83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #36: Wrestlenomics with Brandon Thurston

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

On this week's edition of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba welcome in Brandon Thurston from Wrestlenomics to break down his business, and look at the state of wrestling in 2023. Special thanks to this week's sponsor! BlueChew- Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code WRESTLEBIZ at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on Strictly Business. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with Strictly Business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get rid of your credit card debt, get a lower monthly payment, and skip your next two house payments at save withconrad.com. NMLS number 65084, equal housing lender. You don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket to save thousands with save withconrad.com. Find out how much money you can save right now at save with Conrad.com. How's it going, everyone? It's time for another edition of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff, presented to you by the ad-free shows and podcast heat networks. I, of course, am John Alba, and I am joined as I am every single week by the former general manager of Monday Night Raw, the head honcho of WCW. and the man who's got all the knowledge

about the business of the business, Mr. Eric Bischoff. How are we this week? My friend, that hair is coming in. You left out WWE Hall of Famer, but I mean, what do I care? It's not a big deal to you. It's all right.

It's all right. You got to do a live event with Matt Hardy at the Colloon Cafe. It's easy to just overlook the fact that I made the WWB Hall of it. But that's all right, John. I'm not going to, I'm not going to bitch about it. I'm just not. I'm in too good a mood. Got too much going on today.

Well, not for nothing, man. I was saving all those extra credentials for our live event, which is coming to you this Sunday. It is a combined taping of strictly business in 83 weeks at MCW fan jam over at the RJ Meyer Arena in Joppa, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. Eric, this is going to be really fun. It's our second live event together.

It's actually free admission for the entire. convention and then you can purchase individual meet and greet options. And if you purchase any neat and greet option for Eric Bischoff, you are going to get admission to our live stage show. What can people look forward to with this? Hell, I don't know. I say that because the crowd pretty much dictates. The audience dictates what the show is going to be like. I love to get up and have a little fun in the beginning and just kind of set the tone for the show and do a little improv. And, you know, we'll kind of probably will we go back and forth with you and I a little bit, catch up on whatever is current in the news de jour. It's the first time I've ever used that on a podcast, news de jour. And then get into a Q&A, and that's the part that gets fun for me, because that's where the audience takes over the show. And it can be as fun or intense or analytical as the room dictates.

So that's why I like doing it, man. It's a pretty fluid experience. is where you're going to want to get your tickets for this event. It is going to be fantastic. I cannot wait for it. Eric Bixchoff. I cannot wait to see you. It's going to be a lot of fun there.

There's going to be a lot of different wrestling figures from throughout the years there as well. But that's not what we're talking about on Strictly Business this week, because we have a very special guest. And this is someone that I know you have a lot of respect for. Who is our special guest today, Eric? Indeed. I've been following Brandon Thurston and Russellnomics.

now for some time and uh i i go to it pretty quickly i love the detail i love the consistency um you know i'm getting a little bit of vertigo looking at all the graphs and the dots and the charts but that's mainly because there's so much wrestling going on you've got to track it somehow so uh i guess with my magnifying glass and you know try to read those charts other but i love i love the information it's very thorough very detailed very credible and i i appreciate that i believe that Brandon is the best in the business at what he does. And he is joining us right now on the business of the business, strictly business. Brandon Thurston, how are you?

Hi, hi, guys. Thanks for having me. I've heard that this is a wrestling business podcast. So I'm always excited about those. Well, good. I'm going to kick this off, John. I don't mean to jump your shit here. But I'm just really curious, Brandon, because I don't, if we've ever met, it was probably in passing.

I don't think we have. No, not. I always remember smart bald guys. They just stand out of my mind. I've only been bald for just over a year. Oh, well, that's why. Recently, yes. But where, what's your background, man?

Where, where you come from, bro? So I, uh, I went to school for philosophy. I've been in the military. I've worked as I was enlisted in the Air Force for six years. But I got really interested in the wrestling business around the time. the W network launched and i got really into you know reading about the news that was leading up to that and i've always felt that the new technologies always revolutionize businesses and and people's lives and i think that's especially pronounced in the history of wrestling whether it was

you know tv in the 50s or it was cable and pay-per-view in the 80s or maybe the internet in the late 90s and i felt like streaming video might be the next step in that and i got really interested in what was going on there. And I started to write about pro wrestling business. I've been an independent wrestler. I have not wrestled now since, like, November 2021. And I have no plans. I won't use the R word.

But I have no plans to wrestle anytime soon. But I did that from 2003 to 2021. And I trained some people to here in Buffalo. So what was your MOS? I did IT, a three C. DOX1 was my first one, and then they recategorized the 3DO 5-2, I think I was at the end. It's quite a long time. It's like 10 years ago now that I've been out.

Interesting. So what, what, I mean, you obviously do a lot of research. You have access to a lot of real-time data or near real-time data. What made you interested in getting as granular or detailed in, right? Did it all start from just looking at streaming and looking at where WWE is going and then digging deeper once you got in? Or was that your goal all along? I guess so. I think probably part of what motivated me is just listening to conversations about wrestling and everybody has a strong opinion.

And I don't know that everybody always has great data to back up their opinion. And there's just a lot of things that are taken for granted that I don't think are really gotten concrete by the people who are talking about them. So it kind of started out of that in terms of just doing research with the information that was available on the internet and figuring out what the real answers are to questions like, you know, what, you know, just how much is, you know, at the time, how much is Raw's TV ratings down over the course of however many years. Just, just things like that. And I think at this point, I explain it like, I'm not like this super, you know, business savvy person or somebody who like really loves the business. business part of it so much as I think, like, I'm interested in following how the wrestling business evolves in terms of the power dynamics and wrestling and money just happens to be the thing that is very closely associated with power and wrestling.

It's really interesting, Brandon, because you are someone who has been on now both sides of that equation where you've been the wrestler, you've been the trainer, and now you're very much hyper-focused on the business side of things as you're alluding to here. I'm curious for you, when did that part of the business start to matter to you? What was it about it that triggered that interest? And how relevant should that be in the discourse today? Like, I grew up as a newsletter reader and somebody who was, you know, reading stuff online. So you've been tainted.

It's what you're saying. A blog following Japanese wrestling when I was in like my teens. And I remember doing a very early version of like, you know, the state of New Japan and, God, zero one and whatever the promotions were at the time. So I've always been kind of aware of it. And it just grew into, you know, something that I was, you know, got noticed for. Like I wrote other stuff not just about the business of wrestling at first. And the stuff that I was doing about the business was unique. So, you know, it's not always about like doing what you whimsically want to do, but doing what people think you're good at, I guess.

and this is kind of how I've come to be, I guess. All right, let's dig into it. I read a lot about, not from you. When I check out your site, I typically am seeing real data, not sure where it's coming from, but it seems to be very credible to me. But aside from you and your data, which I have a lot of confidence in,

There's a lot of conversation in the peripheral wrestling community dirt sheets like Dave Meltzer and people who have never really been in the business, but make a lot of assumptions based on things they read, things that are here. I see people use, you know, it's like the old saying, you know, numbers used. John, are you still with me? Yeah. Did we lose? I'm here. There we go. here. Oh, I thought we lost it. I'm having a little bit of an internet issue here, so I apologize. I

thought we lost Brandon. I see a lot of conversation, particularly in a dirt sheet universe and people making a lot of claims and assumptions that, in my opinion, are not really based on hard data. Do you, when you read some of the stuff, and I'm not picking on any one person or pointing out anyone person, because there's also a lot of stuff out there that I find to be very interesting and informative and incredible. But you've got to kind of weed through it all. Do you, when, because you started out reading the, I'll call them newsletters, because that's how you refer to it. I think less of them than you do. But do you see a lot of the same things I see, or am I reading into things wrong? Because I see a lot of people justifying, for example,

success that, in my opinion, doesn't really exist from a financial perspective, a business perspective, in, for example, AEW. And I call that out. And I get, and I get called a hater because I point out, for example, when I pointed out, this is a good one, when I pointed out six months ago, a year ago, that the AEW ratings are flat. They're not growing. They're not really declining. They're just flat. And I'm referred to as a hater. or the old man screaming in the clouds because I'm pointing out something that, quite frankly, is the information that I'm getting off your site.

Is there growth in the business? And I'm not talking about one-offs like Wembley. That is a huge success. And AEW, Tony Khan, the entire roster needs to be patted on the back and held up as a great example of success. But beyond that, I'm not looking at anything that tells me that that business is growing.

Do you see something I don't see in your data? up in terms of a w as a business i think there's a great opportunity still for them to get a renewed tv deal at which point a business has probably never been profitable on an annual basis will become profitable if they get a big tv rights increase of 2x 3x maybe higher than that something like that but i doubt you know and that's one thing i'm glad you brought up the tv rights deal and again i'm not i haven't read anything from you maybe you've written about it and i haven't seen it. But a lot of speculation four, five, six months ago about the value of TV rights. Do you have any insight as to that? Do you know what that market looks like? Do you know how TV cable outlets or studios

are evaluating the rights fees? Or is it all just speculation? My sense is that the most valuable programs are the ones that rank really highly on their day. So, which is something that we've kind of lost with the exit of Showbiz Daily, something I was actually just working on today from another online source called Spoiler TV where you can get the rankings data and I can calculate, you know, how, what were the rankings on each day? And where did Smackdown rank and where did Raw rank and Dynamite and all the other shows? So as cable has declined and as fewer and fewer people have subscribed to cable, the most highly watched shows have become really important to those businesses. So what are the most highly watched shows at this point on

traditional TV still? It's sports and news. Those are the things that people are watching and those are the things that are broadcasting live. And wrestling still gets a large live same-day audience. The big shows do, Raw, Smackdown, Dynamite. And they rank really highly on their night. They're usually in the top five. Lately, Smackdown and Raw have been number one, even including some broadcast TV they're out doing. As long as those shows continue to be really highly viewed on their given day, I think they're going to continue to be really valuable to the networks that own their rights. I do think that we're on, we're approaching a plateau, though, I think, when it comes to live sports rights.

And I've heard people predict, you know, for years and years that the sports right bubble is about to burst. And I don't think it's going to burst, but I think we are at the precipice of a moment in media where traditional TV is going to start to even more rapidly decline in terms of its financial state. And streaming is not about to replace the profits that traditional TV have. So I don't see how TV rights fees are going to continue to grow. And it doesn't mean that TV rights fees are going to diminish, but they're just not going to exponentially grow as they have over the last several years. That's what I was about to ask because Eric and I have talked a lot about that on this podcast where I've pitched

him on that a few times. How close are we to WWE having its final TV exclusive rights agreement? Like, is the next rights agreement with a streaming service where Raw moves permanently to Amazon Prime or whatever that may be hypothetically speaking? So as far as your read is on it, there's somewhat of an in-between going on there? I think the situation that

W is in right now is in terms of they're on Fox, which is broadcast. That's in like 88 million homes at this point, and that's about as big as you can get, right? And then they're also on a strong cable network, USA. So, and that's in like 70, maybe a little bit more than 70 million homes at this point. And then there were all these other homes

that don't use their antenna and don't have cable and younger people who just, you know, use streaming. And they weren't really getting those homes until they got on Peacock. And I think it's no coincidence that I saw what was a multi-year decline in W's fan popularity. As that was declining, that sort of leveled off around early 2021, around the time that the W network moved over to Peacock, and I think they got into a lot more homes than they were previously.

And while, yes, there was the W. Network that had about 1.2 million U.S. households that it was in, moving that content, the pay-per-view content, the library content, over to Peacock. And at the moment, Peacock, I believe, is in something like 20 million homes. So it just gave that content a lot more exposure, and it gave households that didn't have access to any sort of first-run W-D content. It gave those households access to W. Content. So I guess to get to your question, could W. go to a streamer? I think the big candidate is Amazon for Smackdown, maybe. Maybe they'll renew with Fox. FX has been reported by The New York Post as a possible bidder for Smackdown.

what looks redundant to me though is if you're you're going to still be on peacock because that that deal runs through early 2026 it it seems kind of redundant to be on peacock and then also on prime video when the reach of prime video will be relatively low compared to fox unless amazon is willing to pay so much and they can certainly afford it if they're willing to pay so much that it offsets what whatever is being lost by no longer being on fox and brand obviously i don't follow that side of the business remotely as closely as you do but i read something the other day and i was flying i didn't pay much attention i was just kind of flying through my timeline and news feed and i read something uh about abc and and is it eisner that's now running things at

Bob Iger? No, Bob Iger. Iger, not Izer. Bob Iger making a comment that basically, the way I read it, and I fast forwarded through it, but the way I read it was like, he sounds like he's about ready to throw in the towel

on linear television. If an Amazon is willing, look, if WWE is willing to move one of their prime shows, let's say SmackDown to Amazon, Amazon is going to have to replace half a billion dollars a year in revenue in license fees. that WW is currently getting. To me, especially based on just listening to the last few minutes of this conversation,

that would be a lost leader. That would essentially be Amazon saying, look, there's no way we're going to make money because streaming is not making the kind of money yet that linear television would be. It's not that profitable. If you listen, if you believe what you're hearing out of the SAG after conversations and it's not, there's like one really profitable streaming business, and that's Netflix. all right and that's changed a lot it's still profitable but it's they've taken a hint over the last 18 months two years they've kind of plateaued Netflix believe or not and this is another conversation too

but between April and June they added 5.9 million subscribers after the password sharing debacle ended up hitting them so it didn't turn out even though it was negative PR it actually ended up coin the green for them yeah they just reported yesterday and they were up sequentially a little bit in in every region that they report for but going back to to a bc that would take disney out of the equation wouldn't it unless unless they're going to abandon linear television put all their eggs in a streaming basket and be willing to lose money for three to four years while they build up that platform i think what is what i gathered from from bob higers i think you're referring to an interview that he did with cnbc about a week ago um from the hills of sun vans

Valley, where he said that they're looking for possibly a strategic partner when it comes to ESPN, and people who understand this story better than I do think that maybe that means that they would partner with Comcast, which is the owner of NBC Universal. I don't have a great handle on how that would all work out. But maybe a major streamer, major tech player like Amazon or Apple could as well because they're clearly in the streaming business now. But I think as lucrative as wrestling TV Roy, I think, fees are they're still pretty small in in the big picture of media um NBA rights are huge and NBA rights are coming up in a couple years and that that may be the last really big live sports rights upgrade that we see because there are no losing audience they're they're they're not as hot as they were ratings are down for the NBA still still among the most watch TV shows on on all of television especially with younger people but you got to be making money at some point it's got to be profitable at some point at what point do and i'm asking you a question

i know you can't answer because you're not a studio exec or network exec or have insight i mean maybe you do but at what point do you say i can't make any money i mean yes you know it's the most popular you know live action live support out there but damn we're we're hemorrhaging cash when we get those rights well traditional tv is still a profitable business it is in decline there's fewer and fewer subscribers so those profits are getting smaller but it's still a profitable business and what justifies so the way that networks make money is obviously ads but they're also getting carriage fees and the networks that have really strong sports rights and strong sports TV viewership tends to attract strong

subscriber fees or carriage fees so I was looking at up yesterday ESPN is getting something people estimate that ESPN is getting something like $9 per cable subscriber who has ESPN in their home home. And I'm sure that's the highest one. Um, but when you multiply that by like 70 million, that's, that's a lot of money. So I think it's still profitable for them. Um, but if you look at like, you know, what's, unless WB and AEW are able to drive or contribute to the value of those carriage fees, you can make an argument on its face. Like, what, what are Fox USA, WBD, what are they making on ad revenue just off those

wrestling shows? It's certainly not enough to. cover what they're paying per week. But they apparently see value in it in other ways. Maybe they are contributing to the network's ability to make deals with cable and satellite contributors. It's also a marketing vehicle for your other programming in a way to get people to continue to watch USA or TNT or whatever it is. Certainly.

And Eric, I want to push back real quick because I do generally agree with Brandon's standpoint there on the NBA rights. The NBA playoffs this past year marked their highest average in five years in terms of viewership and rating and it was their third highest in a decade as well and that's even though the finals themselves were down overall viewership for the playoffs and we've talked about that conversation past two on this podcast where if Turner chooses not to hold on to the NBA package or if they change their package and right now they are the primary rights holders for prime time I'm curious what kind of effect that could have on AW in terms of their viability

on the Turner platform and do they have another partner to promote with or do they receive more promotion and turn off of something like that it's hard to say like on one hand if you've got less fewer MBA rights maybe there's more more of a budget to go around to have been on AEW but yet on the other hand you want to be on a network that's really strong and if there's fewer hours of MBA on the network that's broadcasting you that's less of an opportunity for that that huge audience that that content attracts to, you know, throw the bumper up on the bottom of the screen or whatever it is for, you know, Dynamite coming up on Wednesday.

I guess in the big picture, I don't know that it matters a whole lot. I think WBD will keep at least some MBA. I don't think they're going to get rid of NBA altogether, but I could see them coming away with less of it because NBCU wants NBA apparently. And maybe some of the new players like Amazon or Apple will be interested as well. And John, I think none of us. No, this is all speculation, and I don't, even though I'll say it like I know what I'm talking about, I really don't. It's just speculation. But having worked as an executive at networks, having sat in Harvey Schiller's office when he was president of TBS sports, when we had the NBA over at Turner, I understand some of the complexities and the good and the bad of having sports rights.

my thought about AEW should Warner decide to walk away from some most or perhaps all of their NBA rights because they are expensive and WB is in a cost-cutting scenario at this point. They are still cutting costs. I have friends and a daughter that worked at Warner Television and have a little bit of an inside look and it's still pretty ass-ugly over there. But a scenario could also exist. One scenario is, well, we can't afford the NBA rights, so we're going to put a little bit more of that money into AEW

and drive and promote and do something off network to kind of help build that brand. That's a scenario, and it could be true. What could also be true is if live sports, live action, is no longer a focus because they no longer have the NBA, they could easily do what networks often do, usually every three to four years, which is rebrand themselves and get totally away from sports or live sport, or in this case, live wrestling.

It all depends on what the powers that be at the top decide how they want to brand their network. And to me, I think if I was Tony Kahn, I would be concerned about Warner walking away from those NBA rights more than I would be saying to myself, well, then there's going to be more. money for me or I'm in a better position. It can also work the other way. Brandon, have you from your numbers, I know you probably don't have a specific instance in front of you at this very moment in time, but have you noticed when Turner does these cross-promotion and corporations between another product and AW that AW has benefited in terms of viewership on that particular week? Not really. I mean, I've never noticed anything like that.

I'm sure it doesn't hurt. But I think ultimately, the biggest driver of what determines whether people are going to watch your show or not, besides maybe competition and some external things or just how people feel about the content and the personalities that are on TV. But it's something that you definitely want to introduce yourself to new people or to remind people where to watch the show. But I've never seen, like, you know, oh, wow, there's this big marketing campaign during an NBA game and the rating went up the next week. But there should be. I'll come to AEW's defense in a way here. You know, that's one of the things that I look for when people, and again, just trying to understand what the relationship

might be and kind of forecast into the future of how things may go. You know, I often, for example, you know, Fox spent a fortune promoting their new Smackdown acquisition back in 2019, off network, not preaching to the audience that they already had, but preaching to an audience that they that may or may not watch fox on Friday nights that to me says commitment and I haven't seen much out of Turner and I look for it because it's an indicator to me I haven't seen much out of Turner in terms of promoting AEW on TBS or TNT outside of the network am I missing something or are you tracking that at all I mean you can look at things like, I guess, the upfront where a year ago at the upfront, not this most recent one,

but there was virtually no representation of AW at WBD's upfront. There was some a lot more this year with the introduction of collision. But it's, I don't have like remarkable stories about how, wow, the network really endorsed them other than, you know, they have given them an additional show here. I think Rampage was part of their January 2020 deal, but the decision to do an additional two hours of TV seems like, you know, that the network wants, you know, more content. It seems like a good sign for that relationship. And I totally expect AW to stay with WBD. I don't think there's much of a chance that they're going to go to another partner. I want to take a moment here, Eric. I know that this conversation with Brandon Thurston has been

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sign up now at ads free shows.com i don't either mostly because there's not that many partners out there that would be interested in any wrestling i mean there's a small number of networks that would be interested regardless of who it is including wwe WWE probably has a bigger opportunity because they represent a more global opportunity, the streaming platform, yada, yada, yada, AEW, you know, that's a tougher sell at this point. They're a young company. They haven't established the international footprint. They don't have the streaming potential quite yet that WWE does. So it's kind of apples and oranges in that regard. Going back to collision, now that's an interesting. Now, by the way, and I'm going to be careful what I say here because I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth and upset them. But I was told how rampage came to be and it wasn't what i was told and the horse that i talked to is the horse what i was told is that was a consolation price from moving from tn t to tbs i thought that that was what battle of the belts was that the the january 2020 deal included three hours pandemic happened and that delayed that and the part of their they did have to move because of the

coming along was that the n hl um was was moving into into tn tn t but you heard that it was it was a later decision than that and again i could have heard it wrong but i was left with the impression that that was i'm saying a consolation prize that minimizes it it was a compromise in an agreement because dynamite had been on t and t and it was moving to tbs tbs is not as strong at least it wasn't I was there, not as strong of an outlet as T&T. And that was kind of like the make good, if you will, well, here's Friday night. I don't know, I don't want to say too much more

because then I'd be reading into it, and I don't wanna do that. I just, it is what it is. I think Rampage is kind of a mess. It's, it's filler at this point. You could probably run a rerun of Andy Mayberry on Friday night in that time slot and do probably 75% of the number that they're getting now.

it's just not really bringing in much of an audience. Collision, on the other hand, has been interesting. What was it, 840,000 viewers, week one. John and I on this episode predicted it would probably take a 30% hit the following week because that just seems to be the pattern no matter what it is. You open big, you might as well plan on a 30%, 25, 30% drop in the following couple of weeks. and then after about a month or two, you see what you're really going to do. At this point, just off the top of head, I don't have any notes,

I don't have any research, just trying to remember what I've read over the last week or two. I'm guessing that collision right now is bouncing around 550,000 viewers on average over the last, whatever it's been, four or five weeks. The last two weeks did almost the same number in terms of total viewers, about 580. Okay, so let's call it 600. Let's round it up to 600. To me, on a Saturday night, that's not a bad number. I wouldn't do backflips over it but it's it's a damn good number and it's holding up how does the current let's call it 600,000 average just to run things up how does that compare to what whatever was running on Saturday nights in that time period before that have you looked at that yeah so the reruns I've looked especially at the demo the reruns which are basically the things that we can see so I

I have a data set that is, which is what Spoiler TV publishes, a top 200 of cable reruns in every week. So if it makes the top 200 as something that's not first run content, it makes the list. And there are several examples of Saturday night, 8 p.m., something made the top 200 in 18 to 49. And it does around 0.11.14 is about the range of what the movies do. When they make the top 200. So, you know, you can imagine it. There may be some weeks where it's below that. And in the demo, Collision is doing this most recent week, a 0.20, a week before that, a 0.21.

So it's, for now at least, doing a roughly double what the movies were doing in the same time slot. And then from a programming executive's perspective, it's math. If what I'm paying for to get that 0.21 average, we'll call it in the demo, if what I'm paying for that demo is more valuable than what I'm going to get at a .14, 0.11, 0.12, but that's in my library. It doesn't cost me anything. I already have it. I already paid for it. Then it becomes an economic decision. And that's not an, that's just a general observation when we're kind of assessing or I think when I'm assessing what could happen in the future and what's driving some of these decisions from a programming perspective. perspective at least. It always comes down to economics. And the math suggests that if you've got a show that's doing a point to one and it's costing me, I'm guessing that show probably costs about 400, 500,000 over the course of, that's a two-hour show, isn't it? Yes. Yep. Yep. Shows you how much I watch. Um, 500,000 dollars, that's $250,000 an hour. Is

Is it worth $250,000 an hour to have that additional increase in your demo number? Or is it more efficient financially, especially in the case of WB at this point, is it more efficient to go? You know what? We tried it. We were hoping it was going to do better. From an economic point of view, financial point of view, we're better off as a network running reruns. Yes, we get a lower demo, but we're not spending $250,000 an hour either.

Do you ever look at that? cost of programming. Yeah, and actually, Wells Fargo did an analysis on WB because W is a public trade company. They have these banks that are doing analyses on their stock, and we're looking at the value of, of W.E programming, you know, we're on SmackDown. And you can say the same thing that they're lost leaders. They're certain not being covered by the ad revenue that's being estimated to be sold

against those shows. And even if you included, they did something where they calculated, okay, well, what are the carriage fees that are being justified here? and calculated the percentage of Fox's overall ad sales on Fox Broadcast. You could say the same thing for USA, but take the percentage of the ad sales that W.E. is generating for them. And then just apply that as the percentage of carriage fees that they would be generating for them. And even if you put those values together still against the $205 million a year that Smackdown is making,

or $265 million a year that Raw is getting, that they would still be lost leaders. So I don't know. I mean, the networks must see some value in this. offsets that or makes it worthwhile. Well, and it may go back to something that you alluded to early on in this conversation. And it's funny because, going back to what I know, when I went to work for WCW,

I was told by everybody that I knew there that it was the greatest place to work because nobody cared if the company made money. Nobody cared. Because from the top down, everybody understood that, look, Ted loves it. He knows it doesn't make money. It's a lost leader, but it's bringing eyeballs to the network that you can promote other content off of.

So lost leaders do make sense, whether it's for carriage fees or whether it's just to get that demo used to coming to your network. And oh, by the way, while they're there, we're going to promote other content that that demo would probably be interested in. So there's there are reasons and strategies beyond the final. financial side of it, but that gets a little murky sometimes. Shark week was just promoted last night on dynamite. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, with Jason Mamoa, you know, I mean, that's, it's pretty cool. I'm not a big short week fan, but that's a perfect example of how a network can use a show that may not be making any money for them on the ad sales side or it could be close. But yet, it's one of the

better opportunities they have to promote something that is making. money for them and that's that's the interesting part of this equation is trying to anticipate or predict strategy and subjective opinion like that brandon i'd love to ask you a more macro question about what your outlet is contributing to the pro wrestling discourse space because ever since wrestlenomics became much more prevalent in the conversation which you've done an amazing job with building a following and building an audience. It has really fueled a very vocal part of the wrestling fan base where they are putting stock in viewership numbers in ways that maybe they weren't before. Oh, bullshit. Alba, where the fuck were you in the 90s?

Zalmy. Eric, no, Eric, I am not saying that you are totally taking my words out of context, sir, Eric. I am talking about this social media construct right here that we exist. exist in today. I understand that it didn't exist back in the 1990s. I just did a whole thread today as we tape this about how people are overblown and there's this whole thing right now about how WW is the hottest it's ever been and that's just not accurate. Anyway, to the point, it's insane. It's insane, Eric. But anyway, to my question, you have people talking about demos and stuff where they were not doing that for the last 10 years until WrestleMania became part of the discourse here.

What do you feel that your outlet is contributing in terms of how people are consuming wrestling right now? I think, I don't know. I don't think I play a huge part. I mean, I know that I tweet the ratings every day, and there's some insane conversations that happen in the replies to those tweets. I think in the grand scheme of wrestling media, I'm a fairly small part of it. I'm a pretty new part of it that doesn't have a long legacy in a massive audience yet, but we are growing.

I think if you look at how wrestling fans were, say, you know, the WCW versus WF days, I'm sure there were fans who felt strongly about either side and went at each other. I think just the way that social media functions really enables that and really turns up the temperature on it. And I think it is a different situation here in 2023 or 2019 when AW came into existence because there was 20 years of WWE being the one dominant major per wrestling company. And I think that's made people, I guess, feel more like, more like, you know, WB is on one side and is like the indestructible team. I guess what I'm just asking is how are you trying to service the space with what you're doing? By making it clear what the information really is, like by putting it in some meaningful context, I think that's a large part of my job is to see there's numbers here. But what do those numbers mean in any sort of meaningful context?

You know, there's, you know, uh, dynamite, you know, was watched by 850,000 viewers or whatever it is, you know, what, what is, is that, is that up? You know, that you have the headlines that say dynamite up, NXT, down. And like, what is that? I don't really like the week-to-week comparisons. I do include them in my reports because everybody wants to know what is that, what's the difference between that and last week. But what I'll try to do, and I put a list of demos at the bottom of the report, showing what the difference is of this rating, this viewership and this demo versus the trailing four weeks. So to give you some sort of comparison point against what's normal. Well, maybe the median of the last four weeks is a good example of how the show has been doing lately.

Okay, how did this show do versus that one? that's a large part of what I'm trying to do is to take information that's that has no meaning out of context and put it in a meaningful context so that people can make sense of it and that's exactly what I'm talking about right context obviously I know that people were talking about pro wrestling ratings and viewership prior to something we have a whole podcast on this network that Eric is a part of called 83 weeks about WCW beating WWE for 83 years. straight weeks. But I think at the end of the day, Brandon, a lot of fans, you hit on something very important that you're trying to provide context. They may lack context. So do you view yourself

as an educator or as an informer when it comes to reporting your information? What's the difference between an educator and an informer? I think an educator provides that additional context, whereas an informer is simply presenting information. Do you take that as on as part of your role? I guess I think it's sort of related to what I said, you know, way at the beginning of this podcast when, you know, part of the reason that I started to take an interest in doing this research is because I think there were, you know, there were really combative and intense conversations that I was reading, at least maybe participating in both, you know, in person in real life and, um, and maybe online too. And nobody, there were all just assumptions and

conclusions being drawn in a very conclusory manner without any real research to back them up and, you know, and I think that's the lack of any real research to back anything up is, is a large part of what's driven me to do this stuff. I mean, do you guys have me, by the way? Yes, yep, yep, you're with us. Real internet issues here. But I heard the initial question, and to me, when I read, granted, it's one of the reasons why I follow Rastonomics and have respect for it is because, to me,

brand is providing information without the added. dialogue and interpreting that information for the reader. Some of the people that read this stuff to figure it out for themselves. You've got to do a little research on your own. You can provide information. And if people want to interpret that information to justify their position or to take an opposite position, if somebody, oh, they can do that. It's like numbers lie and liars can use numbers if someone chooses them to.

Yeah. I mean, I am conscious of it. I think Eric, you've been a proponent of, you know, separating. the facts from opinion, right? And I'm still conscious of the fact that, like, even if I'm just trying to report bare facts, I have to, I still have to choose what the facts are to highlight. I still have to, when I write an article, decide what the first sentence and the second sentence is going to be in what's down here, the sixth or the seventh sentence.

So I am really conscious of that kind of stuff. And there are still some subjective questions, you know, some subjective decisions that have to be made. And I do want to say, because I do bust balls here a lot for people who are in the, as I am now, and John is in the periphery of it all, we're not in the business. We're on the outside talking about the inside. And I'm grateful to be here doing that. But I do respect what you do because you do, you are cognizant of it. I don't see a lot of agenda in what you do. I see a lot of, here's the facts, here's the information. I'll leave me the fuck along. You know, this is what. but it is folks take it or leave it and i i appreciate that because that's what that's one of the things that i feel is missing when in the coverage by some not all other people that are writing about wrestling now and because they allow their fandom to interpret data for them and you've got to be careful with that yeah i think the big mistake that's really attractive to make and i i think i make it quite often i hope i'm conscious of it now but like it just so

happens to be a coincidence that the way that i want the product to be is the way that it would be ideal for for the product to be business wise right it's it's just it's just a perfect coincidence that i want wrestling to be a very specific way and i end up making an argument that says uh wrestling if it's going to succeed business wise in the best possible way she just happened to match that and i think on and i think you know people in in creative roles in wrestling have often exhibited that as well and i I think, you know, it's, it's a fine line to cross between, like, creating in a way that you are passionate about and a way that you will authentically connect with an audience versus, you know, just, you know, making people accept your, your idea of what wrestling or any creative work should be. How long has wrestling economics been around? So, Chris Harrington originally created the wrestlingomics brand name in 2013. Chris Harrington now works for AW.

I after he left to go work for AW in the beginning of the pandemic I had some more time on my hands and I basically relaunched the Patreon and relaunched the website and but I've I had been co-hosting the podcast with him since 2017 and because you do such a good job such a thorough job and you do have credibility are you finding even though you've only been around really for four years in the role you're in now are you getting approach from people outside the wrestling industry or getting a approach by news outlets for example that want to discuss where everybody is where the wrestling business is in terms of television are you getting that kind of attention yet yeah if you go to the to rustleomics.com as a press link and I put a lot of the the occasions where they're either hyperlinking to something from our website or something that's our work or they're where I've given them comments for an article but no it's it's been it's been great and flattering to be you

know I've given comments I think to the New York Times, to Washington Post, Bloomberg, places like that. On the flip side of that, do you see yourself getting more inquiries from people who are involved in wrestling at that higher up level who are actively engaging you, trying to get a read on different elements of business? Not so much. I mean, like, W.B. came to somebody at W.B. came to me several months ago and was like asking me if I would, you know, kind of work with them in a consulting basis. And I said, no, I can't do that.

But I'm glad to talk to anybody for free. So, yeah, no, I've, and there was a time, like, you know, when Chris Harrington first went, went to AEW. I think you wanted me to help him out with some consulting stuff. And I did help him pre-AEW launch with some of the research that went into that business plan. But I haven't done anything like that since, since doing this and since AW has launched. But I've, you know, I've gotten a couple calls from, like, research firms. that provide services to, say, hedge funds, and they want to have a conversation, I guess, so that can inform how they, you know, how they trade the stock.

Did you get any inquiries from potential buyers of WWE back when that was the thing? Because there were, I'm not going to mention how I know, but I know who was interested in bidding and who was just posturing and trying to get attention. and trying to get headlines. And some of those people are, because that deal with Endeavor hasn't closed yet. I suspect it will. I'm not suggesting that it won't. It hasn't closed yet.

And there are still entities that are, they're still communicating. They're there in case the bottom falls out of Endeavor. Like I said, I don't think it will. But did any of the potential partners, people interested in buying WWE, you know, a year ago, whenever the news was out there, any of those people reach out to you and look for a little inside information? Or are they just working off published information? Not directly. I can say, you know, when I see people sign up to the Patreon, sometimes they're, you know, they're using not just like a Gmail address, but like a corporate

account. And I, you know, it's always interesting to see who goes in that way. So I think there's a lot of people who are just doing their due diligence who are probably relying on at least some of my work, but, I mean, based on reading the filing, that that, like, huge 500-page filing that they published a few months ago, I think the, other than obviously Endeavor, I think there was, Liberty Media was interested based on, they published that, they gave comp tickets to a potential suitor to go to a house show in Denver, which just happens to be, I believe, right by the headquarters of Liberty Media. And I kind of heard Liberty Media was, was one of the players. And I think Comcast gave them an offer that was basically at the price of the stock at the time,

which was at the time under $100 per share. Those are my inferences. It has been such a crazy year in terms of everything that has happened from the very beginning with Vince getting back into the fold to the sale to viewership for WWE, increasing house show attendance, live event attendance is up. What has been the most surprising numbers trend for you in 20? 2023 so far. Most surprising, I've got a spreadsheet open right now.

And the Wow Women of Wrestling ratings, I would have never predicted what they're doing in syndication, which is, I mean, the latest ratings are in the 300. They did one that was over 400,000 viewers, which, you know, to think about it in the context of Rampage, it's outpacing Rampage in some weeks. And nobody talks about wow. Like, I've never seen anybody, you know, tweet about watching Wow. but it's in syndication all over the country i think it's got 100% coverage at least that was what was in the press when they when they relaunched last september um so that that's that's one that that's just

it's surprising it was totally unpredictable i saw that the other day somebody somebody put it up there i don't know where i saw it but i looked at the numbers for a while and i'm thinking man if they just hook up with a reasonable cable provider with a little bit of a footprints maybe another 40, 50, 60,000 homes, they could do some damage. They could start making some noise. But I think what was the other one, gorgeous ladies of wrestling, right? Remember that? You guys might have been too young when you.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's syndication, right? And that came out. And that was like late 80s, I think, is when that came out. And that show was an insidication, but it was in every bar you've ever been in at closing time. It was like nighttime viewing. But it was everywhere.

where and it's going to be interested who owns that company who owns that wow is that genie bus she's got a couple bucks she could make it happen that think that that show actually has potential because it's different than AEW is different than WWE decidedly and if somebody got a hold of that really worked it that could be a real sleeper success financially it's never going to be on the level of AEW or necessarily or WWE certainly but it could be a it could be a successful venture in the north future you know who the ep the executive producer of that program is no it is uh c m punk's wife a j former a j lee from wwee she's in that role now as the executive producer big champion of women's wrestling so i've never watched it so i can't tell you

if she's doing a good job or a bad job um but so what about as far as the major companies go a w w wwee anything that you've seen that has really struck i know you and i were having having that conversation off screen, too, about the whole notion that WWE is hotter than ever just because they have the viewership and the live event attendance increasing. Anything stand out to you? I mean, WB has really increased their interest with fans this year. And I would say, you know, it coincides with the timing of Vince's retirement resignation almost a year ago, July 22nd.

And it's like, it's undeniable. And, you know, if you look at Raw Race, And raw is a fairly clean example. I know there's TV attrition that messes it up. But you can, you know, even to put it this way, that, you know, you can look at the annual decline of raw and it's gone down just about every year for the last, I don't know, 15 years or so. And it's up, I believe it's up this year. It's at least up in quarters, quarter years.

So it's unprecedented in a way, especially with the headwind of cable being in decline, that Raw is up and Smackdown is doing really well. doing really well and nxte is doing well i got dominic mysterio drawn a quarter hour the other night well speaking of the quarter hours so do you attribute this increase in viewership due to the bloodline and cody road specifically i know you track those quarter hours pretty significantly yes i'm trying to do very specific and i'm setting conditional formatting rules so that like in the right scenario i'm trying to make sense of what's a genuine good result for this quarter hour and it's usually what i'm looking at is how much did the viewership change from the prior quarter hour um but bloodline

has done really strongly j uso without roman rains this most recent friday did a strong quarter hour in terms of growth from the prior quarter and i'm measuring that against how does this quarter hour usually do over the last 90 days and it overperform that by a significant margin um yeah but all of all the bloodline stuff is done really strongly and look john i i don't want to put brand in a crossfire between you and I, but I do not know how the fuck you don't think WWE is hotter than ever. If you're looking at revenues, if you're looking at their international footprint.

So that's exactly what I said, Eric. I said there are certain elements of it that you can 100% make the argument for that, and everything you just said is what I put out there. I wasn't done yet. There's a lot of other ones. I mean, licensing and merchandising. if you look at you know corporate sponsorship integration i mean anything that you look at is hotter now than it's ever been i am i'm curious as to why you disagree with that well i i did a whole twitter

throw on this i'd love brandon because i know brandon i were talking about this too and brandon actually tends to agree with me on this for the most part what's what great thanks for joining us man now i'm gonna get double team so it depends on what you mean by hotness i guess it's a systematic thing like like i could look at every year in terms of revenue for w b since i don't know how many years they've earned more and more revenue every year and most most years they've been increasingly profitable too um i mean that's largely a function of live sports rights being as valued as they are um but in terms of fan interest this is i i haven't given a ton of thought but like maybe this is the hottest fan interest has been since 2020 or 2001 um i don't get the sense that it's as hot as like

like the attitude era, like when I was a teenager. That's a major era. Dude, dude, dude. The Monday Night War era. Monday Night War is acceptable as well. When the Iliot-Pala show was setting records in Buffalo. But how shows for WF were selling out. And I mean, I don't have memories of the late 80s, the Hulkomania era, but I don't get the sense.

It's as intense as that either. And that's what I was saying, too, because I do every single week for the Hardy podcast, in particular, I do deep dives into the live event attendance at the time, 1998, 1999, 2000s. It would not be unusual at the time for WWE to run a house show on Saturday at the Metalands, do 18,500 fans. The next night, do a house show at MSG, do 18,500 fans, and then do the Coliseum in Long Island the next day for Raw and sell that out completely. And for as well as WW is doing attendance right now, and they absolutely are crest.

it setups have changed ticket prices have changed it's hard to make a true apples to apples comparison from the monday night war era to now but i mean from a financial standpoint there's no question wwe is the hottest that's ever been i was looking at it a more macro standpoint i did a whole threat i don't want to bog this down with that but uh yeah that's just my take eric you're allowed to have a take we're all allowed to have a take And plus, too, there's also the pop culture relevance element of it. How much is it coming up in discourse? In 1998, it wouldn't be unusual for you to spend more time talking with your work colleagues about what happened between the rock and stone cold Steve Austin versus Monday night football.

And viewership habits has changed. But I think that's relevant in terms of if you're discussing what's hotter than ever. Just something that I take into account. But I do think, Brandon, I love your thoughts on this, too, actually. Celebrity engagement was one thing I really hit on. I think the way that WWE has targeted celebrities since Nick Con came into the equation has just been tremendous. They have found celebrities who genuinely love the product and add so much equity to it. Have you found anything trackable about how much people like Logan Paul and Bad Bunny have added to WWE's product in terms of range and viewership?

I mean, I can tell you that I think Logan Paul and Bad Bunny are big stars, and you can look at, you know, say the backlash show that was in Puerto Rico, and that, you know, they sold out two nights in San Juan, and the crowd atmosphere was awesome. I mean, I don't deny that they've added a lot to the show. It's, it's, I just, they have data probably. That would, you know, be better towards examining this than, than I can tell you. But I don't, I don't have great evidence to sell. you absolutely either way but my but my gut is yeah they've helped it's probably part part of a number of things including better creative and just the fascination with Vince McMahon leaving a year ago and what's going to happen and then the introduction of the the the bloodline storyline and the fact that they're actually spending time writing a detailed thorough traditional story arc that that's working so there's a lot of things but i think bad bunny and the audience the bad bunny has that probably never would have bothered even to sample wrestling, all of a sudden

there's got to be a percentage of that audience of bad bunnies that didn't watch wrestling that came and sampled and stayed or at least check it out occasionally. Same thing with Logan Paul. These are two powerful, powerful social media people. They brought their audience with them to check them out in the WWE world. And I would imagine a percentage of them would stay. But I don't know how you track that. It's kind of anecdotal, I guess, at best. Right. I think in an earnings call, it had to be a while ago because I think it was Stephanie who said it, that they saw an increase in Hispanic viewership when Bad Bunny was on the screen, which at the time had been recently. It would be interesting to know, and I don't know how you track this, but it would be interesting to know how many of those people stayed. Like they were introduced because of Bad Bunny. They showed up. They saw, did they stay or did they leave?

Or what percentage of them stayed versus the percentage of them that left? Once Bad Bunny was done, did they leave and never come back or did some of them stick around and become wrestling fans that that's because that's what you hope for when you bring celebrities in you're bringing people in from outside the wrestling world into your world hoping that they'll bring some eyeballs or at least some news with them that that increases your audience but again i don't know how you track that i think like when i try to think about the stories that go along with the economic results I think some of what's happening is introduction of new fan into show they watch it and watch it on a permanent regular basis. And I think part of it too, and maybe what people like Bad Bunny and Logan Paul attribute to is just increasing engagement or, you know, taking the person who has, you know, who's maybe been out of wrestling for a while, not engaging with it very much.

But the presence of somebody who they already have an additional affinity with increases their engagement with this product and all that. And it doesn't hurt the fact that both Bad Bunny and Logan Paul over-delivered like crazy once they got that opportunity. I mean, I'm still shocked. I am still shocked at when I go back and start talking to somebody about the Bad Bunny match or, you know, even now, Logan Paul. Logan Paul's in it. I mean, he's in it. He's one of the boys and he can work with just about anybody. It's just amazing to me.

Yeah. In my world, in my experience, it took 10 years for someone to get the confidence and the timing and just being able to, yeah, you can learn how to do a hip toss and an arm drag. You can learn how to have a wrestling match, but it takes a long time to learn how to get yourself over and get comfortable with your character. And to see two guys that come from outside of the world, the inside of the world and knock it out of the freaking park, as hard and as fast as they did, is still mind-numbing to me. I don't know that we've ever seen anything like that before. It's just, it's still, I get excited about it because it's such a unique opportunity for them and for wrestling fans. They've been amazing. And that was exactly the point that I made at the end of what I was talking about Eric, too, is that regardless of whether or not you think that this product is the hottest it's ever been or it's not the hottest ever been or maybe parts of it are.

Wrestling right now as a whole, and WWE in particular are in a very safe, secure and thrive. spot and the industry I think is more secure than ever for people to make legitimate money work in a more inclusive environment and there's increased ways for visibility with these different advance of streaming and distribution Brandon I would love your read on that is the last thing I've got for you on where the state of the industry is right now from a business standpoint in relation to where it was maybe 20 years ago 10 years ago I mean I would say especially you know 10 years ago 2013, I think that's good enough that, you know, I think around that time, streaming video really started to open up wrestling in terms of creating all these relative to W.D. small

companies, but it increased, you know, the engagement with New Japan and Western markets, and it helps Ring of Honor become stronger. And ultimately, it led to AW launching and Tony thinking that there's an opportunity to get a second wrestling brand to have major live TV rights. and I would think it's a lot more jobs in wrestling. I've done these research projects that you're looking at, look at the major companies and say, okay, how many wrestlers in a given year did they get to have 10 matches in their company?

And, you know, as you'd imagine, you know, it's pretty big in the late 90s when WF, WCW and ECW are running. And then as soon as 2001 happens, there's a big drop-off. And as the years have gone closer to the present, that's grown, partly because W.E. has signed a lot more people, but also partly because AEW exists, and that's a lot more people having, it's a lot more wrestlers having jobs. I'll say. And I got to think it's a lot more people working behind the scenes having jobs too in wrestling. And it seems pretty secure in terms of, you know, I'm confident that

that W.W. will get a roughly 1.5x increase in their TV rights fees. And I'm fairly confident that AEW will get a strong increase too that will make that a biolive. company going forward. Brandon, it's been great having you on. I've been a fan of your work, and it's great to talk to you, while not in person, it's as close as we're going to get until we bump into each other in an elevator somewhere. But really do.

I want anybody listening to this to know that I do respect your work. I track you. If I'm looking for information that I can trust, yours is one of the first places I go for data. It's a good work, man. And hats off to your success. Keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate it. And before I go, I have one more question. I asked Tony on the media call a couple days ago about the idea of a third hour, third hour of dynamite.

So, I think it was John on the call. But I, um, the idea that look, look what Rampage is doing and it's doing like a 0.10. I would think if there's a third hour of dynamite, that would do maybe double what Rampage does. It just seems like a better way to allocate the same number of hours for AEW. And I'm, I'm trying to kick the tires to see what are my, missing here is is there a risk as somebody you manage a three three hour wrestling show what's the is there a problem with that yes creative fatigue and audience fatigue your creative to first of all i think the creative team in a ewe is still trying to find out how to produce tv it's getting a little bit better i see some i'm seeing indications that somebody that's actually knowing that actually knows how to format a show is formatting the show now and this is the first time in the four I've been dropping in and out of it. I don't watch it consistently, but I've seen indications over the last couple months

that somebody else is formatting at least collision, and that's a good thing. But unless you've got an established, experience, and very talented creative team, the challenge to holding an audience for three hours in the middle of the week is brutal. It shouldn't seem like it would be, right? You just said, well, it's just another hour. You've got enough people in the back. Let's just, you know, it's not that easy. The creative fatigue and what that does to your viewing audience, it's tough.

It's really tough. I don't know that I agree with you on now. You could be right. I don't know that I disagree with you either. But there is definitely a risk in that. If you're going to go into three hours, you better have a really strong creative plan that you've tested and that you feel confident. in, as well as having a talent. But AW doesn't have a talent problem.

They have a TV production problem. I don't mean hard production. I mean creative. If they can overcome that, then maybe you would be right. Likely you would be right. But you can't underestimate the fatigue and the pressure that a three-hour produces a three-hour show every week, 52 weeks a year, is a mind-numbing experience and goal.

And as a viewer, as a viewer, I'm not not. excited about the idea but just thinking about it economically um and in the context of battle the belts following collision last saturday and that third hour did pretty well still even though it was at 10 o'clock no economically you're absolutely right because you you have the you have efficiency you have the economy of scale working in your favor you're already there you're already set up your crew's already there the cost of producing an additional hour is incremental compared to i guess what you can get out of it, but it also can have such an adverse effect on the audience because of the fatigue factor and creative that can actually hurt the brand in the long run.

I mean, look, I did three hours on Nitro, and I didn't want to, by the way. I didn't get the vote. Nobody's opinion if we added a third hour. I didn't get that. I got a memo. We're doing an extra hour. We're doing three hours instead of two. and it was it was a ballbuster and it was one of the things i think that took some steam out of

nitro early on is trying that three hour experiment and i know rod does it i would rather chew off a fucking limb than watch three hours of anything you know my favorite show right now is barry do you guys watch barry no awesome awesome show you got to check it out um succession was one of my favorite shows you know until till it collapsed or collapse till it ended but i couldn't watch three hours of it every week no matter how much i love it just not happening so there is risk but there is economies of scale into the to from an analytical perspective it's justifiable and then to circle back to what we talked about earlier to rampage it was alluded earlier that it was kind of a make good for them being pushed off tn t for dynamite

they've got to show on tn t and prime time now in collision so what is the role that rampage plays in the grand scheme of thing for AEW's programming. I think they're still trying to figure that out if you're watching Rampage currently. But this was really great stuff, Brandon. Where can people find Resslenomics? Where can they find more of you? You can find everything out about Resslemics and rustlemics.com.

And there's a Patreon, which is where my TV ratings reports are, quarter hour reports and other reports on the wrestling business at patreon.com slash rustleomics. You can follow me at Brandon Thurston and at Russellomics on Twitter. Brandon, I think you're one of the best of what you do out there. And it's always a pleasure to see at events. And I look forward to the next time I see you here. If you'd like to join our team on Strictly Business, my friends, head on over to advertise witheric.com.

Get your product, get your business out in front of thousands of viewers and listeners every single week. That's advertised with Eric.com. And of course, do not forget, Eric and I are here on the stage. That is this Sunday, July 23rd in Joppa, Maryland at MCW fan jam to attend this show. all you got to do is purchase an Eric Bischoff, meat and greet. It doesn't matter what tier you purchase, you will get access to this and a lot more. It's going to be a great event there. I know Eric, you're looking forward to some Jimmy's famous seafood down there in Baltimore.

Crab cakes, baby, crab cakes. That's right. For good crab cakes. That's right. Anything else you want to add, Eric? No, I just want to thank Granted for joining us. This has been fun. I love this kind of conversation.

Thank you so much for having me. by nature kind of a research geek i love research believe it or not you used to do focus groups at nitro when we first launched before we launched nitro i love doing i learn so much in focus groups you know it's like anything you know you got to sift through some of that data in order to get to the important stuff but i dig what you do keep on doing it i'll keep on following you appreciate it see you guys been strictly business week we'll see you next time