Shockingly Low SmackDown Attendance Last Night

rossieboy

Fans in attendance at last night’s SmackDown tapings in Dayton, Ohio have sent word that the entire side of the arena that the WWE cameras are shooting from is completely tarped off. All of the fans are sitting on the side opposite of the camera. This is the second SmackDown taping in recent weeks that have suffered from poor attendance.

Does this worry anybody about the future of Smackdown?

Can it survive as a seperate show to Raw? :eek:

MitchKoobski

There will ALWAYS be Smackdown, or at least some sort of secondary show.

Two shows in a short space of time is nothing, 4 shows in two months with such attendance is a case for worry.

I put it down to Raw being a supershow. Anyone who would pay to see superstars on smackdown can just see them on Raw.

jaykhunter

that is it. I don't know why WWE think that having your SD roster on RAW makes SD a must-see show, since you already see it on Monday.

That said, I have been enjoying SmackDown recently. it's more when they repeat matches that we've seen that i turn off (like Cody/RKO on SD then the following RAW).

Hopefully WWE'll learn to either make SmackDown "Super SmackDown" and continue storylines and main-eventers on the blue brand or just move talent to SD. Sure WWE have got the "oh it's football season" for low raw ratings anyway, might as well help out the blue brand.

Also, booking is the problem, not the signed talent on the roster. It's hard to pull in ratings when you book yourself into the ground, RAW. There's no good reason Miz shouldn't be main-eventing SmackDown, for instance.

"What do you mean, rematch clause isn't a compelling storyline? How about a contract signing? Flip the belt and bury the new guy? Well I'll be stumped, let's bring Vince back." -- WWE Creative.

MitchKoobski

Someone posted this on Reddit, this is what the arena looked like.



You can see the hard camera on the right there.

rovert

These pictures are showing what exactly?

How many people are in the arena an hour before NXT? How many people took the tollbridge?

Please fill me in?

gimmick

Did you read the opening post?

rovert

rovert wrote: »

These pictures are showing what exactly?

How many people are in the arena an hour before NXT? How many people took the tollbridge?

Please fill me in?

All the seats on that side of the arena are tarped off as you can see so even if its an hour before NXT the seats wont be used meaning it was a terrible attendance figure for WWE

rovert

gimmick wrote: »

Did you read the opening post?

I also seen other pictures where that side of the arena does have [some] fans.

Just Ive seen some very deceptive lol TNA pics portraying an empty arena taken early pre-show as what it was like when the show actually started. When it fact the show was actually reasonably well attended.

CMpunked

I'm with rovy in a way here.
I would rather see a shot from when the show is actually happening, rather than well before the show (or even nxt) starts.

jaykhunter

I agree it would be nice for a shot while SD is in progress, but it's extremely unlikely they'll "un-tarp" those seats an hour later when SD starts.

jaykhunter

Here's two more i found

Charisteas

MitchKoobski wrote: »

I put it down to Raw being a supershow. Anyone who would pay to see superstars on smackdown can just see them on Raw.

jaykhunter wrote: »

that is it. I don't know why WWE think that having your SD roster on RAW makes SD a must-see show, since you already see it on Monday.

I'm not completely dismissing this 'Supershow' point, but it has to be said that Raw was in Cleveland, Ohio and SD was in Dayton, Ohio which are 200 miles (more than 300km) and several hours driving distance apart from each other, so how many fans in the Dayton and surrounding area would actually skip the Dayton show and instead travel to Cleveland to see the Supershow? I suppose it's viable that a few people would, but I don't think enough to seriously affect the SD attendance.

Also, the Nutter Centre can hold around 12,000. Even if half the arena was tarped off, they could have still had several thousand in attendance.

Any photo from the show whilst in progress?

Reganio 2

jaykhunter wrote: »

Here's two more i found

Those 2 are well dodgy anyway. You can still see the rows full of people only coming in, walking to their seat. So that suggests the photos were taken as soon as whoever took them, got to the arena.

thebostoncrab

Reganio 2 wrote: »

jaykhunter wrote: »

Here's two more i found

Those 2 are well dodgy anyway. You can still see the rows full of people only coming in, walking to their seat. So that suggests the photos were taken as soon as whoever took them, got to the arena.

Yeah but in those photos there is now a big curtain behind those seats, meaning a large number of seats were not sold and then covered over.

Charisteas

But it would still be handy to see a photo of the show whilst in progress, otherwise they are about as credible as this pic-

Rjd2

Yeah I agree with Rovert, but really the attendance has not been good for Smackdown for ages, I do wonder if Orton has taken some flack for this, he is the golden boy who was supposed to carry the show.

With this and the poor ratings of a show after he wins the belt, is he the draw that we expected him too be after he became so hot when he was turning babyface initally?

rovert

Rjd2 wrote: »

Yeah I agree with Rovert, but really the attendance has not been good for Smackdown for ages, I do wonder if Orton has taken some flack for this, he is the golden boy who was supposed to carry the show.

With this and the poor ratings of a show after he wins the belt, is he the draw that we expected him too be after he became so hot when he was turning babyface initally?

+1

I buy Smackdown being poorly attended. But without sounding like a fWWE anboy there is a gotcha element to those photos too.

jaykhunter

yeah, definitely. i wonder if there's an element of "give the belt to henry, he's the scapegoat now" opposed to blaming goldenboy orton. As said already the only "legit" part to the pics posted is the black curtains/tarp showing areas of seats that definitely won't be filled.

that said, it's storylines (with big-name wrestlers) that draw ratings/drive attendance; all SmackDown has is "i'm challenging for the title, we've flipped the title, see you next month" in general. Technically not a storyline if u know what i mean!

Machismo Fan

Orton is an extremely interesting case. He's one of the most over guys on the show week in, week out and yet it seems very, very little of that translates into actual business. It's weird.

Charisteas

Rjd2 wrote: »

I do wonder if Orton has taken some flack for this, he is the golden boy who was supposed to carry the show.

With this and the poor ratings of a show after he wins the belt, is he the draw that we expected him too be after he became so hot when he was turning babyface initally?

Possibly, but I don't know how can Orton be expected to take the flak when he's been excellent this year. He has great matches month after month on PPV, his feud with Christian was ultimately a success in my eyes, like what more can he do?

Besides that, I don't think we live in an era where people pay to see the champion. I can't see people scanning the card when WWE comes to town and say "ah, Randy Orton/Christian/Mark Henry is the champ, let's give this one a miss". Surely people would look at the overall roster before making a decision.

Charisteas

Ah, may have solved the issue as to why there was a low attendance last night.

Turns out WWE ran a Smackdown show in Dayton on 6th August (yours truly's Birthday), barely 6 weeks ago.

Different arena, but same city nevertheless.

http://www.seatwave.ie/wwe-smackdown-tickets/taco-bell-arena-tickets/06-august-2011/perf/471906

Machismo Fan

Charisteas wrote: »

Possibly, but I don't know how can Orton be expected to take the flak when he's been excellent this year. He has great matches month after month on PPV, his feud with Christian was ultimately a success in my eyes, like what more can he do?

Besides that, I don't think we live in an era where people pay to see the champion. I can't see people scanning the card when WWE comes to town and say "ah, Randy Orton/Christian/Mark Henry is the champ, let's give this one a miss". Surely people would look at the overall roster before making a decision.

Smackdown clearly isn't connecting with the paying customer, and being honest that's not entirely surprising considering the content of the show.

the groutch

Orton is Smackdown's Cena, except he isnt near as over with the kids
people don't want the same superface vs generic heel matches with no real storyline