WWE: Is There a PPV Price Drop That Would Increase Buys?

The WWE and pay-per-view broadcasts go together like peanut butter and jelly—you can have one without the other, but it really wouldn’t be the same. 

Vince McMahon’s company has run PPV shows since I can remember, and now the WWE finds itself in a situation where it is running at least one or more pay-per-view each month. 

Why? Because it’s all about the money. 

Here is the breakdown of the company’s PPV prices, courtesy of WWE.com: 

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The suggested retail price for all WWE Pay-Per-View events is $44.95 other than WrestleMania, which is priced at $54.95. However, some cable and satellite providers may apply additional fees for call-in orders or to watch the event in HD. Check with your local provider first before you order. 

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At least with my cable provider, the typical charge for HD is $5, which means I usually have to pay $50 for a WWE pay-per-view because there’s no way I’m watching that crap in standard definition. 

So, $50 per person per show, huh? You think Vince is going to give up all that revenue by getting rid of pay-per-views? 

Hell no. 

But he’s getting to a point where he’s going to have to do something about the WWE’s current pay-per-view strategy, and one common suggestion is that he decreases the price of pay-per-views. 

Obviously, that would be great for the fans who want to purchase them, but the question for the WWE is: How much money can we charge for PPVs while maximizing our profit? 

I’m not an economist or financial expert by any means, so I really have no idea. But I do know this—dropping the pay-per-view price by any substantial amount will result in a dramatic increase in the show’s buyrate. 

By “substantial amount,” I don’t mean five dollars, either. Dropping the PPV prices $15 to $30 bucks a pop, however, would likely make a lot more fans willing to buy the pay-per-view. 

The tradeoff is that that the WWE has to figure out the exact balance between the PPV price decrease and the increase in the number of buys that will make the company the most money. The problem is that until the WWE tests this strategy, they’re never really going to know what that amount is. 

And I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. 

Vince McMahon is too money-hungry to take such a substantial risk by, let’s say, decreasing the price of next month’s TLC pay-per-view to $30 and seeing how it influences the buyrate. It could pay off in the long run, but it could bite the company in the butt, too. 

So, since Vince probably isn’t willing to take such a huge leap of faith by doing something like this, why not make a different alteration to the WWE’s PPV strategy? 

Here’s what I suggest: Don’t decrease the price of pay-per-views, decrease the number of PPVs. 

As hefty as that $50 price tag is, I just don’t think it’s feasible for the WWE to ever reduce it because they know that multiple fans are generally watching the same PPV broadcast on the same TV screen and are pooling their money together to do so. 

And I honestly don’t think it’s the price that’s the company’s biggest problem. It’s the fact that there are just too many damn pay-per-views. 

Just since August, we’ve had SummerSlam, Night of Champions, Hell in a Cell, Vengeance and Survivor Series. That’s ridiculous. 

That’s five pay-per-views in a roughly three-month span, which translates to $250 spent on WWE pay-per-views in approximately 90 days. Aside from the wealthy and the well-off, there are not many people who I know that can afford to drop that much money in that short of a time period. 

It’s just unreasonable for the WWE to expect us spend such a large sum of money on pay-per-views that often feature the same matches as the previous ones. 

McMahon has always altered his product and his business philosophy to fit the times, but his PPV strategy is undoubtedly becoming outdated. He cannot honestly think it’s good for business to lump so many PPVs together just because he’s afraid to take a risk. 

He’s already taking a huge risk with the WWE Network, so why not take another big one by altering the way the WWE conducts its pay-per-views? 

The problem isn’t necessarily the $50. It’s the fact that we know we’re shelling out 50 bucks for a pay-per-view that could end up being complete crap. 

There’s an easy fix to that: keep the PPV price the same, but eliminate the PPVs that typically don’t perform too well and generate low buyrates. 

It’s the same thing that any business does. If a product isn’t working the way you want it to, then you get rid of it and either stick something else in its place or let it be. 

It’s time for the WWE to eliminate its crappy pay-per-views, put on eight-to-10 good ones per year and see how it affects the company’s overall PPV revenue. 

After all, you take no risks, you get no rewards.