If you were to launch a new weekly wrestling product....

What would it look like? I ask this question because it looks like viewing figures are down for wrestling, that TNA may not save itself, that GFW is not really offering anything new and LU still doesn't have a second season go.

So, given that you had a TV deal and a good chunk of change. And maybe had the types of wrestler who are competing in TNA, GFW, LU to go at. How would you make that a show that didn't get cancelled after season 1?

I wouldnt accept a TV deal. There are promotions such as PWG and ICW that do just fine without TV. ROH was doing just fine aswell until they signed on with DA. I would build up a core fanbase first. Even if its only a <500 seater arena, I would make sure I was close to selling out every show we did before I even thought about expanding onto TV.

The problem with signing a TV deal is that you are required to draw a certain number of viewers each week, but TV viewings across the board are down in all manner of shows. There are a host of other ways outside of TV to watch wrestling. I'd be interested to see what % of viewers watched Lucha Underground on TV and not online. TV is dying, On Demand is the way forward.

That is a very interesting approach.  I think you are definitely right that there are promotions that are doing fine without TV.  Interestingly PWG is sometimes criticized for a lack of ambition to growth and spreading its wings.  ROH might be a bit of an outlier here as it is owned by a TV company, but I get your meaning.  I do wonder how difficult it is for someone like PWG to grow from there they are.  I guess the simple answer is they get more interest in their product and that sells more DVDs.

LU continues to be a very interesting one for me.  I think the El Rey station has had a max of around 100,000 LU viewers.  The min has been a really low about 8,000 when there was a holiday in the US.  I'm not keeping an eye on it, but I expect their figures are around the 60-80K levels week on week.  If you look at the Westcoast feed, i.e. repeat then you are maybe looking more like 80-120K per week viewers.  I really, really hope that the renewal doesn't depend on their end of season show (8 Aug) topping 200K or something.

Unimas (Spanish language channel showing of LU) is an easier channel to access.  The last I saw estimates for that were around the 200K range.

So definitely in the early days I'd say that LU English language was getting probably the same amount of online viewers as El Rey.  So, if I look up the first LU show on YouTube that has around 10K views, which I would expect was similar to the first show.

If you look at ICW they've stuck to live shows, DVD's and now ICW On Demand and its working fine for them. They had a couple of documentaries about them on the BBC but those werent shows, it was just there to draw more fans. You need to crawl before you can walk, and going straight onto TV is like going straight to a 100m sprint.

Now, if I WERE to start up a new promotion on TV I would probably copy the Lucha Underground model. Establish characters and gimmicks early doors, have planned out stories (with backups in place incase of injuries) and a clear end goal. Decide early on who is going to be the star of the show and build the A plotline around them and their ascension up the ladder. B and C stories still need to be interesting to keep viewers hooked but they only need to last 3-4 weeks.

On paper planning a weekly, one hour wrestling show shouldnt be difficult, but we know it is.