Jeff Jarrett is setting the record straight.
TNA Wrestling, which was founded in 2002 by Jarrett and his father, Jerry, has earned a reputation, rightly or wrongly, for struggling financially. A common narrative has been that the company never made money and has been lucky to survive for nearly two decades.
On the latest episode of his My World podcast, Jarrett put those rumors to rest and said that TNA became profitable the day they signed a deal with Spike TV. He said the following:
"The narrative that TNA never made money, it is baffling, but, hey man, if you don't get out there in front of things, it's very obvious. But the real easy, and I'll go as granular as you want, but when we got the Spike deal, we became profitable that day. We'll say that week. Now, the investment that went in, we made it back. But when you go from 1 to 2 hours and you don't double your expenses -- So, '07, '08, '09. '09 was the most profitable year by far. I received those owner cheques and the talent was -- You know, there was Kurt Angle making great money. There was a lot of guys making really good money."
When asked for a ballpark figure on financial details, Jarrett revealed this:
"Okay, profit, and that's paying bills and paying investors back and paying all kinds of things back. $8-10 million. It's kind of crazy to think all that, and our investment and I don't know -- I don't want to get into hypotheticals and all that, but the Carters' investment just wasn't as rich as people seem to think. Because the Asylum, and I've gotten into the Asylum days, that's about a hundred grand a week. That's what we were spending. So, we were making some money. We didn't go in that proverbial, deep-dark hole that people, I guess, believe. I don't know. It goes without saying when we got the Spike deal, we became profitable that day."
TNA, now IMPACT wrestling, finished up on Spike TV in early 2015.
On August 4, IMPACT announced a new membership service entitled IMPACT Wrestling Insiders on YouTube. The service will give fans access to premium content, new shows, and other perks. With the launch of the program, IMPACT stated that its presence on Twitch will be discontinued. The final IMPACT episode on Twitch aired on July 29.
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