Is WWE In A SERIOUS State Of Decline?
Things don't look good for Vince McMahon's promotion at the moment.
In business terms, this has been a difficult week in an increasingly difficult year for WWE, with several metrics showing, once again, that the company's fanbase is shrinking.
This week's Raw delivered a tiny viewership increase as the number climbed from 2.23 to 2.27 million. SmackDown delivered a similarly small upturn. This sounds encouraging, but the promotion is still roughly 600,000 viewers down on their 2018 average.
Unfortunately, said episode of Raw was also the most sparsely attended in years, with just 3,500 fans at the show. Stopping Grounds was similarly embarrassing. A massive black curtain was pulled over the empty hard camera side, and while 6,000 people were there to watch the show, only 4,500 paid for it. On top of this, the B-level pay-per-view rate drew a buyrate of just 9,800 - way below the expected 16,000.
As pointed out by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, it feels like the promotion are "legitimately going through a bad period." Sure, the next set of financial reports will show an upturn as the Saudi Arabian money trickles in, but at what point does this model (which relies on milking a shrinking viewership) start failing?
If anything, it'll be extremely interesting to see what the next few months bring.