJ must punch his way out of, that is done with the wrestlers’ backs facing the camera so it is nearly impossible to see what is happening. Finally, when one camera attempts to get a closer side angle, referee Earl Henber floats in and out of the frame, blocking the image and causing a huge distraction. In the end, I deducted 51 moves from the 114 total moves in the match, which puts the value of the wrestling in the main event at $1.89, which is just a little more than half of the actual cost of the match if wrestled and presented at an average level of competence. As an extension of this concept, the rest of the Turning Point pay-per-view comes out to estimated total value of $19.49, about ten dollars cheaper than the asking price.

Is it too wacky to want to know the value of the products you are buying? Well, maybe you don’t feel the need to question why the slippers you bought were five dollars or why you meal at the Outback Steakhouse was fifteen dollars because you felt like your money was well spent. As wrestling fans, can we agree that the price of wrestling pay-per-views is fair? I think not. If the main event talent is not even will to put the effort into their punches and roll-ups so that they can give the audience $3.42 worth of quality, then by extension the value of professional wrestling as a product has been seriously inflated. Just as the current stock market turmoil may just be a way of correcting itself, so too should the wrestling industry be inline for a crisis of value. Especially with the surge of online video product into the global marketplace, it must seriously call into question the theory behind the WWF’s original pricing scheme for pay-per-view. If top rated, big budgeted television shows can sell for $1.99 on itunes, the entire MLB World Series can be bought for $6.99, and an NFL All Access season pass costs only $99.99, how can one three hour wrestling special with sub-par wrestling on display in very short spurts of time possibly justify $30-$50 price tags? If we continue to push pro-wrestling providers to match the quality of the product with the price they are asking then maybe the fun of pay-per-view will return, instead of the entire industry starting to feel like a desperate cash grab. Sadly, in my opinion the politics of the industry seem just too thick to allow the simple concept of providing value for our pay-per-view money.