Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) is an American professional wrestling
promotion, founded by Jeff Jarrett and his father Jerry Jarrett in May 2002 and now owned by Panda Energy International. The
company, which trades as TNA Entertainment, LLC, operates out of Nashville, Tennessee, with an office in Orlando,
Florida.
TNA was originally a member of the National Wrestling Alliance, with
the company known as NWA-TNA, but withdrew from the NWA in 2004, in the process acquiring the rights to the NWA World Heavyweight
Championship and NWA World Tag Team Championship until the year 2014.
TNA is the first American promotion to exclusively use a hexagonal ring
as opposed to the more conventional four-sided ring (the Mexican Asistencia Asesoría y Administración promotion also frequently
utilizes a six-sided ring). TNA is also unorthodox in that championships can change hands as a result of a disqualification
or count out, thereby nullifying the "champion's advantage," and heels and faces approach the ring via separate entrance ramps.
After the closure of World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship
Wrestling in March and April 2001 respectively, there was still a demand for Southern-style and cruiserweight wrestling that
Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment) was not fulfilling. TNA attempted to cater
to this niche market by offering an alternative to the (then) WWF and by recruiting many former WCW and ECW performers who
had not signed with WWE. On May 10, 2002, J Sports and Entertainment (a limited company with Jerry Jarrett as chief executive officer and Jeff Jarrett as president)
announced the formation of Total Nonstop Action. Total Nonstop Action held its first weekly pay-per-view in Huntsville, Alabama on June 19, 2002.
While several companies, such as World Wrestling All-Stars, had attempted
to fill the void that the closure of WCW and ECW left, TNA has experienced the greatest longevity. Some suspect that a partial
motive behind the creation of TNA was to provide employment and mainstream exposure for Jeff Jarrett, the son of long-time
wrestling promoter Jerry Jarrett, who was unemployed after the collapse of WCW and was unable to find work with the McMahons
(allegedly because he blackmailed Vince McMahon for a large sum of money to wrestle a single match after his contract expired
while he held the WWF Intercontinental Championship in 1999).
From its formation, TNA lost large sums of money, leading to the initial
investor, the HealthSouth Corporation, withdrawing financial support (HealthSouth was having its own problems, being investigated
for accounting irregularities.). In October 2002, Jerry Jarrett sold his controlling interest in the company to the privately-held
company Panda Energy International. On October 31, 2002, Panda Energy and J Sports and Entertainment created the privately held limited liability company TNA Entertainment
(J Sports and Entertainment was later dissolved). Jeff Jarrett was appointed Vice-President of TNA Entertainment, while Dixie
Carter, the daughter of Panda Energy chairman and chief executive officer Robert W. Carter and a former TNA publicist, was
appointed President. Panda Energy owns seventy-one percent of TNA Entertainment, LLC.
Dixie Carter is an avid wrestling fan and has become highly involved
with the day-to-day operation of the company. Panda Energy also appointed Chris Sobol, the Panda Manager of Business Development,
as TNA Vice President of Operations and former Panda Energy executive Frank Dickerson as chief executive officer (Dickerson
later left the company in November 2005, and was replaced by Kevin Day, who himself left the company in May 2006). TNA has
continued to lose money since the takeover by Panda Energy, with costs of approximately $1,000,000 per month not offset by
revenue, but Panda Energy has repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to TNA. In September 2005, Robert Carter estimated that
TNA would become profitable by 2006.
In May 2005, the Nelson Corporation tendered a $10,000,000 USD offer to
buy TNA from Panda Energy. The offer was withdrawn on May 31, 2005 after Panda Energy failed to express any interest. A $20,000,000 USD bid by Morphoplex,
then a major TNA sponsor, in late 2005 was similarly rejected.
The original TNA business model was different from that employed by WWE
in several key ways. By not touring like other major federations have done, TNA was able to keep costs down. TNA's original
system of programming comprised of weekly cable pay-per-views.
While most major promotions had aired monthly PPVs, not having a weekly
network, syndicated, or cable show from the outset was a radical departure from the norm. The weekly TNA PPVs were priced
at $9.95 USD per week, much less than the monthly WWE PPVs. The weekly events were also transmitted free - albeit with a six-month
delay - on The Wrestling Channel starting March 2004, this being the company's first foray into the international market.
Initial estimates by TNA showed that about 50,000 PPV buys would be needed
each week for TNA to break even. Actual buys, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, ranged from
anywhere between 5,000-15,000 on a weekly basis. After 111 weeks, TNA ceased their weekly PPVs on September 8, 2004. On Sunday, November 7, 2004, TNA Wrestling held its first three hour PPV TNA Victory Road 2004, with
buys for the PPV estimated to be in the low 10,000s.
TNA began airing TNA iMPACT! on June 4, 2004 on FOX Sports Net. iMPACT! was taped on Tuesdays in Soundstage 21 at
Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida and then broadcast between 4:00 P.M. and 5:00 P.M. on Fridays on FSN in most markets
(iMPACT! was also syndicated throughout Europe and Asia.). TNA purchased the one hour time slot from FSN at the cost of $30,000
a week, with the weekly PPV earnings being their main source of revenue.
On May 27, 2005, TNA aired its final episode of iMPACT! on Fox Sports Net. iMPACT! averaged a 0.2 household
rating over the course of its existence. This left TNA with no television deal other than the monthly PPVs, so on July 1 TNA
teamed up with RealNetworks to stream iMPACT! from their official website via RealPlayer. They also enabled people to download
iMPACT! through BitTorrent. At the same time, TNA began seeking a more profitable television outlet. TNA first began negotiations
with WGN, with a proposed Monday evening time slot running parallel to WWE RAW, but they could not come to an agreement. TNA
then began negotiations with Spike TV for a rumored Saturday night time slot, a traditional wrestling time slot dating back
to the days of WCW's WCW Saturday Night and the WWF's Saturday Night's Main Event. On July 21, TNA announced that they had
secured a deal with Spike TV to air iMPACT! as part of Spike TV's "Slammin' Saturday Night" block, beginning in the autumn
of 2005.
From September 27, 2005 until March 28, 2006, TNA taped two episodes of iMPACT! every second Tuesday, with the first episode airing on October 1, 2005. Unlike the Fox Sports deal, TNA is not paying for
the time slot; instead, Spike TV controls advertising revenue. Until March 2006, the primary sponsor of TNA was the health
drink manufacturer Morphoplex, which paid TNA $200,000 USD per month.
On November 7, 2005, it was confirmed that TNA has a video game deal with Midway Games. In the past, video games
have been a major source of revenue for other wrestling promotions. The game, tentatively titled TNA iMPACT!, is currently
scheduled to be released in 2007 for the PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Wii. [5]
TNA held their first house show in the Compuware Sports Arena in Plymouth, Michigan
on March
17, 2006. They have come to
an agreement with the United Wrestling Federation to promote a series of TNA-branded house shows throughout the Mid-Atlantic States and southeastern United States, the majority of which will be based in Virginia.
On February 6, 2006, Spike TV announced that iMPACT! would be upgraded to a weeknight primetime slot Thursdays
at 9:00
p.m. ET, starting on April 13, 2006. However, TNA wrestlers were notified on March 14 that
iMPACT! will instead be moved to 11 P.M. ET Thursdays, after UFC's The Ultimate Fighter. Encore broadcasts will be moved to
Saturdays at 11
P.M. ET. As a result, episodes
were taped every second Monday starting on April 10, 2006. The penultimate Saturday episode of iMPACT! on April 1, 2006 was televised opposite the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony on the USA Network, marking the first
time that TNA and WWE programs aired head to head. The April 1 episode of iMPACT! scored the lowest rating since November
2005.
In April 2006, TNA announced a partnership with YouTube that would see
TNA supply YouTube with exclusive video content in exchange for hosting. In the same month, TNA also announced the debut of
TNA Global iMPACT!, a weekly thirty-minute online video show to be hosted by Jeremy Borash and Christy Hemme. The first episode
of Global iMPACT! aired on May 3, 2006.
Episodes of iMPACT! and pay-per-views are booked by a committee headed
by Scott D'Amore and containing Jeremy Borash, Mike Tenay, Dutch Mantell, and Bill Banks. As President and Vice President
of TNA Entertainment respectively, Dixie Carter and Jeff Jarrett hold veto power over any decision. Prior to the creation
of the committee, booking power was typically vested in the hands of a small number of people. Jeff and Jerry Jarrett were
initially responsible for booking, followed by Vince Russo, and then by Dusty Rhodes. At times, the position of booker has
been coterminous with the on-screen position of Director of Authority.