WWF as a Business
Since 1890, professional wrestling has garnered the attention of the public. However, no one has capitalized on this sport’s entertainment value more than the World Wrestling Federation and Vince McMahon Jr. Vince McMahon Jr. acquired the WWF from his father Vice McMahon Sr. in 1982. Vince McMahon Jr.’s succession brought along freshness, flare, success, and much controversy to the world of professional wrestling.
Before McMahon’s takeover of his father’s company, professional wrestling had various territories across the country in which each was headed by a “little lord.” These people in charge followed a gentleman’s agreement in which no takeovers of different territories were allowed. McMahon, however, broke this mold and took over all the markets by signing wrestlers to lucrative contracts, creating a “rock show” type of venue, and occupying prime television slots. The WWF began to enjoy much success as it took advantage of the cable network USA Network and delved into pay-per-view events.
This period of time for the WWF was somewhat monopolistic because of a lack of competition in the industry. After a failing attempt to buy some of the WWF’s stock, Ted Turner, owner of the TBS Network, sought to get into the wrestling business for himself. Ted Turner created the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and brought direct competition to the WWF. The WCW challenged the WWF’s success in every way, including its Monday night showcase and its use of headlining characters. Competition amongst the two wrestling corporations was brought to a head with a fight over WWF superstar, Bret “The Hitman” Hart.
Pressing Issues
The WWF is in a constant battle against time and the audience’s ever-changing wants and desires causing consistent reinvention. During early years of wrestling it was clear wrestling had no identity. Wrestlers would travel from region to region fighting in promoted venues, the sport slowly began to gain popularity but quickly lost steam during the Radio and TV age where popularity shifted to sports like boxing, baseball, and football. During this time Vince McMahon Sr. would begin the first of many reinventions of the sport.
Changes included starting a full scale wrestling federation (WWF) and the inception of a championship which wrestlers would compete for. Along with having to always change the image ...
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In order to maintain a competitive advantage, McMahon must come up with new, innovative ideas to make his wrestlers famous. McMahon has a reputation of consistently changing characters from good to evil and vice versa. By doing so, McMahon is confusing his WWF audience, whom are flocking to the WCW and their favorite characters. The WCW’s tactic of utilizing old WWF characters in their wrestling matches is overshadowing the tactics of McMahon. Creating new characters and maintaining their images will generate a new audience to the WWF.
To effectively compete with the WCW, McMahon and the WWF should consider investing in a broadcasting network of their own. By doing this, the WWF will be able to expand their media coverage and compete with Turner, who already owns his own network. Another way to compete with the WCW is to refrain from using controversial issues in the wrestling matches. Conveying controversial views limits the audience that is usually generated by the WWF.
As a last alternative, the WWF should consider merging with the WCW. Through merging, McMahon will be able to keep his pride and not risk completely loosing the family business.
Vince McMahon’s WWF is a multi-million dollar corporation and has been wildly successful in capturing the sports entertainment market. “Monday Night Raw,” the weekly soap opera on TNN, is one of the three most watched cable shows each week. In addition, the WWF has weekly wrestling shows on UPN and MTV. Personally, I am caught up in the phenomenon. I set aside my Monday evenings to watch Monday Night Football and professional wrestling. I enjoy attempting to figure out the storylines before they unfold and attempt to guess the action that may happen in the next segment.
Another reason the XFL will survive and prosper is its business savvy. Vice McMahon, who established himself as the owner and founder of the WWF, has proved to be a marketing genius. In a 50-50 partnership with NBC, who pumped in 50 million dollars and marketing muscle, Vince is targeting 13-24 year old males for his new football league.This target audience of 13-24 year old males just happens to be the same target audience of his WWF, which should make cross promotions a breeze (Efferon 31).
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Ever since Vince McMahon prospered in turning the WWE into a global empire, there has been a bevy of competitors vying to knock him off his perch. In the 80's countless regional outfits tried to compete with the WWE (then WWF) on a national level. These companies contained the Bill Watts owned UWF, Verne Gagnes AWA and the renowned NWA. None of which had the resources nor the business acumen to match McMahon. In the 90's, the Turner owned enterprise World Championship Wrestling, fathered a viable foe to the WWE. During its peak, WCW was outdrawing the WWE at house shows and conquering them every week in the Monday Night War ratings. However, as the 90's closed, so did WCW. Spear-headed by "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and The Rock, the WWE once again triumphed. In 2002, former WCW Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett, alongside his father, long time promoter Jerry Jarrett, the two started Total Nonstop Action. Throughout its rocky tenure, TNA went through many trials and tribulations. However, as of late, the decade old company has become reminiscent of WCW in its dying days. Here are the t...
The crowd roars with a deafening volume that could awaken the dead from their eternal slumber. He explodes through the doors, the crowd's cheers raise to an even higher decibel, as he sprits up to the ring it appears the only thing running through his veins is pure adrenaline, his muscles bulge as he slides into the ring. He rises to he feet, the crowd is still ecstatic, as he lifts his extended middle finger into the air as he screams, "Give me a HELL YEAH!", and the crowd, including people from all walks of life, answers back, "HELL YEAH!" He once held the Heavy Weight Champion belt of the World Wrestling Federation, making him number one, and he believes, and gets his fans to believe, he is still number one. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin is a prime candidate for the nomination of a modern day Anglo-Saxon hero. "Stone Cold's" immense physical strength, his courage, and his loyalty would have any Anglo-Saxon by his side.
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was still as it had always been, it must be very hard to change a
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