Giving a boost to Big Red Machine at his most savage.Big Red Machine wrote: I'm also not seeing where you got the numbers from Dearborn, NYC, or Philly from. And even if your numbers for them are true, they're less than what ROH drew for these shows in NYC and Philly previously in the same building.
I also wouldn't put too much stock into the word "sellout" here. Seems odd to me that you can sell out the William J. Meyers Pavilion in Baltimore with just 650 when you sold 900 tickets to the same building last July. (And, by the way, the Women of Honor show that afternoon did 750, which is better than ROH did in Baltimore for TV tapings last month). Same with Hammerstein? How can 1,800 be a sell-out if you did 2,500 in the same building for BITW 2011 and 3,000 for the first War of the Worlds show?
So basically you've completely shamed yourself by lying and inflating the numbers for four shows- and you'd f*cking better well respond to that particular part, pal, because if you don't answer that accusation I think you'll have pretty much flushed any respect that anyone had for you down the toilet.
In addition to BRM’s excellent points, the relationship to New Japan leaves ROH in somewhat of a precarious predicament, in which ROH largely kotows to the larger company in creative, provides more to their potential competitor more than they benefit, and superficially inflates the status of ROH’s larger shows. If New Japan were to start withdrawing from their commitment in their relationship it would hurt a lot of their live shows and their drawing power on PPVs, not to mention the attraction to for talent that have any interest in working in New Japan. ROH is really showing a lack of ability that they can draw long-term without artificial boosts.
And the Sinclair Group, as owners, may also be a potential issue. One thing we seem to be sure of is their fiscal conservatism. If ROH isn’t making desirable returns, whatever terms they may be, I wouldn’t call the promotion to be safe at all, despite how it may compete against other promotions. SBG’s acquisition in Tribune will likely bring in a new suite of executives, who may be greatly opposed to Koff’s pet wrasslin’ project. The television show might be cheap for the company to produce, but there is nearly tenfold the revenue for advertising in other televised media.
Perhaps less hypothetical than any of the above is Ring of Honor’s lack of building stars and creative’s lack of propulsion. Almost no promotion is immune to a cold product or a lack of new draws. I don’t know if PPVs will do as well with Cody, Daniels, and Lethal as the central draws.
I don’t think either me or BRM believe that ROH is currently imperiled, but there are glaring flaws that exist. A promotion with as many tools as ROH should be consistently outperforming itself, not gaining meek advantages in small areas and performing generally worse in the rest.