Real Pro Wrestling?
Yep, you read that correctly, Real Pro Wrestling will make its long awaited nationally televised debut starting Sunday March 27th @ 4:00 pm EST. on PAX and Wednesday March 30th @ 3:00 pm EST on FSN.
The event will feature some of the most decorated wrestlers in the country competing for the Real Pro Wrestling Championship and over $250,000. The success concept for RPW is using a hybrid combo of freestyle and Greco-roman wrestling in an atmosphere and a format designed to satisfy the sports purists and attract a new fan base.
From a marketing standpoint, the creators of Real Pro Wrestling, Toby Willis, Matt Case and Kenny Johnsonhave tried to overcome two major problems that wrestling has failed to address in general and in marketing a pro wrestling league. We’ll get to those problems in a minute, but…
Figures from the National High School Coaches Association show there are over 20 million current and former wrestlers in the
That’s a pretty sizable market with an itch to scratch and money to spend. They buy gear and equipment, travel across the country to compete and attend training camps and pay to see many of the marquee events. The recent New York State High School Wrestling Championships drew a record 8000+ fans just for the finals.
Can Marketing Launch Real Pro Wrestling and Save the Sport?
Even with the current numbers, participation over the past twenty years has spiraled downward. Compliance with title IX has dropped NCAA division 1 wrestling programs from over 200 in the 70’s to well under 100. Elimination of the lighter weight classes from the high school to the International level has only served to shut out thousands of potential athletes from participation.
The message from the powers to be is “If you’re genetically small, sit at home and play video games.” Less participation means lower fan base and less attention from the media which needs the advertising revenue from the sponsors and merchandisers. The brainiac’s solution is to eliminate even more of the lower weight classes, dumb and dumber…go figure…
Here’s the problem with wrestling.
Getting back to the problem with wrestling; Aside from the idiocy of the current use of title IX, the reasons why wrestling has long suffered and continues to shrink is because of two major problems. First, wrestling has the sporting equivalent of a glass ceiling. The pinnacle of success for wrestlers *an NCAA or Olympic championship* leaves them little recognition for their accomplishments and almost no chance for a career or big payday. Win the Olympics and you might get a shoe endorsement.
The second problem is that, to the unfamiliar spectator, wrestling can be boring to watch.
The seasoned wrestling fan can appreciate the edge of your seat excitement of a close 3-2 decision, but the unseasoned spectator wants action, lots of action. Action draws fans, fans buy merchandise. Merchandisers, advertisers and sponsors feed the media with advertising revenue and gives the media an incentive to follow the sport.
Put wrestlers on a stage, change the rules, pay them and let kids dream again.
If you’ve got an old boring product, then change and repackage it to meet the real needs of the market. Beta max tapes died because it couldn’t meet the needs of the market, convenience. VHS did that and won. Change and repackage the sport to meet the needs of the fans and put the wrestlers on stage, in the spot light, pay them and watch participation increase from the athletes and the fans. Plus…
Kids want to identify themselves with heroes like Michael Jordan, Joe Montana or Babe Ruth. When a kid dreams of glory he’s not acting out sinking 3 pointer with 1 second left to win the championship so he can ask, “Where’s my check” Young athletes dream of being heroes. Give a kid a role model, the vision that they can compete and they’ll show up at pee wee camps when they’re 5 or 7 years old to live out they’re dreams of becoming a champion.
Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
Sometimes the hardest thing is admitting that there’s a problem. Band-aid approaches to fixing the problem of making the matches more exciting and increasing the action have been met by rule changes that actually inhibit higher scoring. A study by Olympic and NCAA champion Randy Lewis shows a 30% drop in scoring since the 70’s.
The desire for glory and the achievement of lofty goals is one of the most rewarding things in life, but gold medals and championships don’t pay the bills. Call it dirty motivation if you like, but the lure of money has to be present for the athletes to survive as well as satisfy their primal desire for financial gain.
Real Pro Wrestling addressed the problem, finds a solution and implements it.
Finally…maybe the problems have been identified by the folks at Real Pro Wrestling and the real changes that are needed to solve them are being put into place. Without going into detail, the rules will give the wrestlers the opportunity to satisfy the fan desire of sight and sound stimulation, high scoring and non-stop action. Plus the wrestlers get a chance to showcase their talent for their sport, an opportunity for fame and glory and a long overdue payday.
Tune in and get turned on.
Take a walk on the wild side, and give this Real Pro Wrestling thing a look. Doesn’t matter if you don’t know the difference between a gator roll and a dinner roll, you just might find yourself following a real sport with real athletes instead of the current crop of professional sports personalities, featuring overpaid underperforming bitchy millionaires.
By: Rick Contrata - Internet Business Marketing and Consulting.
devNIC - Domain Names, Web Hosting, Tutorials, Articles, Perry Marshall Marketing Tools.
Contact Rick:
rick@wsivisionarywebconcepts.com