Complete TNA Financial Problem Story!

Tons of issues going on regarding money stemming from the decision to tape Impact on the road at the cost of $600,000 per taping, with no increase in ratings or revenue. A lot of things are breaking at press time and this is what we know. It’s the cost of the tapings that have made the financial situation so bad. Dixie Carter had noted before that had she done it earlier she would be risking the future of the company. Many in the company, notably Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff, had pushed for getting out of Universal Studios and taping on the road as the needed game changer. But there has been no increase in revenue to offset the expense, and ratings have actually declined.

There were reports at press time of people, particularly with higher contracts, being asked to change their deals. ProWresetling.Net reported Bruce Prichard, the head of talent relations and also head of creative, was asked to restructure his deal, and could be leaving, and that D-Lo Brown was gone as well. Brown was the road agent for almost all the house shows. The report was that Brown was asked to change from going on a weekly salary to a per event deal, which he agreed to, but then was told he was being let go. We were unable to confirm that at press time.

The Prichard story appears to be accurate. Based on what we were told, Prichard was asked to restructure his contract, but he had not made a decision one way or the other about it. So he’s more up in the air right now than gone, although something like that changes by the hour.

TNA has made commitments to where it will be very difficult to change from the road tapings until the end of this year. But the big problem is what happens even if they decide they have to go back. Universal has changed the sound stage and it apparently has a tenant, so going back to the old Impact Zone, even if they wanted to do it, appears not to be an option. So they would have to find a new permanent home if that’s the direction they want to go, but being able to get that with the kind of deal they had in Orlando would be difficult. Plus, what was good about Orlando is that as an attraction at the park, where people could get in free with park admission, there were always hundreds of people who could help fill in and make it look presentable for television. In a new permanent location, whether they’d be able to maintain a crowd every week would be difficult. Bellator runs weekly and they mostly sell their shows to casinos and let the casinos try and sell the tickets or fill the place. But that’s a lot easier with an MMA product. TNA has been able to do this for very few shows, although Impact tapings are more attractive in that regard than just house shows. The problem is the belief that wrestling crowds don’t spend money at the casinos as compared to MMA crowds, so the idea is even if they have to paper the tickets for a Bellator, a lot of those people will hang around the casinos to meet the fighters and gamble or spend money at the restaurants and the like.