I thought I would post this just for fun. Pictures of empty seats at Bound For Glory have been circulating on the paste sites, here is a picture of empty seats from a WWE RAW last year. It happens. For those of us not to old, we can remember when WWE wasn’t filling gymnasiums in the early 90’s and when RAW originated, it took place in a heavily papered Manhattan Center. At that point the WWF had been around for a long time.
It happens, the are arenas have tens of thousands of seats, and it isn’t unheard of to move everyone to the “TV side” of the arena to look good for TV.
Excellent post, William. It’s time for the blind WWE marks to wake up to reality.
It’s really weird to me that people would buy tickets to the TNA show and then snicker about empty seats, and mock the company.
I wonder, “why are you there? Why are you giving them money if you detest them?”
I saw the empty seats too, and I was disappointed on TNA’s behalf. I wasn’t happy about it.
Let’s be honest – nearly 100% of the people criticizing TNA (or WWE for that matter) haven’t contributed a single penny to those companies. They’ve never bought a ticket to a show, they’ve never purchased an autograph, they’ve never ordered from ShopTNA.com or Shop.WWE.com – they’re just eyeballs. And when they bitch about a television show sucking, well – they’ve already given the company what they wanted. That is – they’ve given that company their eyeballs for a few minutes (or possibly even the full 2 hours). The company turns that into advertising dollars and everyone walks away happy.
But fans – true fans – go the extra mile. We see an empty arena and get disappointed because we know that the men and women we enjoy watching are impacted by the lack of attendance. We read prepubescent idiots writing dumb tweets like, “Hogun R suX!” and we shake our heads (for humanity).
So I’ve learned to get a kick out of the idiots who criticize TNA (and WWE). I’ve realized that my redirecting nearly all of the advertising dollars that I make from this website directly back to the performers via purchasing merchandise (mostly autographed 8x10s) from them is so much more than the complainers will ever do for this business. You should feel proud, Dylan, that you went to the show and that you supported the men and women who craft what we enjoy. I’m proud that I don’t need the money that this website generates and that I can redirect it back to those performers. That’s what a fan does – a fan supports!
But the complaints? I think it’s just part of living in a social media / internet world.