So this is it: after two weeks of hype that warranted even an entire press conference, the Million Dollar Mania giveaway on Monday Night Raw has finally arrived!
Before I get into the show itself, it should be made clear why Vince decided to do this in the first place.
Apparently the ratings on Monday Night Raw have been slipping for the past several weeks/months/years from the glorious days of the Monday Night Wars in which pro wrestling (WWF and WCW) were pulling numbers like 6.0's and 7.0's. A couple of weeks ago, Monday Night Raw, which has long been the highest rated wrestling product on television, pulled a 2.9.
I covered the issues surrounding this ratings slip in my last blog, so I won't go into detail here. Suffice to say Triple H as champion, a circular and monotonous main event picture, and the utter lack of creative storytelling are crippling the product.
Now, in an effort to draw (buy) back fan allegiance, Vince McMahon has solemnly pledged to bestow up to $1,000,000 every week on his beloved fans. It is part of what McMahon has dubbed "fan appreciation".
Now I know that there are people out there who actually believe this IS simple fan appreciation, and to them I present the following thoughts.
Despite the slip in ratings, WWE's quarterly earnings continue to increase. McMahon continues to pull in hundreds of millions of dollars every year thanks to the patronage of the fans he has. The problem? The ratings have been stagnant for the past quarter at least. That means, that while the ratings haven't changed on Monday Night Raw, money is still being put into Vince McMahon's wallet. So why has it taken McMahon so long to show the fans his "appreciation"? Simple.
Because McMahon could care less about ratings.
Back in 1999-2001 ratings meant something to the wrestling industry. It was the only real way to tell how well you were doing against your competition every week. If Bishcoff pulled a 6.7 and you drew a 5.5, then you lost. Great ratings, and as yet unmatched in wrestling today, but you lost the night to Bischoff. Nowadays, without any real competition to speak of (TNA can't seem to get its product past the 1.0 mark) Vince can sit complacently atop his mountain of McMillions and doesn't have to keep looking over his shoulder to make sure he's still the top dog in the industry.
So why bother to buy ratings with a McMillion Dollar Giveaway?
Because unlike Vince McMahon, the folks at USA STILL depend on the ratings garnered from Monday Night Raw. Raw moved back to USA after a brief tenure on SpikeTV because USA and WWE have a history of great business together from their inception up through the infamous glory days of the "Attitude Era". USA was convinced that bringing Vince back would help their network (which was struggling since WWE left for Spike) to get back on its feet.
In short, USA expected Vince to bring them the 4.5's, 5.0's that he'd brought them before.
With the 2.9 from just a few weeks ago, it is clear that this is not happening, and USA is less than thrilled.
"So, what?" you may ask. "Vince can always find another network."
This is sadly not the case.
It was recently announced that WWE Smackdown! would move from UPN to MyNetworkTV. But it was a long time between the announcement of the end of Smackdown's tenure on UPN and the announcement that it would show up on MyNetworkTV. WWE spun the story to tell us that there was such a race to grab Smackdown! that they were in heavy negotiations with several networks and hadn't made a decision.
The truth is, Smackdown's ratings have been doing even worse than Raw, pulling in 2.4's and such on a regular basis. It's not like in 2001 when Smackdown was almost as hot as Monday Night Raw. Now Smackdown is universaly labeled as "the second-rate wrestling show" or the "watered-down, network television version of Raw". It's not a bad show, but it's not the best, and no one wants a second-rate show on their network.
Unless things take an upswing for Raw, that show will suffer the same fate. No one will want a show that pulls in a meager 2.9; at least no MAJOR network. And without his national exposure on a major network, Vince will lose his audience, and his product will ultimately get lost in a sea of reruns and mediocre broadcasts. He does not want the Paul Heyman treatment, with a 3:00 a.m. timeslot and no investment in his company by the network for such things as promotional materials and advertising.
So McMahon thinks that giving away millions of dollars every week will help spike his ratings. This may be true, and it may not.
Certainly the announcement has caused a decent amount of hype in the mainstream media. It's nothing compared to the "McMahon vs. Trump" hype or even the "Tyson/Austin" hype that he's enjoyed from previous adventures, but it's enough to let everyone know what's going on.
Now one would assume that the simple intrigue of the event would cause viewers to tune in out of curiosity if nothing else.
Everyone did a good job in hyping this event. Even now, two full days after the initial giveaway, the WWE.com page is still headlined by the announcement that another $1,000,000 will be given away next week. My brother watches Law and Order on USA and on more than one occasion I saw ads for upcoming Raw giveaway. The cross-promotion on Sci-Fi with ECW has produced the same results. So it's clear that this is something both the network and Vince are "banking" on (no pun-intended, but I guess it is anyway...).
"So what?" you're still asking, because you're stuborn and refuse to read between the lines. "So what if he wants to giveaway money to grow his company?"
I'm all for the "spend money to make money" philosophy. But giving it away never solved anyone's problems.
And what's the catch to winning the million dollars?
You have to register on WWE.com.
Okay, I registered. Whew, glad that's out of the way.
That's standard procedure.
Step 2?
You MUST tune in to Monday Night Raw to receive the special password you will need when Vince McMahon calls your house.
Really? I MUST tune in to Monday Night Raw?
See, here's the thing.
The good, young, smart, tech-savy folks who run WWE.com would find it simple enough to bestow upon the registrants the secret password they would need immediately after registering. This is often done with online orders and contests. In fact, it is not uncommon for each registrant to have their own UNIQUE password or key to win the contest. So it is not out of the realm of possibility in the case of WWE. But they INSIST that you watch Monday Night Raw and receive the same password that everyone else receives. The same password for the one night.
WWE has now gotten you to visit their website, register for the contest, and watch their product.
Now, when I visited WWE.com to register for the contest last week, they had announced that over 600,000 people had registered for this contest. I guess that's impressive, but when you constantly brag about the millions of fans you have around the world, 600,000 doesn't seem all that great and may account for your low ratings (go figure?). I actually considered the idea that this was WWE's way of performing a census to see who is watching their product. But they could just as easily do that with their Cyber Sunday PPV in which fans log on to WWE.com and vote for the match stipulations and such.
So why the low turnout?
Well, I just realized that fans outside of the continental U.S. are NOT eligible for this contest.
Now, if you're like me, a big flashing red light and a blaring siren much like the "AOOOOOOOGA" sound for a Bugs Bunny cartoon has gone off in your head because you realize that much of, if not the MAJORITY of McMahon's fanbase are outside of the U.S. As central as the U.S. to WWE's operations, think of all the fans they have around the world in places as far off as Japan and as close to home as Canada.
All of these people are not eligible for the contest.
And this is supposed to help ratings.
But the thing is, if I'm not eligible for your McMillion Dollars, why should I be tuning in to your product? On the contrary, why would I even bother to tune in at all, since this ban on overseas exports of your money are a blatant slap in the face to the fans around the world who may only get to attend a single WWE event every year or two and who STILL tune in to watch your product (or had, up until now).
So here comes the show itself.
It was disheartening to see Vince McMahon put on his best "Bob Barker hat" and attempt to turn his beloved product into a prime time gameshow.
Slipping on his grandfather glasses that rather reminded me of my own father whenever he tries to read something off a computer screen, he fumbled around with a modern telephone (the kind with buttons, not a dial) for several long moments before the phone began to ring. Then came the awkward conversation he would have with person on the other end as he cut them off in mid-sentence and was clearly attempting to get straight down to business.
Now I have tuned in to radio stations and television programs that have allowed their audience to call in for either a contest, or simply input.
The conversation usually starts with the host welcoming the guest to the show, upon which the guest will spout off how much they love the product and the host, and the host's girlfriend, and the host's children, and the co-host, and how hot that girl that does the weather really is. After this, when they hosed down their loyal fan, they will ask the question, or for the password/key, whatever. Then they will announce whether the fan has won the contest or not. When they've won, the fan will scream and probably jump up and down without us knowing, because of course, we can't see them. They will then say thank you a hundred times before finally holding on the line to receive their prize.
Now, on Monday Night Raw, for his Million Dollar giveaway, McMahon simply called up his audience, asked if they were watching Monday Night Raw, and then asked for the password. They would give him the password, and then Vince would announce they've won, but there would be no reaction from the fan, presumably, because the guys in the truck have already cut the mic on the phone. So it is hard for those in attendance (who are clearly not eligble to win) or those of us at home (who are cursing because he didn't call us) or those watching overseas or out of the country who know they have no chance of winning, to enjoy the excitement of someone winning a million dollars when they themselves do not appear to be enjoying it.
Why do you think shows like "Deal or no Deal" and "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" are so successful? Because there is suspense, and when the suspense is over, we get to experience the elation of winning by watching the contestants' reactions. That is what drives their product.
For Vince, the experience is:
"Hello? Who am I speaking to? Dan? Dan, this is Vince McMahon from the WWE. Are you watching Monday Night Raw? You are, good. Then you can tell me the secret password. WWE UNIVERSE is correct! Dan, you've just won $200,000! And don't forget ladies and gentlemen, that we will be giving away $250,000 after the break!"
There's no reaction, there's no elation, there's no excitement, it's simply us sitting there watching other people get handed six figures.
This entire process repeats several times throughout the show. In all, I would guess that each givewaway took about five to seven minutes. Which means about 1/4 of the show was spent giving away $1,000,000. Now if I'm in Canada, or the U.K., or Japan, or anywhere that's not the 50 states, that's a half hour of boredome. A half hour bathroom break.
Why did I tune in in the first place?
On a personal note, the entire process reaked of something I'd see on paid programming. It felt so contrived and out of place.
To WWE, the sting would come the next day, when they realized that their ratings had indeed increased.
"Why is that a bad thing?" you ask. "Isn't that what the contest was supposed to do?"
Indeed it was, my friend. Indeed it was.
So a toast to you, Vince McMahon. Your ratings have indeed risen.
Your 2.9 from the week before, is now a 3.0.
Yep. That's not even a joke, or a guess. The official rating for the inaugrual McMillion Dollar giveaway edition of Monday Night Raw is a 3.0.
For those of you keeping score at home, that is a .1 increase over the week before.
For the folks at USA, it means this entire process did nothing.
NOTHING.
The sad part is this falls right in line with the $250,000 Diva Search from years past. Of course, if those women had known that they could've saved their soul from Vince McMahon and simply sat at home and watched Raw for that kind of money, I'm sure we'd have less models and more wrestlers.
Which brings me to next complaint. A half hour is precious time that could be used to put on a more than decent match and even squeeze out a nice promo for, y'know, character development. If you're from WWE creative and don't know that means, it means taking cookie cutter wrestlers like Cody Rhodes and making them into someone that we CARE about.
Vince held a press conference in Times Square for this event.
Why?
Did the whole world really need to know about this? Did the whole world really care?
No.
Because, as I've stated before, Vince McMahon, however many figures are in his bank account, is still just a WRESTLING PROMOTER to general public, and that is not something they will get up and walk to. You have to fight for their attention. Tyson vs. Austin was hot because Tyson and Austin were the hottest things going in their respective sports at the time. Trump vs. McMahon was fairly hot moreso because of Trump's legacy than Vince's. EVERYONE knows who Donald Trump is from "The Apprentice". That's a show on mainstream network television that people are familiar even if they don't watch it. Monday Night Raw is a show on cable television that people are familiar with, but don't want to be. Even if they are familiar with it, they are more familiar with men like Austin, Rock, HHH, and Cena, than they are with McMahon himself.
Vince tried to put out a gameshow, and a bad one at that.
He plans to give away another $1,000,000 this week.
I will be optimistic and assume that Vince's plans simply need time to develop before people tune in on a more regular basis, but alienating much of your audience is not going to do you any favors.
With any luck, this week's Raw may draw a 3.1.
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