Aaaaaand it did.

1.83 million.

I’m enjoying this way too much.

Yep!

1.83 million indeed

Another 200k-300k less and they'd be dipping in Tape Era range for viewership lows.

Worst for SD is the more it lowers, the lower the boost from FOX's reach is going to be when they move. Right now, it needs to more than double just to be at where FOX currently gets for numbers on Fridays.

Yeah, that’s not happening.

Observer's Dave Meltzer predicting Smackdown could be as low as 1.65 million by the end of the month due to how heavy the competition is going to get for WWE.

Ouch

:lol:

This is going to be hilariously awesome

Raw number will also probably get even more brutal when the NFL season starts... 1.7 million regularly for Raw maybe?

And what can they do? They can't just snap their fingers and make a star in the environment they've crafted for themselves. They're kind of boned.

That feels about right.

Last year WWE lost over a million viewers from the post-Mania RAW show to the start of the NFL season. Then an an extra 200k-400k loss per week from that start point during the season.

If they have a similar drop, they might be starting around the 1.7 million to 1.9 million range and dip as low as the 1.4 million range.

My guess for the floor for both shows is 1.7 for RAW and 1.5 for SDLive

Yet, that's what they keep trying to do. And, as you pointed out, they've crafted the environment for themselves.

Hogan, Austin/Rock, and even to a degree Cena were as much happenstance as product. There were a lot of moving parts in not only the wrestling industry, but pop culture as a whole. Even now, trends have shifted. For example, one of the things that "makes a star" with the fans is the "holy shit, I can't believe they're actually running with this person I like" feeling that they've cultivated, yet seem to either be oblivious to or don't care that they've done so. And that's on top of the lazy writing, telegraphing, shoehorning, and all around lack of stakes.

The company, though, seems to labor under their own dilusion that they can reproduce exactly the best results results on a whim by putting x time and y gimmick into z wrestler like working on an assembly line.

More often than not, they just eat their own tails.

The excuse they like is that fans shit on whomever they want them to cheer for to be cool. Not understanding that it's their poor execution that leads to the less-than-desired reaction.

If Brock returns I don't know how much that will bump things either tbh

Any return from Goldberg, Taker, Brock fans know is temporary

Almost feels like Vince purposefully keeps potential stars down so that they don't become "bigger than the WWE brand"

Hogan, Austin, Rock, Cena, they all got over naturally, and then WWE got behind them and ran with them.

Now a days, getting yourself over naturally is career suicide. Rusev is worse off now then he ever was. In 1998 they would have just let Rusev break into the main event and become a huge star. When it happened in 2018, they killed it for no reason. Broke him up from Aiden, had him job to Jinded Mahal at Mania, put him in goofy storylines about Milwaukee, turned him heel, and had him lose like what, 18 PPVs in a row?

If the point is to make money off of superstars, why do then devalue anybody who is getting over and could be a big star?

As long as WWE is the star, and nobody is allowed to be THE draw, then they are not bringing in any new fans.

I wasn't saying they didn't get over naturally, and I agree about them getting themselves over and the company running with it... although with Hogan, it was a bit more 50/50 in being the man to fill the role, but also having the role presented to him to begin with. Sorta like the Undertaker being a situational million dollar gimmick that wouldn't work on the wrong person. But part of why and how they got themselves over. I consider Cena a lesser degree, because they begrudgingly got behind him, since Vince, by his own admission, "didn't see it".

And this is the biggest conundrum of them all, as the endgame appears to be to manufacture more stars like The Rock, who transcends wrestling and becomes a Hollywood star and a pop culture icon... but when Cena did it, they... got mad at him? And when Batista did it... they didn't want him to?

I asked some time ago on the subject of Asuka of why the company would even hire Kana at all? What was the point if aquiring her was to squander her talents while they try to get the next bikini model over as "top draw"? But really, that question could be asked of a lot of the talent. Especially the poor sods in NXT, most of whom bust their asses to get better or even get over to begin with
(:cough:PatrickClark:cough: ) and the potential "reward" on the horizon is more money to become an underutilized afterthought.

Based on some reading elsewhere, its pretty much a lock RAW is going to set new record lows for the next 2 weeks.

Next Monday has them going up against Bucks vs. Celtics Game 4, Warriors vs. Rockets Game 4, and whatever NHL playoff games might be on as well.

The following week is the taped UK edition of RAW which typically is one of the least viewed episodes of the year.

Same for Smackdown likely going to set some abysmal numbers since they've been averaging in the high 70s to mid 80s range for weekly percentages of RAW's audiences.

There are actually two weeks of shows taped from the UK I believe!

Some more ratings info:

Meltzer shared in the Observer that DVR accounts for about 100-120k viewers, so most fans still watch the show live.

This is from last week. Wow.

Right, that's what I meant. If somebody got over, WWE used to happily give them the ball and let them run with it. Nowadays, if somebody gets over, they kick them in the nuts and purposely ruin them.

That excuse is so bizarre. There are plenty of good, successful shows, movie franchises, book series, etc. where the writers succeed in captivating the audience. This “blame the fans” idea really only exists (at least to this level) in WWE. So are they saying there’s some gene specific to wrestling fans post 2001 that makes them hate anything WWE wants them to like? Or are they admitting to breeding that reaction in their fan base (which would be their fault)?

These are rhetorical questions obviously, as the real answer is that’s an excuse a 5 year old would come up with to shake responsibility. They had a TV show on the network dedicated to telling fans why they’re wrong for thinking the product has become shit. How insecure can you get. Lol

Honestly, it's this idea that they can serve multiple masters at once that's gotten them to where they are today. The idea that they can be kid or family friendly as it relates to creative/programming, sponsorships, partnerships, etc., without eventually turning off and losing large swaths of fans (over the age of 9) that are actually your largest audience was the biggest mistake they ever made.

In the process of attempting to generate revenues by appealing primarily to kids and families you subsequently devalued your own product through poor creative decisions or lack of concern. In turn, you've either 1. forgot how or are too out of touch to create a good product for people over age 9, 2. you simply can't salvage things creatively without an actual major overhaul, 3. you simply don't care, or 4. some combination of all three.

Are they even appealing to kids though? Pretty sure most have better taste.

There’s lots of reasons this is happening. They’ve destroyed consumer faith because they don’t make stars because they can’t make stars because they destroyed kayfabe and the audience rejects whoever gets pushed.

It doesn't help... but if they were better at pushing those people the fan would cease rejecting them - kayfabe or not

Probably not anymore, but they attempted to do so for such a long period and it didn't really work out as well as they believed it would. I think that is where they really started to fall off the rails in terms of their creative becoming awful and have since never recovered and instead seems to have regressed even further. Since then, it's like Vince forgot how or just doesn't care to make characters and storylines interesting and diverse.

RAW is too long

They try to appeal to kids, no doubt, but they don’t know how to. A good kids product would be better than this.

Yeah, I never got the PG argument. While it restricts you in some ways, it doesn’t completely handicap you. You’ve just gotta focus more on storytelling.

It just seems like in doing so they forgot how to appeal to anyone or tell a coherent story simply because a lot of kids will overlook a lot more in terms of quality and still watch or buy products than adults will.

Right. All you need to appeal to kids is bright lights and violence so... fuck it, apparently.

They really do seem to wanna put in as little creative effort as possible while still making money.

Yet they still do things to appeal to the IWC here and there which just shows they still try and exposes their ineptness. I’d respect WWE more if they just ignored the hardcores completely.

I actually think the floor for RAW and SD is 1.0 and 1.5 million but I am not sure that could possibly happen until the fall.

I’m not sure there is a floor.

Tuesday can’t come quick enough. I want dem numbers!

RAW went slightly up, due to the 1st hour

Legit surprised that the 3rd hour didn't go under 2 million considering how bad the show was by that point.