ROH to discontinue Live iPPVs

[Troy]

After the issues with their most recent iPPV event over the weekend, Ring of Honor has made the decision to discontinue all iPPV broadcasts live and will instead present them as VOD offerings the day after the live event.

The official statement from ROH issued to PWInsider.com reads as follows:

This past weekend at "Best in the World" in Baltimore, MD , Ring of Honor proved once again from top to bottom why our talent is truly the best in wrestling today. Unfortunately, there were some issues with the live iPPV stream that wound up distracting from the energy and action in ring. For this, we sincerely apologize to all fans that encountered problems.

Because of how much we value the support of our fans, and understand the imperfections of the live streaming technology, "Best in the World" will be the last iPPV stream that we will be broadcasting live. All future main event shows will now be offered as a Video On Demand, which will allow Ring of Honor to present a flawless show and truly depict the excellence of our product.

From now on, fans can watch ROH Wrestling on TV, VOD, or DVD, however there is still nothing like seeing Ring of Honor in person. We thank you for your continued support and are excited to be moving forward.

Ring of Honor Wrestling

Ring of Honor popularized the iPPV craze within independent pro wrestling with their 2009 Final Battle event.

It is the right move by ROH because all they were doing was losing fans with their terrible streams. I don't know how their production can be worse after being bought by a production company but somehow that is what has happened. Surely a huge media company like Sinclair can figure out how to run a simple iPPV stream for 1-2k people. Good idea to just stop them and offer it from the next day, might convince more people to go to the event live as well.

 

[Andrew]

Sucks the iPPV is gone. Right move but they should have found a better broadcaster to fix this problem.

Ah well, suppose we can all watch FWE iPPV's.

 

[Troy]

Well they were doing it all in house and with Sinclair being a billion dollar company they should have been able to handle it. With Go Fight Live I remember they had one iPPV issue at the end and after that they switched to inhouse and they have had more bad PPVs than good with regards to the streaming.

WWNLive have had their issues recently with a DGUSA show and with one EVOLVE show but nothing like the consistent issues Sinclair have.

 

[Keith]

It is bad news for them to lose this, but think it is the right move too.

 

[Troy]

They had to do it as they were losing too many fans due to the poor quality of the streams. They will lose a bit of money as not as many will buy VOD the next day but overall it is for the better until they can sort out their issues. Still find it odd that a huge company like Sinclair that runs dozens of television stations can't organise a three hour PPV stream for a couple of thousand people.

 

[Gimmick]

They had to do it as they were losing too many fans due to the poor quality of the streams. They will lose a bit of money as not as many will buy VOD the next day but overall it is for the better until they can sort out their issues. Still find it odd that a huge company like Sinclair that runs dozens of television stations can't organise a three hour PPV stream for a couple of thousand people.

Sinclair have very little involvement in how ROH run their product. The only thing they've really done is give them their own TV show, and even then they leave it to ROH to do whatever they want with it. It would've made sense to have SBG help out with their iPPVs, but for some reason even stuff like that is left to ROH to deal with.

 

[Montana]

I have to agree with this move by ROH. Trying and failing with the live IPPV's hurt the product and upset the fans. I bought one stream, and it sucked, and ROH didn't do anything about it.. basically said it was my fault, even though i know it was their poor quality stream. I think in the long run it will work out better. Hopefully ROH can lower the price, as it's not live anymore too.

 

[Keith]

I have to agree with this move by ROH. Trying and failing with the live IPPV's hurt the product and upset the fans. I bought one stream, and it sucked, and ROH didn't do anything about it.. basically said it was my fault, even though i know it was their poor quality stream. I think in the long run it will work out better. Hopefully ROH can lower the price, as it's not live anymore too.

At the start it worked quite well, remember some of the early shows like Final Battle 2010 drawing strong figures, but due to the decline in talent, the product and the technical issues it became too much of a problem.

 

[Troy]

Sinclair have very little involvement in how ROH run their product. The only thing they've really done is give them their own TV show, and even then they leave it to ROH to do whatever they want with it. It would've made sense to have SBG help out with their iPPVs, but for some reason even stuff like that is left to ROH to deal with.

Even if SBG don't have much to do with their product surely they could have lent them some techincal expertise in how to perfect this system. SBG own it so they should be doing all they can to help improve the product.

I have to agree with this move by ROH. Trying and failing with the live IPPV's hurt the product and upset the fans. I bought one stream, and it sucked, and ROH didn't do anything about it.. basically said it was my fault, even though i know it was their poor quality stream. I think in the long run it will work out better. Hopefully ROH can lower the price, as it's not live anymore too.

The stream issues kept putting me off purchasing their iPPVs just in case I suffered an issue like you did. With regards to the price do ROH charge less for some of the house show events that they put up on On Demand?