By Jesse Suchanek on August 3, 2004 at 6:50 PM EST
According to strong sources within TNA at this time, it appears the company is in the process of making big decisions concerning both the short and long-term future of the promotion. Although many situaions have been discussed, three major points remain to be the focal point of what is possibly to come in the next few months.
One of the biggest points include the company officially pulling out of Nashville, TN and making the move to Orlando permanently. The talk right now within TNA management, although it is far from confirmed, is that the company plans on making the move to Orlando starting in September. This move will also include the TNA offices which are based in Nashville at this time. This has been the topic among discussion for quite some time since tapings began in June of this year in Orlando at Universal Studios for the weekly TNA Impact! series that appears on Fox Sports Net. Some of the positives of this move would be that Universal houses better facilities, resources and being located in a major amusement park that TNA can greatly benefit from. As you can guess, many in the company would feel bad leaving the Nashville audience behind after building the promotion in the city since June of 2002. However, it should be pointed out that a large majority of the fans who attend the weekly PPV events do so with free tickets.
Another big topic includes dropping the weekly Pay Per View format. The talk right now is that many are in favor of dumping the weekly Wednesday night PPV events and in turn replace them with a monthly Sunday evening PPV event instead. When TNA first began in June of 2002, the weekly PPV format was a way for them to get exposure when a TV deal was not in sight for quite a while. As many predicted, the weekly PPV format turned out to never be profitable and was instead a "money drain" since the company began. Now that TNA has a weekly slot on Fox Sports Net, that money drain will continue to get worse. The plan right now to fix this situation will reportedly see the company end the weekly PPV format and use Impact! to build towards monthly PPV events instead. It should be noted that many in the company are being cautious about going forward with this plan as they don't want to upset workers who have signed deals if they end up cutting back on dates.
The third topic of discussion includes the possibility of House Show events. According to strong sources, the company has plans to move forward with this project sometime in October. Despite this news, many members of TNA management (especially Jerry Jarrett) aren't sold yet on the idea and feel it may be too soon to chance doing House Show tours at this time. Many feel October is way too soon for a project like this to take off. Some cities under consideration for House Show events include Pittsburgh, Detroit and Dayton, Ohio. Nashville would also be another candidate if they do indeed make the decision to completely pull out and relocate to Orlando. Many feel although this could be a risky move considering recent WWE events have been struggling, it could be a way for them to make up for lost dates for those workers under contract.
Credit: Mike Johnson @ PWInsider.com