They are already doing this to some degree with SuJu, which has its own sub label and manages its own stuff. While they don’t sell as much as the newer groups of course, they chug along nicely putting out multiple releases and doing solidly (if you consider the age of the group. But this will be a paradigm shift for fans. For example, SuJu mostly skips the music show circuit. (Makes sense - it’s expensive to do them and for their age is going to offer little return. They’re not going to beat out the hot groups.) But many fans still clamor and complain when their faves don’t go on them (I remember EXOLs complaining about DO not doing music shows when it never seemed to occur to them that maybe he didn’t want to do the smile and slap and aegyo music show circuit.)
As for the split in teams, I don’t think fans are going to be happy there. Some teams will be stronger, particularly around the sales driving groups, or simply in terms of creative freedom. Some fandoms are open to many styles and sounds and some less so, which not only impacts the team but the kinds of people drawn to the team tbh.
I’m not surprised to see them not talk about “successful” songs because none of these companies care about “successful” songs (I’m assuming you mean high charting). They care about selling stuff. If successful songs help them sell more stuff, great. If not and they still sell more stuff, great. I also think it’s more honest to talk about sales, which you can control, rather than trying to say they’re going after chart success.
I think SM behind disorganized hurt them on touring, as many venues were already booked by nimbler companies by the time they started looking. But a honest question: do you believe RV can actually support a tour?
IIRC their last tour didn’t sell out but was poorly handled by SM. But at these festivals and events, I don’t see a large Reveluv presence? I see shawols and exols and Czennies, and in the case of SMTOWN, a huge swath of Sones (SMTOWN was predominantly Czennies in both locations. Korea also had a prominent amount of Sones and shawols.) Are there certain countries that are stronger? Do you think they’d be better served by fanmeets instead of a tour?
Red Velvet was the first girl group to sell out in the USA, granted in smaller venues say 3-6 k. That success got booking ppl to agree to the twice and bp tours ofc their agencies upped the venue sizes.
The last tour they had was Japan pre pandemic when Wendy was out after the fall and fans are still pissed that there were no scalps as a result of that cf. I think it did well ill look it up( no numbers at all in any site for la rouge) but red mare japan (wiki has 40k for 5 shows not sure of how many seats were available but that is plenty). there are sucky(ie not well listed) numbers on wiki for redmare but every venue was sold out in the us ( they added seats to dallas and that may not have gone full, but i was in Dallas and Miami it was full) and they added shows in some citys.
Red velvet is not going to sell out stadiums and they shouldn't because those venues suck for music they are all about flex. 5- 15 k seems maxish globally depending on country.
Tiffany for example toured tiny venues in the us i saw her with a couple hundred ppl in a club and paid 200+ for quick meet and greet. there is money in small shows.
Sm town(same with kcon) honestly i would never go my self and i like sm groups, but i have zero interest in 5-6 hours with maybe 5- 8 songs i like for 400 - 1000 dollars.
I think there is more money to be made from crazy streaming numbers than the physical sales to be honest, and if they are not even going to bother touring (ie the gateway to selling useless crap) they need revenue. and successful songs that the public like enhance a groups image and that helps sell stuff.
Put it this way who tours in kpop. bts bp and twice who makes money.....
Sm has historically under scheduled the girl groups in concerts and venue size hell fx didn't get a concert until they were done for all respects. SNSD had big numbers but they played them super safe. Compare that to bp who yg threw into tokyo dome then gave away tickets to fill it up, and they still do not have any Japanese songs if i remember right.
IZ*ONE did 3 shows in a 10k venue in Korea and sold out and ran out of stuff every day i never did get the shirt/stuff i wanted lol.