Coliseum Video
By Scott Keith on 11 December 2018
Scott,
Obviously , WWF Coliseum Videos did really well rental wise in the 80s, but at the asking price of usually 59.95, especially the early releases, how did the videos do as far as actual sales as opposed to rentals?
Also, it seemed after the first few volumes of releases, the production started to get lazy, as alot of the Best Of WWF tapes and others would just rehash segments and matches released on previous videos in the series. Did they just figure anything with the WWF sticker would rent or sale at that point?
You must be a young 'un. Back in the 80s, there was no retail market for home video. You couldn't just walk into a Wal-Mart and pick up a movie to own, you had to know exactly where to go. Usually if you're the type of person to purchase home releases at that time, you're buying laserdiscs. I was as big as of an AV nerd as any teenager at that time, and the first VHS tape I can even remember popping up for sale new, at a reasonable price, was Batman in 1989. All the Coliseum Videos I had in my collection were purchased years after the fact once the video stores put them up for sale in the used bins.
Which is to say that sales figures for Coliseum Videos outside of the rental market were nonexistent. It just wasn't something that was done.