Previously, it was 14 ppvs X 40 a piece, plus an extra 10 for WrestleMania, coming out to a grand total of over $570 a year as I'm not including taxes or any money you'd spend on food/drinks. But now, you've got 13 a year at a rate of 45 plus the 10, which equals to over 595! You are going to be paying MORE money for LESS wrestling! How does that reflect to the audience? The audience now says "woah woah woah, I have to spend 5 more bucks a month on these ppvs and I can't even get Judgment Day anymore? Bullshit".
WWE seems to think that having more time between ppvs is going to increase the buyrates due to supply/demand tactics, but in reality, they're shooting themselves in the foot because of their stubborn attitude. The episodes of Raw, ECW, Superstars, and Smackdown are money-making opportunities in 3 ways: merchandise, ratings, and buildup towards ppv buyrates, correct? Merchandise is a constant undercurrent that really doesn't need too much focus. Ratings depend on your product. Buyrates depend on your product. None of these have to do with time. Why is it that the Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, and WrestleMania ppvs are always the best performing buyrates? It's because they matter, and because of that, WWE Creative focuses on them and tries to put out the best possible product to entice the fans to pay for it. The reason people watch the TV shows is to be entertained and the goal is to entertain them so much that they want to spend money on the ppvs. Buildup is a matter of worth, not time. Simply having more time between ppvs alone doesn't make things better by default, it just gives you more flexibility when it comes to a slow build. The execution is what matters.
For instance, say you eliminated all ppvs except the "big four": Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series. Now according to WWE's outlook, that would mean with all that spare time between ppvs, they'd build up so much that people wouldn't think twice about spending 150 bucks a piece on them to break even. Sounds foolish, right? But who is to say that the buildup between all that time is actually good? It still has the potential to be crap. Creative needs to figure out a way to ENTICE people, not just say to them "you haven't seen it in a while, so you should pay to see it now as it's coming around". Say you have just those four ppvs but nothing else changes and we still have the same tactics being used right now to get you to buy ppvs. The only difference is that there would be more tag team main events on Raw and Smackdown and dragging things out longer so that they don't shoot before they're ready. Is that what you want to see, or do you want to see more compelling storylines and better wrestling? Think of it in terms of a movie. Are you more likely to spend your 10 dollars on a movie if you simply haven't been to the movies in a while, or are you more likely to spend your 10 dollars on a movie that looks like it would be entertaining and good? Now, what if someone said you haven't been seeing enough movies, so now, every movie you see will cost 15 dollars. Aren't you less likely to go to the movies on a whim, and more likely to say "I'll only spend that money if it looks REALLY good"?
We are in an economic crisis. People are in desperate need to save their money and not waste it on unnecessary things that aren't essential, such as a wrestling show that you can not only watch for free online illegally, but also just simply get the results while it's going on and see some footage the next night on Raw. You can't pick and choose which aspects of which shows you want to spend your money on - otherwise, there'd be a giant gap in sales for people that don't want a percentage of their 50 bucks to be spent on divas matches and recaps of shit they've already seen on Raw and Smackdown. You can't say to the WWE that you'll pay 3/8 of your bill to watch 3 out of the 8 matches on the card. You're forced to pay for everything (no matter how good or bad it is) or nothing. So why take the risk when you know that at least one match (women's) is going to be terrible and that at least part of your money will be spent towards watching commercials?
If you want to send the WWE a message that you want better wrestling and better feuds, hit them where it matters: their wallets. The only message you're going to send that they'll ever listen to is if you don't buy the ppvs. You can still watch the shows as they're free and you can still find illegal streams online or download the ppvs the next day, so you'll still get your wrestling fix. The only thing that will change is that they'll realize that people aren't willing to spend their money on something that isn't worth their money, so they'll be forced to upgrade the product to drive interest or simply go bankrupt, and we all know that the WWE doesn't want that, so the only result is going to be that we'll get what we want.
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