Vince McMahon has said many times that he’s not in the wrestling business, he’s in the entertainment business. The competition for WWE is not other wrestling companies, but Disney, Marvel and Sleep.
WWE has been at the forefront of sports entertainment through branding deals and marketing along with business model changes such as the company’s IPO and the launch of the WWE Network.
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In a conversation about Honest Offense with Eric Cervone, Kane opened up about Vince McMahon’s entrepreneurial genius.
“You’re watching pay-per-view, if you go to www.payperview.com you’re taken to WWE. Vince didn’t invent pay-per-view, but you can argue that he was the guy who perfected it. He was ahead of the curve there. We had a huge presence on the internet in 1995, before anyone really knew what the internet was. We did chat rooms and all kinds of stuff. Then look at the app that came out, which was kind of not great, but he realized before a lot of people did that people were migrating away from their TV and to their computer, and now from their computer to a handheld device migrate. When the app came out, we were like, “We’re behind the curve.” The reason for that was because they were considering WWE Network, which was originally going to be a cable network, and then he decided, “We’re going to take it online, switch all pay-per-views to a monthly subscription,” we all thought he was crazy about it because pay-per-view made up half of the company’s revenue. He completely changed the business model. I remember the stock went down, “Vince McMahon is an idiot,” people were talking about suing. Now the company is making more money than ever before. Vince isn’t a huge techie, I don’t even know if he can log into his own email address, but he doesn’t have to. He just has to see where the trends are going and he’s ahead of them, everyone thinks he’s crazy, sure enough he makes all the money. said Kane.
Kane concluded by saying: “That is his true brilliance. He can figure out where entertainment, technology, and delivery are going, and he ends up getting there first. It’s like he has a weird ESP.”
WWE aims to generate $100 million annually through brand partnerships. The company made nearly $20 million in advertising revenue in the first three months of the year.
When not making cameo appearances on WWE television, Kane is also the Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee, under his real name Glenn Jacobs.
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