WWE Wrestlemania 29 Price Tag Goes Up: How High Is Too High?
It's been recently learned that on all cable systems the price tag for Wrestlemania 29 will go up $5. This means of course that if you want to buy "The Granddaddy of Them All" this year, you'll be spending $60 for the standard definition and depending on your provider, $70 on the High Definition version.
My question is how high is too high? Sixty dollars in this day and age is lot of money and given the amount of content that WWE produces for free why would people pay that much? Let's face it, the storyline build for this year's Wrestlemania is probably one of the weakest in recent memory with heavy reliance on older names and nostalgia to carry them through once again. There's nothing really that special that at least in my opinion that is worth that premium of a price. I think what is most egregious is the nickel and diming once again of the younger audience and the hardcore fan base without adding any more value. And that's the key word here Value. How much do they truly value their fan base? Obviously not too much considering they keep degrading quality of the shows making television all the more important over pay-per-view. I understand that you have to go where the money is in right now's television, I'm not foolish. I know this is a business strategy to curb lowering pay-per-view buys as they've done it for the last 5 years. However , when WWE management has said the pay-per-view is dying a slow and painful death in the US, why give it a morphine drip? Maybe this is a preemptive move considering the plans of the WWE network to move all pay-per-views except for Wrestlemania over for subscribers. I'm not sure. If the WWE is not careful though and keeps on this slippery slope they may play right into the hands of TNA (Total Nonstop Action Wrestling/Impact Wrestling ) who themselves just went through pay-per-view restructuring and ROH (Ring of Honor) whose Internet pay-per-views have a better value proposition in regards to the in ring action for the low low price of $15. This goes without mentioning the countless independent promotions that are now running Internet pay-per-views on a frequent basis at much more discounted rates. When it comes down to it in the current media marketplace you want to survive you have to worry about two main things . Ease and availability.