Sho'nuff

I agree, which is why my original post said the product failed because they cared too much about winning ratings. Which was true, the product became shit because they didn't pace themselves.


And I said the company failed because Ted Turner was the only guy in charge that wanted to see it succeed. When it was solely his pockets affected by the losses, it wasn't a problem. But, when Time Warner started taking the hit, it was only a matter of time until the plug got pulled, which wouldn't be until Turner his majority share in the empire.




And people seem to forget that Turner was removed as head of the network in 1996, when WCW was crushing in the ratings. No incentive to drop them then, as they were profiting. Couple in the fact that not only did ratings never hit the 3.0 mark for it's final 4 months but the fact that they lost over $60 million that year, who would want to keep it as a brand?


That's all I'm saying. Turner was used to taking losses when he was in complete control. But once things turned around, he wasn't in complete control anymore. The company was on borrowed time and all it took was abysmal ratings and a $60 million dollar lose for people to realize "This isn't going to work", as WCW lost more in that 1 year than Turner lost the 8 years prior when he controlled EVERYTHING.

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Quasi Juice

Always makes me laugh when people say 'derp, AOL killed WCW! Nothing else'. Sure, they pulled the plug on WCW, because they were losing millions and millions of dollars each year, it was a horrible investment. Not to mention the company was rotten on the inside and ratings were getting lower each year. Lots of super expensive guys were under long contracts they couldn't get out of as well, so it's not like they could start with a clean slate easily. All those things the OP mentioned contributed to the decision to let Nitro and Thunder go in the end and to sell the company. Are you going to tell me that if WCW had actually been making a profit and was still as hot as in 1997 they would have pulled the plug on WCW? Hell no.

This pretty much sums it up.

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fulcizombie

Because they had amazing talent like the giant (he was a phenom as. Far as giants in wrestling go ) , Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Rey mysterio and many more and never took advantage of them . Also caring way too much about ratings and not enough for PPVs . The fact that Goldberg/hogan happened in free tv is one of the most weird things ever to happen in wrestling .

nevereveragainu

well you're obviously not a wrestling fan

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IRISHwhip78

AOL had nothing to do with killing WCW. The fiscal mismanagement was the sole reason they shut it down.

Let me explain WCW never lost money until the end. Before Turner bought WCW he would pay Jim Crockett to provide programming. Once WCW was under the Turner Organization these payments went away and WCW losses were offset by the gain in revenues of TBS.

Eric Bischoff was the first guy smart enough to realize that this was insane so he talked TBS into signing some of the bigger stars to contracts to make the WCW Books look better.

After WCW lost $60 Million the AOL-TW brass decided it was time to unload WCW. They were fine with selling WCW but then they realized, if we sell WCW and keep it on TV we're going to have to pay the new owner for the programming. The WWF-Viacom deal was in the $30 million dollar range at approx. $550,000 per week. So a WCW-TBS deal would be in the same ball park. Not sure what TBS was offering in terms of multi year deals but if Fuscient but if they were selling WCW for $100 Million and giving Fuscient a 5 year deal they were technically going to pay WCW $25 million to go away.

This is why the decided to pull the plug on the programming. The only company willing to put WCW on air was the USA Network but they an upfront bond that would guarentee the programming.

The List Bro!

To add a point that hasn't been said around the same time the ratings started to slip Bischoff was told by the powers that be to create a more family friendly product

validreasoning

there was very little money to be made from ratings in wrestling in the 1990s, wcw was still paying to syndicate there shows to various markets right until the end, it wasn't until wwf signed that deal with tnn in 2000 that serious money starting coming from tv, when nitro started turner were paying them $100,000 a week which came nowhere close to covering the costs

wcw gave away hogan and goldberg for free just to try and beat raw for one week, put that match on ppv with a month or two build and it beats starrcade 97 and does a number domestically on a par with rock and cena last year, put the rematch on ppv and you should in theory do another massive number

JOAL.com

The basic reason is this

Vince ran the WWF as a business to make money

WCW was run by its own wrestlers and management like an amusement park

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Apex Rattlesnake

Booking killed WCW

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Heroes

Geeee

WCW failed because they signed too many guys to long, lucrative contracts while not even using most of them.