The reason the product failed was because they cared too much about winning the ratings. No way Sting/Luger vs. Hogan/Bret, Goldberg/Hogan, nWo Hogan/nWo Savage for the title or Luger winning the belt from Hogan should have not been booked on PPV. Plus, barely any storylines had an actual pay off.


The reason the company failed altogether is because Ted Turner was the only guy in charge that wanted to see it succeed. None of the other executives cared, nor did they know what they were doing. Ted had the mind to at least let those in the business run the company, while he covered the expenses. Money wasn't an option. But when it became other people's money involved, it became a problem.

 

The reason the product failed was because they cared too much about winning the ratings. No way Sting/Luger vs. Hogan/Bret, Goldberg/Hogan, nWo Hogan/nWo Savage for the title or Luger winning the belt from Hogan should have not been booked on PPV. Plus, barely any storylines had an actual pay off.

And the reason to this was that the TV station owned WCW, so they cared more about Ratings.

 

To say WCW failed because they only cared about ratings, means your thought process is lethargic or inarticulate.

Ratings is viewers! which in turn creates revenue/money.
You cannot fault a company to go out of business cause they wanted ratings, that's why you start a televised product to carry key quality's such as ratings and revenue to your disposal for your product to thrive on.

Problem was the booking department.

They played the same old top card talent to death, and never gave mid card or new talent recognition to make them leading stars. They had great talent but never used them, when bookings/matches got sour, they were playing the same repetitive formula with the nWo.

Bischoff is a genius for what he did in his own dominating creativity department, but once the fans got stale of his product, he thought he could do the same shit with the same stars all over again.

 

To say WCW failed because they only cared about ratings, means your thought process is lethargic or inarticulate.

Ratings is viewers! which in turn creates revenue/money.
You cannot fault a company to go out of business cause they wanted ratings, that's why you start a televised product to carry key quality's such as ratings and revenue to your disposal for your product to thrive on.

Problem was the booking department.

It's quite fucking obvious they cared more about Nitro than their own PPV's. Why else would you constantly book Nitro in the Superdome & Georgia Dome, yet book PPV's in the Scope and a shithole like the Civic Center in Charleston, WV?

Ratings is viewers? Way to crack that case, Inspector Gadget.

You CAN fault a company for going out of business because they wanted ratings, simply because their goal was to put Vince out of business and it bit them in the ass. From day 1, WCW was losing money and not because of the booking (aside from nWo, 1989-1990 saw some of the best angles in WCW history).

Turner didn't give a damn about the money, he wanted to put Vince out of business and didn't care how it happened. Wonder why TNA doesn't take that approach? Because it's the equivalent of suicide.


In a way, it's a combination of booking & caring too much about ratings that saw them never attain a win after October 1998. For 1, some genius completely overloaded Halloween Havoc 1998, which saw Goldberg/DDP lose the PPV feed minutes into the match. For 2, the logic of spoiling Mankind's title win, in a way to attract more viewers to your product was the dumbest idea ever.

Last but not least, it wasn't a good idea to book matches like nWo Savage/nWo Hogan, Goldberg/Hogan or Bret/Hogan vs. Sting/Luger with absolutely no build up, just so you can pop a high number, when you could have built it up over weeks on Nitro and do it on PPV, which would have attracted high ratings, as well as a pretty decent buyrate.


They didn't plan long term, they planned in the NOW and planning in the NOW is the reason they're not here NOW.


Say what you want about Bischoff but WCW achieved it's biggest success with him running the company, which is a big accomplishment, considering his only experience in wrestling was as a commentator. But, he had, at the time, original ideas. And it says a lot that he did better than guys like Cornette, Crockett (to an extent), Dusty, Kevin Sullivan, Laurinitis and Terry Taylor, guys who had actual experience in the business but usually clogged the show up with bullshit that it became unbearable. And Vince Russo made it even worse.



Bottom line, WCW failed because it's only focus was on beating Vince and if you noticed their product during those days, it shouldn't be a secret. They held off on potentially big money matches just so they could attain a ratings win over Vince. It was good for the now but what happens when Vince steps his product up, which he did? They hit the panic button and didn't know what to do because they were driven by the thought of putting WWE out of business.

 

People Power. They didn't run it as well as Big Johnny.

 

it really makes me so upset that wcw is gone still to this day. had they of been around still we wouldn't have this shit product. when wwe has no competition we get shit like this we have to this day. hopefully tna can rise up and beat them 1 day. i wish wcw never went out of buisness and beat wwf or stayed alive or some shit. I liked wwf better but still this era sucks god damn dick

 

:kagawa

It always makes me laugh when people talk how the closure of a global corporate entity came to because of one group of half-naked bodybuilders beat the rival group of bodybuilders at their soap opera tv ratings war. It closed down because of AOL/Time Warner merger.

 

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.

 

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 .

 

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.

 

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.

See, that's where you're wrong, brother.


In it's 13 year existence, WCW only had 2 profitable years. As a matter of fact, they lost $20 million in the first 4 years after the Turner buyout.

I have the Observer from 1992-1993 that mentions how WCW had lost $20 million since 1988 and that was what lead to them trying something different and bringing Bischoff in, despite Bischoff losing money his first 2 years in charge.

 

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

 

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

 

Booking killed WCW

 

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

 

Hmm, let's see... WCW was losing, like, gazillions of dollars, and the corporate chefs decided to pull the plug. It's simple really. And why were they losing gazillions? Well, we all know that.

 

Do your research, between 1988 and 1992, WCW lost $20 million. It's been said by nearly everybody in the know that they only made money during the NWO years.


And what does anything you just said have to do with my post? Do I need to post the article from Meltzer himself?

 

If you look at a profit and loss statement yes WCW lost money. Because TBS didn't pay them.

Do you understand anything about accounting? It's very easy to make a company look like a loser or winner if you have several companies and 1 of them is succesful. WCW wasn't allowed to negotiate a TV deal with anyone but TURNER.

When WCW started making money it was because they were getting more people into the arenas, selling more merchandise, the larger contracts were off the WCW books, and the PPV numbers were better.

TIME WARNER took over TURNER in 1996. Do you think TIME WARNER would allow a company to lose money? They lost money but at the same time WCW made TBS money.

Ask Dave Metzler how much TBS paid WCW for programming?

 

Booking didn't kill WcW, Contracts didn't kill WcW. Going family friendly when it was the edgi-ness that popularized the product hurt them but in the end a business merger with a company that despised wrestling killed it.

WWE had zero to do with it. Honestly, a few different choices and WcW would still be around. It was definitely the better company of the 2.

 

AOL didn't despise WRESTLING.

Smackdown was on the CW which was a joint venture between CBS and Warner Brothers from 2006 to 2008. Also Warner Brothers has had plenty of ventures with the WWE.

Time Warner isn't going get in the particulars of what a cable channel has on TV.

What happened was WCW was losing money and then they wanted to sell it to get it off their books.

My guess is then they found out that WCW would cost to buy from a 3rd party and realized they could save a ton of money buying syndicated shows instead and get similar ratings.

WCW is dead because it was poorly mismanaged. If it was making money do you really think AOL Time Warner would shut it down??? Seriously the stockholders would go crazy.

 

ted turner didnt own it anymore they lost funding and they just got cancelled

 

Oh really? Gee, we've been in this thread for days and nobody ever knew that. Way to crack the case, Inspector Gadget.

 

You like saying Inspector Gadget a lot.