[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

An absolutely crazy week saw Vince McMahon fold the XFL, have the Governor of Florida overrule local officials to be able to run multiple shows a week in the state, get, along with Dana White, to be mentioned by President Trump as one of the people he’d talk with about reopening the economy, and then made massive talent and office cuts with the expectation of a long economic downturn. With its $500 million of reserve cash available, broken down as $90.45 million in straight cash on hand, $160.03 million in short term investments that can be used, and another $250 million available instantly in debt capacity, McMahon was the first promoter in combat sports to make cuts, while other companies have avoided doing so even though all others are losing money, although UFC will be back to making money as soon as they start running shows again.

On 4/9, Linda McMahon announced that her Super PAC looking to re-elect Donald Trump would spend $11 million in Orlando, and $7.5 million in Tampa. Later that day Gov, DeSantis issued an order that gave not just WWE, but any sport that was going to be broadcast on national television, freedom to run in Florida as an essential business, as long as there were no spectators in attendance. This came just days after the Association of Ringside Professionals had said that no shows should take place due to a number of risks. When asked how WWE possibly fit into the description of an essential service, DeSantis said that such events were crucial to the Florida economy. Of course that makes no sense at all. Empty arena sports have virtually no economic impact on the economy. Aside from rent money for the venue, which is not that significant, the usual economic impact, taxes on ticket money and souvenirs, and impact on restaurants in the area or hotels for travelers that you do get from major sports events are no longer applicable for shows with no fans in attendance. Florida does get tax money from tickets to boxing and MMA events, but they don’t even get that from pro wrestling, and there is no ticket money to tax for anyone right now ... The order didn’t include even any compliances to social distancing as the mental health care workers had, or limit the size of gatherings. Basically they are free to as they please so long as the event is broadcast on national television. DeSantis became a media laughing stock when this came out, largely due to categorizing WWE events as essential services, and then it became more ugly when reporters tied the Linda McMahon money spent coming the day of the order. Of course, DeSantis denied one had nothing to do with the other.

It is certainly expected that Tampa will get WrestleMania in 2022, and they also wanted to make sure the state was okay for major league baseball in the event the league goes through with the proposal to do months if not the entire season in Florida and Arizona.

Sean Sapp got ahold of a memo to talent from last week from Paul Levesque, which stated, “We have just been notified that (name not reported but talent was told the name) was diagnosed with COVID-19 . WWE doctors spoke with (the infected individual) this morning and reported last had contact with anyone at WWE on March 26 at the Performance Center. As you know (he infected individual) is not an in-ring performer and we believe this matter is low-risk to you per the following chronology" ... The memo continued that “Those of you who were potentially exposed would be cleared for travel by the evening of Thursday, April 9 at the latest, since the last possible exposure to any WWE talent personnel should have been at least 14 days prior.” The WWE then released a statement which had a notable contradiction. The Levesque memo lists that people who could have been exposed if they had showed no symptoms should be fine to travel to television. The person infected was a member of the broadcast team and was at times in close quarters with several people on the roster during the filming of WrestleMania ... While not stated, the person in question has not returned to on-air work at press time ... At first the belief was that if somebody did test positive in WWE, that everyone in wrestling in the U.S. would shut down because of the reaction to continuing. If it was in AEW, the belief is they would shut down but WWE would continue. As it turned out, it was in WWE, nobody batted an eye, and WWE is now taping three days per week.

WWE made massive cuts across every division, not just limited to on-air performers. In particular, the live event division was gutted since there will likely be no live events for some time to come. But writers and office workers were cutback heavily, and in many cases age was a factor, notably the surprise cutting of referee Mike Chioda, who had been in that role for 31 years, the longest lasting referee in the company since its national expansion, who is 53 in a company that wants younger faces on the screen ... For NXT, all the released names aren’t known. And unlike the main roster, the belief is that there are more to come. We’re told everyone who isn’t featured heavily on NXT television is sweating on this. The NXT talent cut will only be on 30 day non-competes. The only confirmed names at press time are Deonna Purrazzo, Aleksander Jaksic, M.J. Jenkins, Dan Matha, ring announcer Jon Loquasto and interviewer Kat Marino aka Alyssa Marino.

WWE is expected to take him about $73 million per month if they take in $0 in house show tickets (which will be the case), merchandise (which will generate some money), licensing (which will generate some money), digital (which will generate some money), advertising, and any other stream besides television revenue and network subscriptions. Even if every category brings in no money for the remainder of 2020, WWE will gross about $900 million, the largest number in company history. We heard from two people with ownership interest in major sports this past week. One noted that their franchise, which would have been profitable, isn’t going to be, who could sympathize with McMahon as a publicly traded company. But he noted the timing of doing the cuts looks the worst. It was noted that as an owner of a non-public company, even though it is not profitable, he can make calls and at this point has no let anyone go. That isn’t to say he won’t, because the nature of a sports franchise is there will be talent turnover. It was noted that before New Japan and AEW became actual threats, WWE would make cuts, not this severe, but cuts, every year or two. It was also noted that the salary cuts of the talent and producer, which looks to be about $8.4 million per year, will not hurt the company from a product standpoint as most were not even used much aside from Gallows & Anderson, and to a degree Rusev, none were key players at any time recently ... Essentially the choice was short-term stock price and an attempt to have record-breaking profits over workers. And the reality is, under normal circumstances, that’s just business. And for some companies, it still is ... The cuts were made in all facets of business in an attempt to save $4 million per month. Between the wrestlers cuts and the agents, the monthly savings look to be north of $700,000. But there were cuts in all departments, and the executives and board members all took salary cuts as well. Lots of expenses were cut and expenses to build a new company headquarters in Stamford were delayed for at least six months. Part of the reason to build a new headquarters was to house more employees as the company was planning to expand with all the new revenue coming in. Due to the economic changes, nobody is expanding and thus they don’t need the new building and it probably won’t be the time to make those expansions and new additions for some time. The new headquarters was to house an increasing number of people, but with the job head count down, they don’t need a larger headquarters. At press time, the cuts led to a stock rise to $39.67 per share, giving the company a $3.067 billion market value. After the cuts were made, it was the first time in several weeks the value of the company has broken the $3 billion threshold. The company has its quarterly conference call on 4/23. The belief by many is the cuts were made this week to guard against a drop in some form based on information that won’t be taken positive when the financials come out.

AEW officially announced that its next show, Double or Nothing, will take place as a PPV on 5/23 at 8 p.m. Eastern, but would not take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. This was expected since Nevada had shut down entertainment events through the end of May. That also includes the scheduled 5/27 TV show in the same arena. No new location was announced, but given Florida being opened up, they can now go pretty much anywhere in the state and run. They would also be doing another set of television tapings if not going back to weekly depending on the state of things at the time. Tony Khan said that he wasn’t sure the return would be in Florida, as he said by that time there will be few options and said that with television taken care of until the PPV, they don’t have to figure things out immediately. We don’t know how the situation will be in mid-May regarding travel and disease control, and whether they would be able to bring in a full crew or use a more limited crew like they did the last set of television tapings. They had only used 29 percent of their roster for the last set of tapings, concentrating on the guys from Florida and Georgia, a few from Texas and others who stayed down. For a PPV show, I’d think they would try and bring all the top guys in. Whether that would include people like Jim Ross or some of the older talent is likely a decision that won’t be made until closer to the date. Running a PPV off television with a limited crew and doing an empty arena show at a PPV price point is tough. The one positive is that they can shoot angles as far as interviews and vignettes with the talent not on television. There is a contract with the PPV providers for quarterly shows, and they do want the tradition of Memorial Day Saturday (but that tradition was to include being in Las Vegas). But it still feels that it’s going to be a tough sell and hard to put on a PPV caliber show with no fans with PPV pricing ... The question is if it would be better to move off this date and maybe do August, September and November, or even September, October and November, as perhaps by then there would be shows with crowds. But the problem is the uncertainty aspect. But I wouldn’t want to lock a date today and would rather wait until there’s a better sign of the future.

The 4/8 AEW vs. NXT battle, which ended up with the shows 400 people apart in NXT’s favor in total viewers, although AEW still won 18-49 solidly, did teach us a few lessons regarding overdoing gimmicks and long empty arena matches ... The 4/8 difference was so small that it was due to NXT’s better lead-in as NCIS before NXT is doing around 1 million viewers ... If you’re looking for the overall Gargano vs. Ciampa performance, it opened with solid growth with the audience going from 636,000 to 696,000. Without a doubt the match itself was the reason NXT was up overall 19.5 percent from the week before for the show at a time when generally everything is in a decline. However the match itself taught us another lesson. It declined in every quarter and only won one of the four quarters, which would be from about the 10-25 minute mark, and also came with AEW doing hype for Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager, a Matt Hardy interview and a Brodie Lee quick squash. It lost 56,000 viewers from the first to the fourth quarter, but only 4,000 in 18-34 and 5,000 in 35-49. So while not showing growth, as it should have, at best it was a slight negative in 18-49 but obviously it must have been a bigger negative older and younger, likely older since half the NXT audience is usually over the age of 53. The issue here is again, going so long. It was also the second straight week that the AEW main event lost viewers at the end because of being a 20 minute plus match, which was not a regular thing previously, and it was with Cody, who aside from Chris Jericho, has been the company’s biggest ratings mover. Even a women’s ladder match with title implications on NXT lost viewers. Ladder matches due to their uniqueness usually do well on television, but another aspect of both the ladder match and the Gargano-Ciampa is that NXT is a hardcore show and the oldest skewing show. So it’s an older audience, but probably an audience that did watch WrestleMania. They had just seen a never-ending street fight and had just seen a ladder match a few days earlier ... In particular, at 9:29 (the peak, so people were into the match for more than 20 minutes) there was a big NXT drop, and a second one at 9:51. They never came close again to the 9:29 level so about 20 minutes was the sweet spot for that match. The other question which was how people would take the Kenny Omega & Michael Nakazawa vs. Best Friends DDT style match, since that match went over two quarters we can see that it was a growth match and in fact, the ending nearly hit the high point of the show for AEW ... As far as a peaks, the only time AEW broke 800,000 was late in the Kenny Omega & Michael Nakazawa vs. Best Friends, which was also the match that got the most criticism. The main event peaked at nearly 800,000 a few minutes into the Cody vs. Shawn Spears match. But that match lost a lot of steam during the commercial breaks and never fully got it back. Gargano-Ciampa, on the other station, nearly hit 800,000 at 9:29, but fell hard and was below 700,000 the entire last quarter.

In the first quarter, AEW had 741,000 viewers, 100,000 in 18-34 and 253,000 in 35-49 with a Jake Roberts interview, a Lance Archer squash and the beginning of Hikaru Shida vs. Britt Baker. NXT had 842,000 viewers, 99,000 in 18-34 and 182,000 in 35-49 with the women’s ladder match with Chelsea Green, Io Shirai, Dakota Kai, Tegan Nox, Candice LeRae and Mia Yim ... In the second quarter, AEW lost 40,000 viewers overall, 14,000 in 18-34 and 18,000 in 35-49 with Baker vs. Shida and a backstage skit with Kenny Omega, Michael Nakazawa, Best Friends and Orange Cassidy. NXT lost 100,000 viewers, 18,000 in 18-34 but stayed even in 35-49 with the ending of the ladder match. In the third quarter, AEW went ahead 665,000 to 664,000, so really a dead heat. AEW lost 36,000 viewers, but gained 13,000 in 18-34 and lost 1,000 in 35-49 with the top five rankings and promotional work for the Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager match next week. NXT lost 78,000 viewers, including 6,000 in 18-34 and 18,000 in 35-49 with Finn Balor vs. Alexander Wolfe and a Balor promo. In the fourth quarter, AEW gained 36,000 viewers, but lost 3,000 in 18-49 and gained 5,000 in 35-49. That had a package for the Cody vs. Shawn Spears match and the beginning of Kenny Omega & Michael Nakazawa vs. Trent & Chuck Taylor. NXT lost 28,000 viewers, including 14,000 in 18-34 and 5,000 in 35-49 with Rinku & Saurav vs. Matt Martel & Chase Parker. In the fifth quarter, AEW gained 37,000 viewers including 6,000 in 18-34 and 25,000 in 35-49 with Omega & Nakazawa vs. Best Friends. NXT gained 60,000 viewers including 25,000 in 18-34 and lost 7,000 in 35-49 for Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley promos and the beginning of Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano. In the sixth quarter AEW lost 74,000 viewers including 20,000 in 18-34 and 18,000 in 35-49 with more build for Moxley vs. Hager, a Matt Hardy interview and a Brodie Lee squash. NXT lost 22,000 viewers including 7,000 in 18-34 but gained 6,000 in 35-49 for more of Gargano vs Ciampa. In the seventh quarter, AEW gained 16,000 viewers but lost 8,000 n 18-34 and 9,000 in 35-49 for the first half of Cody vs. Spears. NXT continued with Gargano vs. Ciampa and lost 25,000 viewers, including losing 4,000 in 18-34 and losing 3,000 in 35-49. The final quarter saw AEW lost 30,000 viewers, 4,000 in 18-34 and 5,000 in 35-49 for the ending of Cody vs. Spears NXT lost 9,000 viewers but gained 7,000 in 18-34 and lost 8,000 in 35-49 for the ending of Gargano vs. Ciampa. AEW won five of eight quarters in total viewers and all eight in the key demo. In 18-34, the last 30 minutes saw NXT win in 18-34 but lost in 35-49. Actual final quarter numbers were 650,000 for AEW with 70,000 in 18-34 and 232,000 in 35-49. NXT had 640,000 viewers with 82,000 in 18-34 and 147,000 in 35-49

NXT beat AEW in total viewers by a 692,000 to 683,000 margin on 4/15, while in 18-49, NXT was No. 27 at 0.25 and NXT was No. 58 at 0.17. As compared to last week, NXT was down 0.1 percent in viewers and 10.5 percent in 18-49. AEW was down 1.3 percent in viewers and 3.8 percent in 18-49. Unlike last week where that should have been expected, AEW had built up the Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager title match for a few weeks so both NXT’s staying the same with less of note built up while AEW’s lack of gain were both surprises. Next week, since NXT promoted more for next week, plus their lead-in edge, probably favors them for total viewers but the difference in 18-49 is still pretty substantial. AEW is hurt more because part of its edge was the rabid live arena fans and that isn’t going to be the case. In addition, NXT has its full roster available and AEW won’t for a while. NXT is live and AEW isn’t, but I don’t think that’s as much of a factor since AEW spoilers haven’t gotten out anywhere since, like WWE, both were taped on a closed set.

Yet another company having problems right now is Ticketmaster, as well as Stubhub, regarding refunds for tickets purchase. Ticketmaster has changed its policy from customers being able to get refunds if an event is postponed, rescheduled or canceled, now it only lists canceled, although it is more following the policy of the promoter. If WWE or AEW agrees to refund, Ticketmaster will do so, but you will likely lose the service charge. But it will not do so if the promoter of an event reschedules and doesn’t offer refunds. People have noted to us that most of the smaller promotions, including WrestleCon which took a huge financial hit, have refunded money for WrestleMania weekend. Evolve hadn’t fully done so as of last word, but they also told customers of that issue. and promised to do so. Many had complained WrestleMania tickets themselves haven’t been refunded yet while every other promotion but Evolve had done so, but they were starting to be refunded on 4/14. Stubhub said that due to the large number of canceled events, that handling all the refunds at this point it isn’t yet manageable. More than 20,000 live entertainment events have been canceled

Kerry Morton, 19, the son of Ricky Morton, is getting into pro wrestling. He was an actor in local musical theaters but also won the Tennessee state high school championship at 138 pounds and trained under his father, Tom Prichard, Robert Gibson, Chase Owens (who was also a state champion high school wrestler) and Bobby Eaton. He was ready to put himself on the map when independent wrestling got shut down. He said he’s also trying to learn to be a producer in wrestling

Besides the contracted talent, ROH has been paying non-contracted talent, whether it be wrestlers booked on a per show basis, ring crew, camera men, referees, etc. that were originally booked for the shows canceled thus far and through May what they would have been paid had those shows taken place.

Mike Jackson, the famed Georgia Championship Wrestling enhancement guy from the 70s and 80s, appeared on the 4/14 television show losing to Johnny Swinger. The story was that Swinger was going to face a Young Buck named M. Jackson, and kept talking like nobody believed he could pull that off. He cut his promo about the Young Bucks, but then the screen read Mike Jackson. This was taped in Atlanta, where he was a regular on TV, best known for being the small guy who made the then-green Road Warriors look both gigantic and impressive in 1983 when they were breaking in, but that was so long ago it’s doubtful many in the crowd would have known ... Once the people saw him do some athletic things, of course they got behind him He did the Undertaker rope walk around most of the ring, got up and down great, hit a tope. Really he was amazing for his age before Swinger pinned him using the ropes. I believe it was his first time on national television since 1991.

DVR viewership of Raw has been declining of late. The last regular show with a crowd did 425,000. The first two empty arena shows did 353,000 (on a show that would be expected to do significantly more) and 319,000 Coming off the rumors of Peacock not being interested in purchasing rights to the WWE PPV shows, NBC Universal had a deck of slides to promote Peacock talking about the rich history of the various NBC U channels and the huge libraries of content they have. The USA Network was well represented throughout and there was early plans talked of to build off the USA Network’s original IP. There was not a single mention of WWE, which those who saw it told us came across as a staggering omission

Samoa Joe is still not cleared from his latest concussion

A lot of NXT guys have been losing on Raw but there are still rules in place. Theory was moved from NXT to Raw because somebody was needed in the spot and he did well enough that he’s now there as a regular. Belair was a long-term plan to come up after Mania. Guys like Tehuti Miles or Cal Bloom on Smackdown are not on NXT television so it’s okay to use them as enhancement. Guys like Tozawa or Lorcan are considered 205 Live guys who also appear on NXT, so they are okay as well. The basic theory as espoused is that NXT is considered the front line of defense against AEW. They can work out a plan for talent needed on the main roster but NXT has to be positioned as something other than developmental or a Raw/Smackdown feeder system right now

Smeat note:

• Taking a break next week from doing sheets reports lasting until Friday since that is when the next Newsletter gets released.