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Red posted:When you look closely, wasn't Vince the only real potential buyer? I know Bischoff was trying to put a group together, but that didn't work out. I have to think ATW just wanted to be done with the mess and move on, and Vince was there with his checkbook. Vince was the only buyer with actual money. Bischoff had an iffy backer in Fusient and both sides agreed to a sale in 2001. However, something happened, I think with regards to Fusient's money situation and the deal fell apart. Bischoff's plan was to shut the company down for a couple months then relaunch, so this put WCW in an odd spot with regards to new dates. They spent the next month and a half trying to work it out, but at the start of March 2001 moves were made to start shutting WCW down no matter what for the short term. They were sick of waiting, either Fusient was buying it, or the company was closing for good. Fusient still didn't come through so Jamie Kellner, who did hate wrestling but the moves seemed to be in place prior to his ascendency cancelled WCW on the Turner Networks. This left Bischoff scrambling to find a TV deal to try and still buy it, but brought Vince back into the picture as a buyer. Bischoff didn't come up with anything and Vince bought the company. UltimoDragonQuest posted:The numbers that are thrown around, whether in dirtsheets or online or even in other books, are all bullshit. WCW and Turner never released financials on WCW, and no figures are available in the public records. What people have seen are guessed bad on bad "inside" information and hearsay at best. Eric Bischoff had access to WCW's books in 2000-1, as did many others. Bischoff personally called Meltzer a million times over the years, and it was never hard for him to get WCW's financial notes prior. The number is ~65 million. I wouldn't be surprised if the information is public in one of WCW's lawsuits given we have some breakdowns for their expenses during that period.
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Dec 14, 2013 01:44
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Red posted:I feel like a lot of us turned to the WWF for good once either Austin was on top or the Fingerpoke of Doom, but we all changed the channel back for Monday Night Jericho. I noticed in the first couple of months after the Figerpoke ratings didn't really plummet. Only that spring did WCW's slide to the bottom start. I heard good things about 1999's Spring Stampede, so I think it was right after that. Gonzo McFee posted:Vince had initial purchase rights if WCW was ever up for sale due to some legal battle between the two. I think it was over the Woman's championship being thrown in the bin. I'm gonna guess the purchase rights was fallout from Vince suing WCW since Hall and Nash were acting like Razor and Diesel. e: Well it was something like that: Wikipedia posted:Shortly after, the WWF filed a lawsuit, alleging that the nWo storyline implied that Hall and Nash were invaders sent by Vince McMahon to destroy WCW, despite the fact that Bischoff asked Nash point blank on camera at The Great American Bash, "Are you employed by the WWF?" to which Nash emphatically replied "No". Another reason for the lawsuit was the WWF claimed Scott Hall acted in a manner too similar to the character Razor Ramon which was owned by the WWF. The lawsuit dragged out for several years before being settled out of court. One of the settlement's terms was the right for the WWF to bid on WCW's properties, should they ever be up for liquidation; an ironic settlement that would prove invaluable in the future. Vertical Lime fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 01:49
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Can you imagine a world where Eric did get WCW though? The shoot interviews with Highspots where a miserable Eric Bischoff shoots on Hogan, Hall and Nash for not sticking around after the money dried up. Screaming into the camera that he could have turned it around if Nash and Hogan weren't such selfish bastards. Utterly confused as to why his tactic of throwing money around hoping for something to stick didn't work when he had no money to throw around. Probably what we'll get when TNA closes down but with Bischoff having to make appearances at indie events.
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Dec 14, 2013 01:55
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haljordan posted:Holy poo poo, look at these numbers: The level at which WCW plummeted off the cliff the way it did is amazing, all these years later, and you can pull all sorts of numbers out to illustrate it: Uncensored '99 had Hogan-Flair in a Steel Cage First Blood match in the Main Event. The buyrate? 1.1 Uncensored '00 again had Hogan-Flair on top, this time in a strap match. The buyrate? 0.13 WCW ran Slamboree in May of '99 at the (then) TWA Dome in St. Louis. Attendance: 20,516. At a Nitro show almost exactly 1 year later, also at the Dome: 3,500. I would accept a difference in a PPV crowd, and a Nitro crowd, and I would buy that argument if Nitro had drawn 17,000, hell even 13,000, but the implosion was pretty drat spectacular to behold.
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Dec 14, 2013 02:01
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Kwik posted:The level at which WCW plummeted off the cliff the way it did is amazing, all these years later, and you can pull all sorts of numbers out to illustrate it: Nitro out drew Slamboree 99 at the same venue just six months earlier, so it wasn't a free TV/PPV thing. Let me see if I can find the numbers.
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Dec 14, 2013 02:06
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So looking the numbers up, the last time Nitro did a 4 or better head-to-head was indeed the week after Spring Stampede in 1999. The last time they hit the 5 range in any way was against the Dog Show that February.
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Dec 14, 2013 02:15
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How do they calculate PPV buyrates anyways? Just total number of cable subscribers divided by people who actually purchased it?
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Dec 14, 2013 02:22
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Gonzo McFee posted:Probably what we'll get when TNA closes down but with Bischoff having to make appearances on Come on Sleazy E, I know you can do it 
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Dec 14, 2013 02:24
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Gonzo McFee posted:The new guy did hate wrestling though. And The Batman animated series and Animaniacs. He was a dick. He also railed against the developing DVR technology, saying that allowing TV watchers to skip commercials was akin to 'stealing from the network'. Jamie Kellner is the kind of guy who sounds like if it wasn't illegal, he'd be getting punched in the face daily for being such an rear end in a top hat. Cornwind Evil fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 02:41
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Kellner pissed off a huge segment of the internet on one day since he canceled WCW and Buffy at the same time.
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Dec 14, 2013 02:42
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He apparently cancelled Freakazoid too. I hope he chokes.
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Dec 14, 2013 02:47
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Vertical Lime posted:I noticed in the first couple of months after the Figerpoke ratings didn't really plummet. Only that spring did WCW's slide to the bottom Oh, I'm just theorizing a majority of IWC fans likely began a permanent turn to the WWF around then.
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Dec 14, 2013 02:52
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Hahahaha I actually remember seeing the Fingerpoke live on TV but I didn't realize a huge number of people changed the channel to Raw when WCW spoiled the results of the title match. Classic. "If you're even thinking of changing the channel..." *everyone does*
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Dec 14, 2013 02:58
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Red posted:Oh, I'm just theorizing a majority of IWC fans likely began a permanent turn to the WWF around then. I hung around certain places in the final two years or so of WCW when I got back into wrestling and even then there were people who would defend WCW to the death. Let's just say by that spring/summer WCW really started to embarrass themselves to the point where they couldn't recover.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:00
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Red posted:Oh, I'm just theorizing a majority of IWC fans likely began a permanent turn to the WWF around then. The Finger Poke marked the end of both companies being ridiculously strong. WCW's best run of house show business ever culminated with the Georgia Dome show that housed the finger poke. They kind of plateaued and slowly declined for the next three months, then quickened the pace and fell completely off the cliff in the fall.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:07
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MassRafTer posted:Kellner pissed off a huge segment of the internet on one day since he canceled WCW and Buffy at the same time. To be fair they were both pretty bad shows at the time.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:14
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MassRafTer posted:Eric Bischoff had access to WCW's books in 2000-1, as did many others. Bischoff personally called Meltzer a million times over the years, and it was never hard for him to get WCW's financial notes prior. The number is ~65 million. I wouldn't be surprised if the information is public in one of WCW's lawsuits given we have some breakdowns for their expenses during that period.  quote:Most of the “news” contained in his publication is second-third-and sometimes fourth-hand information that is so far off the mark it would be comical if it weren’t for the fact that so many people take it as fact. quote:Some of the people at WCW were smart enough to know that executives in Turner Broadcasting subscribed to the Observer so they could read it in the privacy of their offices and then appear as if they knew something about what was going on in the wrestling world...and they’d see Dave Meltzer or Keller extolling the virtues of the moles that fed them information.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:18
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Corporate accounting generally seems to involve some of the most bizarro math possible so even the actual WCW books were probably inaccurate as all hell.
haljordan fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 03:28
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haljordan posted:Corporate accounting generally seems to involve some of the most bizarro math possible so even the actual WCW books were inaccurate as all hell. In the case of a company being sold the purchasers have to get a very accurate idea of what the books are like. WCW had a million tricks to make things seem rosier than they were in the bad times, but in the end when they were bought there was no way to hide it.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:34
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MassRafTer posted:In the case of a company being sold the purchasers have to get a very accurate idea of what the books are like. WCW had a million tricks to make things seem rosier than they were in the bad times, but in the end when they were bought there was no way to hide it. Yeah I meant to add a "probably" in there.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:35
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haljordan posted:Corporate accounting generally seems to involve some of the most bizarro math possible so even the actual WCW books were probably inaccurate as all hell. Oh you're just being silly and alarmist there. It's just a simple fact that not one single movie in the history of cinema has ever made a profit. Ever.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:40
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Jerusalem posted:Oh you're just being silly and alarmist there. It's just a simple fact that not one single movie in the history of cinema has ever made a profit. Ever. Apparently the studio that made the first "Batman" movie claims it's still in the red.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:41
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haljordan posted:Apparently the studio that made the first "Batman" movie claims it's still in the red. Stan Lee ended up suing somebody (either Sony or maybe Marvel themselves) because he was owed a percentage of the first Spider-Man movie and they tried to tell him it was a flop. Peter Jackson had to sue New Line Cinema because they were withholding payments to himself AND other employees because,"The LOTR trilogy didn't make much money!" It's insane. Somebody somewhere is probably insisting to Leonardo DiCaprio's agent that Titanic sunk without a trace at the box office.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:50
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Jerusalem posted:Stan Lee ended up suing somebody (either Sony or maybe Marvel themselves) because he was owed a percentage of the first Spider-Man movie and they tried to tell him it was a flop. Peter Jackson had to sue New Line Cinema because they were withholding payments to himself AND other employees because,"The LOTR trilogy didn't make much money!" Yeah the "Batman" thing is basically a deliberate attempt to gently caress the original producers out of money. Meanwhile Jack Nicholson made over $60 million from that movie alone. edit: Not trying to turn this into a total derail, but find a book called "Hit and Run" by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters if you want a primer on the hosed up world that is Hollywood. haljordan fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 03:51
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UltimoDragonQuest posted:I'll take the authoritative history of WCW over dirtsheets. No fair 
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Dec 14, 2013 03:53
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haljordan posted:Hahahaha I actually remember seeing the Fingerpoke live on TV but I didn't realize a huge number of people changed the channel to Raw when WCW spoiled the results of the title match. Classic. Tony Schiavone posted:Fans, as Hollywood Hogan walks away and you look at this 40,000 plus on hand, if you're even thinking about changing the channel to our competition, fans, do not, because we understand that Mick Foley, who wrestled here one time as Cactus Jack, is going to win their world title. Ha! That's gonna put some butts in the seats, heh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerpoke_of_Doom
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Dec 14, 2013 03:56
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I like how he said "That's gonna put some butts in the seat!" as if the event had yet to be taped. Oh WCW 
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Dec 14, 2013 03:58
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haljordan posted:edit: Not trying to turn this into a total derail, but find a book called "Hit and Run" by Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters if you want a primer on the hosed up world that is Hollywood. Thanks for the recommendation!
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Dec 14, 2013 03:58
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The guy in the Darth Vader suit has said that he never gets royalty checks because the Star Wars movies have never turned a profit on paper. Star Wars. WCW made a lot more money than they deserved in the years Eric was there because he got TNT and TBS to pay them for episodes of television. So Turner was paying itself to run wrestling.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:06
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MassRafTer posted:Vince was the only buyer with actual money. Bischoff had an iffy backer in Fusient and both sides agreed to a sale in 2001. However, something happened, I think with regards to Fusient's money situation and the deal fell apart. Bischoff's plan was to shut the company down for a couple months then relaunch, so this put WCW in an odd spot with regards to new dates. They spent the next month and a half trying to work it out, but at the start of March 2001 moves were made to start shutting WCW down no matter what for the short term. They were sick of waiting, either Fusient was buying it, or the company was closing for good. Fusient still didn't come through so Jamie Kellner, who did hate wrestling but the moves seemed to be in place prior to his ascendency cancelled WCW on the Turner Networks. This left Bischoff scrambling to find a TV deal to try and still buy it, but brought Vince back into the picture as a buyer. Bischoff didn't come up with anything and Vince bought the company. I thought the Fusient deal fell through because Bischoff's investors took a look at WCW's books and were appalled with what they saw: tons of debt, many lawsuits pending, poo poo ratings and an awful product led to Fusient cutting their deal to less than half of their initial offer. Something to the tune of 5.7 million down, then 2.15 million for 20 years(their initial offer was 70 million straight up). Apparently FX, back in '98, offered Turner 500 million to outright buy the company(WCW's biggest money-making year). Now mind you this was information from the Death of WCW book so I don't know if this is true or not.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:09
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Holy gently caress, Ted Turner turned down $500 million?! I hope that's not true because that is a ton of money. haljordan fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 04:12
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haljordan posted:I like how he said "That's gonna put some butts in the seat!" as if the event had yet to be taped. Oh WCW I think the "butts in seats" is more in reference to Mick Foley as champion. haljordan posted:Holy gently caress, Ted Turner turned down $500 million?! Billionaire Ted needed to keep his rasslin' company.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:21
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So where does all this money that doesn't actually exist go? Into the pockets of executives I assume. Also, 1) I'm amused that the Fingerpoke actually has its own Wikipedia entry, and 2) The spinning in the 'Criticism' segment of it is so strong I now have the neck range of the average owl.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:23
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Don't worry, in 2001 Vince McMahon paid $2.5 million for the company and $1.7 million for their entire tape library. Turn down $500 million in '98 Sell for $4.2 million in 2001.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:25
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Cornwind Evil posted:So where does all this money that doesn't actually exist go? Into the pockets of executives I assume. If you're talking about Hollywood, the money exists but if you don't have gross points (like Nicholson) you don't got poo poo.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:25
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ColeM posted:I thought the Fusient deal fell through because Bischoff's investors took a look at WCW's books and were appalled with what they saw: tons of debt, many lawsuits pending, poo poo ratings and an awful product led to Fusient cutting their deal to less than half of their initial offer. Something to the tune of 5.7 million down, then 2.15 million for 20 years(their initial offer was 70 million straight up). Apparently FX, back in '98, offered Turner 500 million to outright buy the company(WCW's biggest money-making year). I think you are right. I feel like part of the money element in Fusient got shakey as time went on though, maybe February?
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Dec 14, 2013 04:26
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ColeM posted:I thought the Fusient deal fell through because Bischoff's investors took a look at WCW's books and were appalled with what they saw: tons of debt, many lawsuits pending, poo poo ratings and an awful product led to Fusient cutting their deal to less than half of their initial offer. When I first read this, I thought you said star ratings, and I kept giggling thinking of Fusient execs fretting over the amount of negative star matches WCW was putting out.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:40
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Say Nothing posted:There's a wikipedia page about the Fingerpoke. Apparently 600,000 people changed channel. To be fair to Tony's side of the story, that "Butts in the seats" line was fed directly to him over his earpiece, and as soon as the show was over he called Foley's personal number, told him what he had said, and apologized.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:45
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No doubt Bischoff's plan to do everything he did in '96 all over again to rejuvenate the company(sure the ratings were slowly dipping but they were still killing business wise).
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Dec 14, 2013 04:50
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Cornwind Evil posted:So where does all this money that doesn't actually exist go? Into the pockets of executives I assume. You'd be correct Wikipedia posted:Criticism Bonus points for how goddamn terrible the part of Hogan's book it cites is Hulk Hogan posted:"People in the state of Georgia were happy that I got my rear end beat by their homeboy. Unfortunately nobody else in America seemed to feel that way. The numbers didn't change. The only thing that was different was that Bill Goldberg had the belt-and that turned out to be another type of problem...this monster who didn't ever want to lose a match...when a guy's one-dimensional you can't do anything with him....working with Bill Goldberg became a nightmare."
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Dec 14, 2013 05:19
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