6 Things You Need To Know About ECW's Wrestlenomics
4. Television Ratings - ECW On TNN
Moving ECW to national television was a huge coup for Paul Heyman. ECW signed a three year contract with TNN (then The Nashville Network) and debuted during the last week of August 1999 as part of channel's "Friday Night Thrill Zone". Ironically, that the TNN contract was really actually ECW's death warrant. Unlike today's TV rights deals (where WWE earns hundreds of millions in total worldwide revenue for Raw & Smackdown and TNA surviving on life support via Spike's payments), ECW wasn't paid for their television product. Instead, ECW had to shoulder the cost (and upgrades) of the television production in exchange for the publicity that came with a national television deal. While ECW did get some control over the advertising time (and revenue) during their TNN show, that paled in comparison to the provisions in the contract which promised Viacom a portion of the future gross revenues that ECW earned and set baselines for minimum average ratings the 60-minute show needed to deliver. In his book about the rise and fall of the original ECW, Turning the Tables, British Wrestling Historian and Writer John Lister calculates that just to break-even, ECW would have needed to grow at least 30% in the post-TNN era. Going national was expensive and without a huge influx of cash, Heyman's already financially troubled situation was only getting worse. The uneasy alliance between CBS/Viacomm's TNN cable channel and Heyman's Extreme Championship Wrestling was consistently rocky. It wasn't like ECW had hidden their roots (the network had brought on board a famously violent and raunchy product), yet immediately it was evident that Paul Heyman's vision and TNN President David Hall's guidance were not in sync. The premise had been simple: Pro-wrestling was hot and TNN wanted the ratings. However, TNN was clearly not comfortable with what ECW aspired to be. This even evolved into a ECW storyline: Cyrus (Don Callis, WWF's The Jackyl) was the heel Network representative fighting against the filth of Paul Heyman's ECW. In one famous exchange, Heyman roundly denounced TNN in a long tirade which was the network wouldn't air (though loyal viewers could find the uncensored version on the ECW website). Heyman later complained that despite being the top rated TNN show the network never aired a commercial, held a press conference or paid for printed television advertisements to promote ECW on TNN. The network went as far to allegedly express great displeasure that the ECW themesong as being "too demonic". It's really no surprise the marriage couldn't last thee years. There were issues with talent depth as well - Shane Douglas joined WCW in July 1999; Bubba Ray & D-Von Duley joined WWF in August 1999; Taz also went to WWF soon after (which was a particular blow to ECW) and replacement champion Mike Awesome joined WCW in April 2000. This hurt a lot. While ECW tried to build new stars, the fresh talent in the final years of ECW (CW Anderson, Rhino, Yoshihiro Tajiri & Super Crazy, Simon Diamond, Steve Corino, Spanish Angel & Tony DeVito, Bo Dupp & Jack Dupp, Jazz, Chilly Willy and EZ Money) were hardly superstars on par with Taz, Sabu, RVD, Dudleyz or Shane Douglas. Instead, as TNN changed owners from CBS to Viacom, the cable channel attempted to rebrand as "The National Network". Viacom wanted TNN to grow in stature . Meanwhile, red hot WWF had grown discontent with their long-time partner - USA network. They were annoyed at Monday Night Raw pre-emptions for the Westminster Dog Show and US Open Tennis. After all, the Attitude era was exploding. Vince McMahon was negotiating from a place of strength and Viacom (who owned UPN where WWF Smackdown! had succesfully debuted as a second show) was wooing WWF to jump ship. A bidding war broke out and by the end, TNN had won the rights for WWF Monday Night Raw. Domestic TV rights quickly tripled from $11M to $31M. Raw's gain was ECW's loss. TNN cancelled ECW and the final episode aired on October 5, 2000 to record low ratings (0.6 rating). ECW on TNN only aired 59 episodes (19 episodes in 1999, 40 episodes in 2000) and their 0.94 average rating was well below the minimum threshold that TNN had established in their original contract. Now ECW didn't have a national television vehicle to promote their product. Financial problems continued to mount. To put that in context, during ECW on TNN's run, WWF Raw averaged a stunning 6.02 rating, WWF Smackdown averaged 4.64 rating, WWF Sunday Night Heat averaged 3.06 rating, WCW Monday Night Nitro averaged 2.93 rating and WCW Thunder averaged 2.25 rating. (As you may recall, there was a lot of weekly wrestling on television back then.) ECW on TNN's highest rated episode was on March 3, 2000 with only a 1.28 rating. ECW's average rating was about one-sixth of raw, one-fifth of smackdown, one-third of Heat & Nitro and half of Thunder. Friday night wasn't a great night for wrestling, but even taking that into account, ECW was a distant third for American Professional Wrestling supremacy. Without a television home, the omnious vultures circled ECW as they desperately tried to find a new television home. However, the other major cable networks were either not interested (Turner had it's own problems with WCW and certainly wasn't about to get expand their forray into the pro-wrestling game) or taken (Viacom had just won an expensive and litigious cable coup and planned to quickly load up both TNN and MTV with WWF programming). Heyman's best hope was convincing jilted lover USA Network that Extreme Championship Wrestling was their redemption - a sort of booby prize for losing Monday Night Raw. But USA's philosophy was simple - they wanted the best or nothing at all. And at this point it was abundantly clear that ECW was far from being the best. While Tommy Dreamer did manage to wrangle a bid from some small regional sports networks, Paul saw the writing on the wall and cashed in his chips. Their national expansion had failed and it was just a matter of time before the inevitable end.
I'm a professional wrestling analyst, an improviser and an avid NES gamer. I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota and I'm working on my first book (#wrestlenomics). You can contact me at chris.harrington@gmail.com or on twitter (@mookieghana)
Raw's gain was ECW's loss. TNN cancelled ECW and the final episode aired on October 5, 2000 to record low ratings (0.6 rating). ECW on TNN only aired 59 episodes (19 episodes in 1999, 40 episodes in 2000) and their 0.94 average rating was well below the minimum threshold that TNN had established in their original contract. Now ECW didn't have a national television vehicle to promote their product. Financial problems continued to mount. To put that in context, during ECW on TNN's run, WWF Raw averaged a stunning 6.02 rating, WWF Smackdown averaged 4.64 rating, WWF Sunday Night Heat averaged 3.06 rating, WCW Monday Night Nitro averaged 2.93 rating and WCW Thunder averaged 2.25 rating. (As you may recall, there was a lot of weekly wrestling on television back then.) ECW on TNN's highest rated episode was on March 3, 2000 with only a 1.28 rating. ECW's average rating was about one-sixth of raw, one-fifth of smackdown, one-third of Heat & Nitro and half of Thunder. Friday night wasn't a great night for wrestling, but even taking that into account, ECW was a distant third for American Professional Wrestling supremacy. Without a television home, the omnious vultures circled ECW as they desperately tried to find a new television home. However, the other major cable networks were either not interested (Turner had it's own problems with WCW and certainly wasn't about to get expand their forray into the pro-wrestling game) or taken (Viacom had just won an expensive and litigious cable coup and planned to quickly load up both TNN and MTV with WWF programming). Heyman's best hope was convincing jilted lover USA Network that Extreme Championship Wrestling was their redemption - a sort of booby prize for losing Monday Night Raw. But USA's philosophy was simple - they wanted the best or nothing at all. And at this point it was abundantly clear that ECW was far from being the best. While Tommy Dreamer did manage to wrangle a bid from some small regional sports networks, Paul saw the writing on the wall and cashed in his chips. Their national expansion had failed and it was just a matter of time before the inevitable end.