The WWN vs FlowSlam Lawsuit, FlowSlam pulls WWN events, EVOLVE 93 Broadcast

[cero2k]

Source: f4wonline.com

What looks to be an ugly split between WWN, Inc. (the parent company of EVOLVE, FIP, and Shine) and FloSports, which has been airing their events on its FloSlam platform, continued today with WWN's attorney making a statement alleging FloSports had failed to live up to their contracted obligations and called FloSlam a failing subscription streaming platform.

FloSports filed a lawsuit for more than $1 million on September 15th in U.S. District Court in Travis County, Texas, alleging that WWN misled them by providing inflated numbers for how many people were ordering the EVOLVE events on Internet PPV, which caused FloSports to make a deal based on those numbers.

Joshua Gavin, who worked for WWN, in a Fightful article backed up claims in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was clearly an attempt to get out of the terms of the current contract.

WWN attorney Samuel Heller released a statement earlier today regarding the lawsuit saying:

"While we prefer not to litigate cases in the media, it is clear that FloSports is attempting to use the press to create leverage in this dispute by spreading false, defamatory and misleading statements about WWN. In reality, FloSports has wholly failed to honor its contractual obligation to promote WWN's events, and has been unable to successfully integrate WWN into its mismanaged and failing subscription streaming platform. At no time has WWN provided incorrect, false or misleading information and this lawsuit is nothing more than a transparent effort to FloSports to avoid its responsibility to WWN, its talent and its fans. We are confident that the litigation will result favorably to WWN."

It should be noted that FloSports did not go to the media, nor have they at this point commented to the media, but only filed suit.

Both sides were promoting the EVOLVE shows tonight in Livonia, Michigan and tomorrow night in Summit, Illinois, on the service.

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The relationship between FloSports and WWN, Inc. took another turn for the worse this afternoon.

Despite the ongoing legal situation, EVOLVE's shows in Livonia, Michigan tonight and Summit, Illinois tomorrow had been scheduled to stream live on FloSlam -- but that now won't be happening. WWN's Gabe Sapolsky announced on Twitter today that FloSlam won't be airing tonight's show.

"FloSlam is refusing to broadcast tonight's EVOLVE event," Sapolsky wrote. "We apologize, but this is their decision. Please contact them for customer issues."

Sapolsky added that WWN is doing their best to get tonight's show on their own website as soon as possible, which is how they used to offer events before their deal with FloSports began last year.

No WWN events are currently listed on the FloSlam schedule. IPW:UK's Supershow 12, which will air on November 19th, is the only upcoming event currently listed.

News broke yesterday that FloSports had filed a lawsuit against WWN on September 15th in U.S. District Court in Travis County, Texas that asked for more than $1 million in damages. It alleged that WWN provided them with "just plain false" data on how many people were ordering events, causing FloSports to make a deal based on those numbers.

FloSports and WWN announced a five-year agreement in October of 2016, with shows from WWN promotions (EVOLVE, FIP, SHINE, and Style Battle) anchoring the streaming service's content lineup since.

WWN attorney Samuel Heller released a statement earlier today claiming that FloSports was using the press to spread false statements about WWN. Heller also wrote that FloSports had failed to live up to their contractual obligations and that FloSlam is a mismanaged and failing platform.

UPDATE: FloSports confirmed that WWN events will no longer be available on FloSlam going forward: "Planned coverage of WWN events will no longer be available on FloSlam. This includes EVOLVE, SHINE, FIP, Style Battle, and ACW events. We know fans are excited about these events and we're disappointed to share that we will no longer provide the coverage you deserve and expect. If you'd like a refund, please email support@flosports.tv with the subject line 'FloSlam Refund Request,' and our team will assist you."

Tonight's EVOLVE show will be available on WWN's website and they're offering a $5 refund to FloSlam subscribers who purchase it if they send proof of their subscription.

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EVOLVE officially announced today that they would be streaming tonight's show in Summit, Illinois on WWNLive.com.

This had been expected when they, at the last minute, streamed last night's show in Livonia, Michigan on their own after FloSports announced they would no longer be broadcasting any of the WWN events. This came one week after FloSports filed suit against WWN alleging they were defrauded regarding business information.

WWN announced tonight's show would be available as an iPPV for $9.99, which includes the live broadcast and video-on-demand showing. However, if you have proof of a subscription with FloSlam you can get a $5 refund so the price would be $4.99. To get the discount you have to send proof of your subscription to shop@wwnlive.com.

The show tonight from the Summit Park District, near Chicago, will start at 9 p.m. Eastern time:

Matt Riddle vs. Tracy Williams in an anything goes match for the WWN title
Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Keith Lee for the EVOLVE title
Ethan Page & ACH vs. Chris Dickinson & Jaka for the EVOLVE tag team titles
Stevie Fierce vs. GPA vs. Matt Knicks vs. Bryce Benjamin for the championship of Freelance Wrestling
Darby Allin vs. DJZ
James Drake vs. Austin Theory
Anthony Henry vs. Jason Kincaid
There will also be a live Cedric Alexander vs. Fred Yehi opener, but that will take place before the broadcast goes on the air since WWN was not given permission to put Alexander on its streaming portion of the show.

[Big Red Machine]

Here is Dave on things:

The lawsuit claims that WWN negligently or otherwise misinterpreted the number of fans who had purchased their iPPV events and VOD access to their shows. The lawsuit doesn’t mention numbers, although a Fightful.com article by David Bixenspan, using Joshua Gavin, the former General Manager of WWN who is no longer with the company, said that WWN told Flo Sports that they were averaging about 5,000 buys for their iPPV events. The exact number of buys they really were doing is unknown, but that number sounds extremely high. When we had access to iPPV numbers for ROH, a far more high profile company, several years ago, they were usually doing 700 to 1,000, although eventually grew to more than 2,000 for their biggest shows. Granted, that was a few years ago and people are more likely to order iPPV events now than they were at that time, but the level of feedback we got to ROH shows in that era dwarfed anything we got for Evolve. Similarly, New Japan, before the advent of New Japan World, was doing 300 to 1,000 iPPV buys in the U.S. at first in 2012 (it likely grew over time), yet our response to those events was far higher than for Evolve events.

The story listed a company source saying that during the negotiations, WWN management was openly talking about how they inflated the numbers, since Flo Sports would have no way of verifying them. Evolve was believed to have gotten a tremendous deal from Flo Sports to be the key promotion in their Flo Slam monthly subscription package.

Gavin told Fightful.com that Flo Slam peaked at just under 2,000 monthly subscribers, most at $20 per head, and others who had ordered one year subscription for $150.

Evolve officials categorized Gavin as a former employee who they had to fire and was bitter about being fired. They said he worked the merchandise stands but would have had no knowledge of these types of numbers.

The lawsuit itself being so vague on facts made it appear that Flo Sports was using it more to get out of its existing contract, which, based on how much they were paying WWN, made no economic sense. There was the belief when those numbers came out that they made no sense and that Flo Slam was going to be a short-term thing. One can see with Evolve that they didn’t change budgets even with the additional Flo Slam revenue. They didn’t pay more for talent, upgrade buildings or production and kept doing business essentially like they did beforehand. The impression even with what was said to have been a five-year deal (which others say was really a two-year deal and, surprisingly, the contract itself was not part of the suit which means that Flo Sports really wanted it confidential), that they were not taking this as a game changer for their company and more a temporary outlet for short-term revenue.

WWN did buy two new rings for more than $10,000 and spent $5,000 on turnbuckles and canvasses around the time the deal went down.

Flo Sports was projecting in the range of 50,000 subscribers at first when they decided to get into the pro wrestling business. That was based on the idea they could corner the market for major league pro wrestling with every significant company other than WWE, and be the alternative streaming platform. Like many, there was the feeling that if the WWE Network had 1.5 million subscribers, even getting five percent of that figure would be 75,000 subscribers and be a huge success. But every failed start-up alternative company to a major company, whether it be the people who started MMA after UFC got hot, or people who started rival football leagues to the NFL over the past five decades, used similar math right to their destruction.

The problem was that New Japan and CMLL were streaming on their own, as was ROH. New Japan had no interest and ROH turned down what was said to be a lucrative proposal and right there those were the two most valuable companies. At the time there didn’t appear to be any interest in TNA because of its mismanagement and lack of interest. PWG, which could have garnered a cult following, had no interest in changing the dynamics of how they did business, passed on it although Flo officials claimed to us they never made an offer for PWG, although that would make no sense given they were the indie that had the most buzz at the time. PWG had also turned down offers from Fite TV, which was streaming some independent events as well as doing streaming PPV for ROH and TNA among others. When they announced the Evolve deal, that was to be the first of many major announcements, but turned out to be the only real announcement.

Flo Sports claimed that when they pressed WWN for data to backup their number of subscribers for their events, they first claimed they lost or had deleted the information. Later, they provided records of numbers, but they had listed many names more than once and included DVD buyers as iPPV buyers. They said that even with inflating the numbers in those ways, the number of subscribers they could account for was far less than the number (5,000) that they had told Flo Sports they were getting.

Flo Sports said that based on those inflated numbers, they invested time and money in the product.

While both sides publicly claim they are not looking to get out of the relationship, and have to or else risk an uncertainty that would lead to subscribers not renewing, it is very clear the goal of this very broadly written lawsuit which provided no facts or evidence was a way to get out of the current contract terms.

It is clear that the money they were paying WWN on the contract is far more than they are making on subscriptions. Flo Sports is asking for damages, court costs, prejudgment interest and its attorneys’ fees.

WWN attorney Samuel Heller then released a statement saying:

“While we prefer not to litigate cases in the media, it is clear that FloSports is attempting to use the press to create leverage in this dispute by spreading false, defamatory and misleading statements about WWN. In reality, FloSports has wholly failed to honor its contractual obligation to promote WWN’s events, and has been unable to successfully integrate WWN into its mismanaged subscription streaming platform. At no time has WWN provided incorrect, false or misleading information and this lawsuit is nothing more than a transparent effort by FloSports to avoid its responsibilities to WWN, its talent and its fans. We are confident that the litigation will result favorably to WWN.”

The reality is that Flo Sports did not attempt to use the press for anything, as it has not even commented on the suit. Instead it filed a lawsuit, and did not call any attention to the lawsuit, in what is clearly an attempt to get out of a money-losing contract.

Flo Sports did not promote the shows well as virtually all information we had received in recent months regarding WWN events came from WWN. We did get information on events in the early months of the station but in recent months had never been informed on what events were carried and when.