WWE SmackDown World Tour
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World Wrestling Entertainment and Endeavor-owned UFC are set to merge this yr in a deal that may create a sports entertainment behemoth valued at greater than $21 billion.
After the deal was announced in early April, WWE shares soared to their highest point in nearly 4 years. The stock is up greater than 50% up to now this yr.
For wrestling fans, though, the story’s not about those numbers. Reasonably, the merger’s success hinges on what’s actually happening within the ring — and whether it’s value their money and time.
In a landscape where consumers have broad economic and political sway, the merger will function a test of just how potent fans’ collective power will be within the face of corporate behemoths. And wrestling fans aren’t afraid to share their opinions.
Some are frightened that a return to a pay-per-view model for WWE’s flagship event, WrestleMania, is on the horizon. Last month, it streamed exclusively on NBCUniversal’s Peacock, where it generated the streaming service’s highest weekend usage ever. Though NBCU doesn’t release specific streaming numbers for the event, only the Super Bowl outpaced WrestleMania for probably the most watched hours of any live event on Peacock, based on the corporate.
The WWE’s exclusive streaming cope with Peacock, which incorporates WrestleMania streaming rights, is about to run out in 2026.
WWE declined to comment for this text. In late March, before the UFC deal was announced, WWE CEO Nick Khan said the corporate keeps fans’ price sensitivity in mind.
“If NBCU got here to us and said, ‘Hey, we’ll take you from where you are at now to 5 times for Peacock, but we want to charge an upcharge,’ we would should take a tough take a look at that,” Khan told “The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media” podcast. “Most significantly, we don’t desire to cost out our fans.”
Jerry D’Erasmo, a longtime fan who hosts a wrestling podcast, said he understands why WWE might eventually shift WrestleMania back to pay-per-view. Yet he also thinks it’s one among the few things that might actually turn off swaths of the fan base. He said many fans have told him that they’re going to tune in to recap podcasts like his own as a substitute of paying $60 or $70 to observe a pay-per-view.
How WWE will tell its stories and conduct its matches under a latest executive regime may also help determine how they spend their money, fans said.
“The largest concern from a fan’s perspective — not from investors’, but from fans’ — is creative control,” said Matt Courcelle, longtime wrestling aficionado and host of The WWE Podcast.
On this case, there’s an elephant within the room, and its name is Vince McMahon. For a lot of WWE fans, whether or not they’ll pay up for brand spanking new streaming or pay-per-view services rests an incredible deal on whether McMahon, 77, who’s controlled WWE since taking on from his father in 1982, will probably be involved with creative decisions.
Despite quite a few settlements with women who’ve claimed sexual misconduct by McMahon, including a rape claim, which he denies, he stays at the highest of WWE.
“This guy, for higher or for worse, has been in charge of the most important wrestling company on the earth,” said Jimmy Baxter, a professional wrestling commentator and podcaster in Latest Jersey. “For that, he was successful story, but along the best way, there’s plenty of blood, sweat and tears — and plenty of paid-off women.”
McMahon is not going anywhere, not less than not any time soon. He will probably be the manager chairman of the brand new combined company, which has yet to be named, alongside Endeavor Chief Executive Ari Emanuel. After 40 years, many fans see him as a everlasting fixture, even when he isn’t the CEO.
“When the bombs drop, there will be three things left: cockroaches, Twinkies and Vince McMahon,” Baxter said.
World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. Chairman Vince McMahon is introduced in the course of the WWE Monday Night Raw show on the Thomas & Mack Center August 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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McMahon told CNBC last month he won’t be deeply involved with WWE’s storytelling when WWE and UFC merge — but fans say they need more proof before they’ll accept his statements at face value.
“As much as they need to tell us he isn’t ‘within the weeds’ in creative, there’s been plenty of evidence these days that Vince is,” Courcelle said, including rumors he was running the show behind the scenes at Raw after WrestleMania.
There are other concerns in regards to the content, too.
In late April, a former WWE author filed a lawsuit against the corporate, claiming she was fired in retaliation for pushing back against racist pitches in the author’s room, based on court documents. The criticism lists McMahon and his daughter, Stephanie McMahon, herself a former executive, as defendants, in addition to WWE itself and other backstage company employees.
“We all know what Vince McMahon is; we all know what he’s delivered to the table creatively,” Courcelle said. “During the last five to 10 years, it hasn’t been one of the best it may very well be, from a fan’s perspective.”
Still, fans keep coming back for more. Anyone who’s forked over hundreds of dollars on wrestling events and merchandise through the years won’t immediately stop watching if the brand new WWE is not as much as snuff of their eyes. Some longtime hardcore fans aren’t sure where they’ll land quite yet, but they’re prone to stick around to see where things go from here.
“I absolutely love the drama,” Baxter said. “I like watching a crazy old man burn his empire to the bottom solely because he can.”
Disclosure: Peacock is the streaming service of NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.