TNA Wrestling is known for being a simple alternative to WWE. At least, that is what it used to be. Until TNA decided to be like a WWE 2.0, we saw a lot of differences that made it special. Now the only real difference seen is the rating, which TNA doesn’t use nearly enough. Despite this. TNA has it’s fans and followers. It is good to have, but it appears to not be enough these days. According to The Wrestling Observer , TNA is in a terrible place right now.
It is being reported that TNA is back on pay in a major way with top talent. What happened was simple. Top talent was put on salary, while lower scale talent was on a pay-per-use basis. Those paid for their use ended up getting paid quickly. Meanwhile top talent on salary ended up not getting money often. Their contracts state that they are supposed to get paid at the first of each month. This hasn’t happened seemingly, which has started to become a major problem. Some are 30 days to months behind right now. This is some of the top names in the company as well, which makes it even more of a problem.
This was known even more glaring when Matt Hardy tweeted out a photo of numerous checks that he was taking to the bank. The thing is, this was his pay for the last few months. He was JUST getting the checks to cash. Hardy was thought to be doing this to show that TNA does indeed pay their talent, but he obviously exposed a flaw in the system without meaning to do so by showing how behind TNA was with him.
Hardy was owed quite a lot of money before TNA caught up with him.
As we know now, TNA announcer Taz decided to leave TNA Wrestling this past week. He was one of the many TNA was behind on pay for, which goes to show that this was not a first time problem for him. He was supposed to be in Nashville, Tennessee, days ago to record voice-over material for the next batch of Impact tapings. However, he refused to fly out as TNA is considered to be “way behind” on pay for him. It was a hardball move on his part, which ended up resulting in him leaving the company.
TNA and Taz have kept quiet in regards to him leaving other than Dixie Carter thanking him for his work among others. However, neither side have mentioned why he left yet. Yet it is now pretty well known that Taz left over pay and he may not be the last.
An excuse going around to help people understand pay issues is that TNA recently moved their payroll out of Nashville to Panda Energy’s home city of Dallas, Texas. However, TNA has actually been sending checks out of Dallas for some time, so this excuse isn’t flying with veteran talent.
On top of all of this, TNA’s new TV network in Destination America is not happy with TNA Wrestling. The reason comes down to ad revenue. TNA isn’t making money back for what Discovery Communications invested in them for Destination America. TNA was signed by Discovery “as an experiment” to see how well wrestling would translate. They were hoping to boost numbers for Destination America through it.
While Impact Wrestling is the highest rating program on the network, it is only bringing in about 30% of what it did with Spike TV. Of course, Spike TV is in far more homes than Destination America right now. In fact, Destination America is only available in about 62% of homes that Spike TV is in. Meaning that numbers would slip where DA couldn’t possibly draw the same ratings for TNA as Spike TV did with them.
Since TNA fans haven’t traveled, DA has not seen a boost to help with ad revenue. TNA is getting under half what it did with Spike, which isn’t good considering they were averaging a 1.0 last year. This has made Destination America quite upset, and now it appears they are stuck with this problem for a while. TNA is still their top show, so they are seeing results. However, the company simply felt that TNA would draw far more than it has.
Between network issues and pay trouble, TNA does not look to be in a great position. Here’s hoping that they can fix the problems and improve ratings. If they cannot, there will be a lot more problems forthcoming.
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