TNA President Dixie Carter recently did an interview for The American, during which she spoke on a number of topics, including the company's growth in The UK and The United States. Below are some interview highlights:
Q. Will we see TNA take flagship show IMPACT! on the road more in America over the coming years?
That is the goal starting this year. We’re close to making a big announcement, another one besides the PPVs, which I think will have a great impact on the show, pun intended. Taking the show on the road is the natural next step for us. It’s expensive touring and it’s not that I haven’t wanted to be on the road but it’s a business decision just like losing the PPVs. I’m not going to put this company in any financial trouble, so everything we have done has been very conscious, people were saying we weren’t going to stay in business for ten weeks and here we are going into our 11th year and having more success than ever and that’s because we make good business decisions.
Q. You have rebranded TNA’s PPV schedule, cutting down from 12 to four per year, what was the reason for that decision?
To cut down the PPVs was a difficult decision because you’re giving away millions of dollars to both your top line as well as the profit line on the balance sheet. We do have success in that. It’s always been the traditional way of doing wrestling but I feel we’re in a place right now where we have to shake things up and we need to look at things differently.
It is a big financial risk on our part to do without it but I feel like it will make the PPVs we do much more special and I really feel it will make television mean more. We’ll have an opportunity to let programmes breathe, give away more PPV-quality matches on television, and then when we do have a PPV I know everyone of my guys are going to be fighting to be on that card and it will just be interesting to see how that plays out.
Q. What does the future hold for TNA as a whole?
Expanding outside of wrestling I think is important in order to grow the core product globally. Coming up with more licensing and sponsors, more programming – in the United States we just have one show and our competitor has ten hours of television a week so it is hard to compete. We have more television in the UK and that shows you how competitive we can be when we have more exposure, so that would be our goal in the United States. Again it’s not because I haven’t wanted to, it’s just contractually I haven’t been able to due to our contract agreement with Spike TV. But that is changing as well. I think all of these things combined will make for a very interesting 2013.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
