TNA News: Eric Bischoff Weighs in on Ring of Honor Sale

In an interview with Monday Night Mayhem, TNA's Eric Bischoff had some disparaging remarks regarding Ring of Honor's sale to Sinclair Broadcasting.

For those of you who are unaware, last week, Ring of Honor announced that they had been sold to media company Sinclair Broadcasting. 

The full press release from ROH's website can be seen here.

Naturally, if you are interviewing the competition, the question about ROH's sale is bound to come up.

So when asked about Ring of Honor’s sale to Sinclair Broadcasting, Bischoff said, "I will get a lot of heat for saying this, and I have nothing against Ring of Honor and wishes them the best as it is nice for talent to have different places to work."

Sounds promising right?

He then added, "That being said, people are kidding themselves.  Sinclair is like 20 television stations with 22 percent market penetration in the United States. Twenty-two percent means you don’t exist from an advertiser’s point of view. It means Nielsen doesn’t track you as a network."

Now before you get upset, Bischoff has been involved in television for close to 30 years, so he does have some knowledge about the business. Obviously, some of what he says is to put TNA over and make ROH look inferior. This is the same practice he used during his days with WCW.

During his time there, WCW was in a heated feud with WWE, so of course he wanted people to stay tuned to WCW.  Week after week, he would bash WWE or spoil matches from the then pre-taped Monday Night RAW.

Bischoff also spoke about ROH's pay-per-view buys: "From a pay-per-view standpoint, it won’t register on the Richter scale and that is assuming they get clearing in 20 television stations."

He added: "It’s good that ROH has something, but people are getting excited for a lot of nothing. The syndicated television market is not what it was 15-20 years ago."

This sale may not make ROH superior to its counterparts. However, it does open them to markets that may not have gotten them before. Granted, it's no USA Network or Spike TV, but it's better than no TV.

I really wish Bischoff would put this energy into his own product and stop worrying about the competition so much. The constant comparisons to his rivals is what ultimately caused his demise in WCW.