TNA's Problems

[Lover Boy]

Morale hit a real low last week because a lot of people were late getting money. Those who have regular contracts are paid a monthly salary on the first of the month and as of late last week, when people talked and realized they weren't the only ones who hadn't gotten paid (and these were key people), it became a significant issue.
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But there was talent that also had not been paid their money they were supposed to be sent on 3/1, so they were more than 30 days late. It was the same thing last year when the company taped so many One Night Only PPVs in Orlando, and that put the company way behind on expenses and it took a long time to get caught up on payroll. There were reports that this was because the payroll was moved from Nashville to Dallas, but that excuse doesn't hold up because the checks have been sent from Dallas for a long time. There are two types of talent, which are the contracted talent that gets a monthly guarantee on the first of the month, and those who get paid by the show, who were further behind.

At press time, his (sic - Tazz's) future was not clear, past the point the company was very apologetic to him beforehand about being late with money when asking him to come, and he was still with the company.
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The honeymoon is very much over. The Discovery channel signed TNA as an experiment and I was told that the experiment turned out very bad when it comes to generating ad revenue (and you can watch the shows and see the ads) and they expected far more viewers. Impact is, by far, the highest rated show in the history of the station, which on would think would be a huge positive for the company's standing. I guess they were expecting a far larger percentage of the loyal Spike audience to come with them. Destination America right now is in 61.7% of the homes Spike was in, but they are doing (in February as compared to February one year ago) 30.2% of the viewership for the first run show and even throwing in the first replay, you're getting less than half.

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I think there was the feeling that wrestling is popular on TV, there were tons of fans used to watching wrestling on Friday nights and TNA's fan base as far as TV viewing was thought to be extremely loyal.

Taking from the Wrestling Observer

Horrible news here. I really want TNA to be successive but it seems like every single time things start to look up something happens that just makes the company look like a joke once again. TNA really need to sort out their stupid problems if they ever want to improve.

 

[Sabretooth]

This is like WCW part 2. I want to say things are gonna improve but at this point I think they've got a year left maybe 2 at most.

 

[Fuji Vice]

I already tried discussing this in the Taz thread but maybe people will actually respond here...

Not being able to pay talent on multiple occasions is one of the worst things TNA has ever done, right up there with enabling an alcoholic and allowing a drugged up dude to go out and wrestle on a PPV. I don't care how much you love the company, this is really, really bad and the strongest indicator yet that TNA may not be long for the world.

 

[Lover Boy]

This is like WCW part 2. I want to say things are gonna improve but at this point I think they've got a year left maybe 2 at most.

I feel like TNA will recover but they will never quite improve. I don't see them going out of business but I just see them being the company that can't improve no matter how hard they try due to stupid problems.

 

[Fuji Vice]

I feel like TNA will recover but they will never quite improve. I don't see them going out of business but I just see them being the company that can't improve no matter how hard they try due to stupid problems.

I don't think you can call not being able to pay employees "not improving" or a "stupid problem" dude. It's a lot worse than that. How can you not see them going out of business if they can't pay people? Do you imagine they're going to be able to continue with wrestlers working for free?

 

[Lover Boy]

I don't think you can call not being able to pay employees "not improving" or a "stupid problem" dude. It's a lot worse than that. How can you not see them going out of business if they can't pay people? Do you imagine they're going to be able to continue with wrestlers working for free?

I think they will catch up on their payments and just start paying them like usual again. It's happened to a few football (soccer) teams before in England and they caught up on their payments and just started paying them normally again.

 

[Fuji Vice]

I think they will catch up on their payments and just start paying them like usual again. It's happened to a few football (soccer) teams before in England and they caught up on their payments and just started paying them normally again.

To professional teams? Good lord, that's disgraceful. I can't think of a single instance of any professional North American sports franchise that has ever had that type of issue.

Just out of curiosity, can you name any other business in the world where not being able to pay employees on time would be considered acceptable?

 

[Lover Boy]

To professional teams? Good lord, that's disgraceful. I can't think of a single instance of any professional North American sports franchise that has ever had that type of issue.

Just out of curiosity, can you name any other business in the world where not being able to pay employees on time would be considered acceptable?

I'm not saying it's acceptable in any way. It's clearly not right but TNA aren't just going to close down because they have failed to pay their employees here. If TNA can pay their employees what they owe them and go back to paying them normally, they will hopefully be able to get past this.

 

[Fuji Vice]

I'm not saying it's acceptable in any way. It's clearly not right but TNA aren't just going to close down because they have failed to pay their employees here. If TNA can pay their employees what they owe them and go back to paying them normally, they will hopefully be able to get past this.

Perhaps, but to me the damage has already been done. It may create a rift between some employees and force them to leave while other potential workers may decide to forget about working for them due to their past troubles. All in all, it could easily lead to a decreased talent pool which is obviously bad for business.

In regards to the DA stuff, I'm not that sold on this whole "honeymoon is over" thing, seeing as they've only been on the network for a few months. Certainly something to keep an eye on, but I wouldn't imagine it's quite that drastic over there yet.

 

[Smart Marx]

Considering I can't even watch Impact Wrestling where I live due to how limited Destination America is, it can't be blamed on TNA.

That said TNA are doing an horrendous job promoting their brand and product. First of, it's a dumb idea to confuse your audience by building your brand under two separate but equal names:

TNA and Impact Wrestling. People never know what to call it. It would be simple if Impact was only the name of the show, but it's on the website and t-shirts as the company name.

Then there's the mess of TNA taping absolutely everything months in advance. It ruins incentive to watch if I know what happens in May, while it's still March. I don't even need to go looking for spoilers from the tapings either, simply looking at their Wikipedia page will spoil me on who wins championships during tapings. I already know who wins the tag titles in two weeks. TNA needs to find a way to go back to doing live broadcasts, or at the very least only taping two Impacts at time, two weeks before air. TNA definitely needs to cut these ONO tapings. Not only are these shows completely pointless, but most of these don't air for nearly a year.

Instead of tapings shows a year in advance, TNA has to get back on PPV. TNA only has TWO events scheduled for PPV this year. That is ridiculous. If TNA doesn't think they can build an audience to buy their PPV events, they should come up with their own subscription service to view the PPV for only $8 a month or something. Doing supercards for free on TV doesn't bring in the revenue needed, nor does it ever truly feel like a supercard. If done right TV shoudl help build your PPV, and your PPV should bring in the audience for your TV.

TNA has to fix these mistakes and start paying their talent on time if they have any hope of making it to see their 15th anniversary.

 

[Lover Boy]

Considering I can't even watch Impact Wrestling where I live due to how limited Destination America is, it can't be blamed on TNA.

That said TNA are doing an horrendous job promoting their brand and product. First of, it's a dumb idea to confuse your audience by building your brand under two separate but equal names:

TNA and Impact Wrestling. People never know what to call it. It would be simple if Impact was only the name of the show, but it's on the website and t-shirts as the company name.

Then there's the mess of TNA taping absolutely everything months in advance. It ruins incentive to watch if I know what happens in May, while it's still March. I don't even need to go looking for spoilers from the tapings either, simply looking at their Wikipedia page will spoil me on who wins championships during tapings. I already know who wins the tag titles in two weeks. TNA needs to find a way to go back to doing live broadcasts, or at the very least only taping two Impacts at time, two weeks before air. TNA definitely needs to cut these ONO tapings. Not only are these shows completely pointless, but most of these don't air for nearly a year.

Instead of tapings shows a year in advance, TNA has to get back on PPV. TNA only has TWO events scheduled for PPV this year. That is ridiculous. If TNA doesn't think they can build an audience to buy their PPV events, they should come up with their own subscription service to view the PPV for only $8 a month or something. Doing supercards for free on TV doesn't bring in the revenue needed, nor does it ever truly feel like a supercard. If done right TV shoudl help build your PPV, and your PPV should bring in the audience for your TV.

TNA has to fix these mistakes and start paying their talent on time if they have any hope of making it to see their 15th anniversary.

That all came from that stupid rebranding that they did a few years ago which was pretty much nothing but a shot at WWE. I remember it was after news came out that Vince hated the company being known as a wrestling company and wanted to be a sports entertainment company. TNA basically tried to use this as them showing fans that they are a real wrestling company. I agree that they need to get rid of Impact Wrestling as name and just be the show name, it's sort of faded out but as you say the remnants are still there.

The taping problem is whole different problem. I believe TNA does it so that there wrestlers only have to work for short periods at a time which means they don't have to pay a lot of them full time contracts. The fact that they're having problems even doing this means they cannot change this.

 

[Fuji Vice]

If TNA doesn't think they can build an audience to buy their PPV events, they should come up with their own subscription service to view the PPV for only $8 a month or something.

For the life of me I cannot figure out why they haven't done this already. It would be the first thing I'd do if they put me in charge of the company. I'm sure it can't be that they're worried they'll look like they're copying WWE since they've done that enough times in the past.



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[Sabretooth]

AJ Styles and Samoa Joe leaving is just a big fuck you to the company. If your top stars can't have faith in you then why should the audience? Obviously they left because of the aforementioned issues. Taking care of their talents should be the number 1 priority. If you can't pay them on time then everything is fucked. Taz left and others might soon follow. TNA's stars are dropping like flies and there's only so many you can lose. They need to put a plan in action and stick to it if they're to stay afloat and pay your damn talents.

 

[Smart Marx]

For the life of me I cannot figure out why they haven't done this already. It would be the first thing I'd do if they put me in charge of the company. I'm sure it can't be that they're worried they'll look like they're copying WWE since they've done that enough times in the past.



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Isn't New Japan even doing this with New Japan World or something? I think it's just the next logical step in the evolution of pro wrestling. If you can see every WWE PPV for $10 a month, why would you pay 35 or even 15 for an independent wrestling PPV? I think ROH would even benefit from trying something similar. A subscription service would certainly cut down on piracy for any company depending on iPPV revenue.

That all came from that stupid rebranding that they did a few years ago which was pretty much nothing but a shot at WWE. I remember it was after news came out that Vince hated the company being known as a wrestling company and wanted to be a sports entertainment company. TNA basically tried to use this as them showing fans that they are a real wrestling company. I agree that they need to get rid of Impact Wrestling as name and just be the show name, it's sort of faded out but as you say the remnants are still there.

The taping problem is whole different problem. I believe TNA does it so that there wrestlers only have to work for short periods at a time which means they don't have to pay a lot of them full time contracts. The fact that they're having problems even doing this means they cannot change this.

Understood what they were trying to do, but they never fully committed to it. At the very least Impact could have been the company name and TNA the Championship Committee like IWGP for New Japan.

They're going to need to find a way. I can guarantee you that whatever ratings being on DA isn't scaring away, aren't tuning in because they're no sense of realism in a taped environment.

 

[Fuji Vice]

Isn't New Japan even doing this with New Japan World or something? I think it's just the next logical step in the evolution of pro wrestling. If you can see every WWE PPV for $10 a month, why would you pay 35 or even 15 for an independent wrestling PPV? I think ROH would even benefit from trying something similar. A subscription service would certainly cut down on piracy for any company depending on iPPV revenue.

Yeah, they've got their own network as well. I wouldn't be surprised if RoH tries something along those lines down the road, they've certainly got enough content and they can't possibly be making massive money with iPPV's. Hell, I'd love a Chikara or PWG network as well, although I imagine they don't have the operating capital to get into such a venture.

That being said, TNA SHOULD have enough money to run something like this. Hell, they can just use the basic template from their old On Demand service, which I found was really handy at the time. I was glad to pay the few bucks a month to have access to all of their old PPV's and would definitely pay a few more to have it again, plus any new content they want to include. Seems like a no-brainer to me so of course they won't do it.