Four Decades Later, Vince McMahon Remains On Top Of The Wrestling World
WWE chairman Vince McMahon took over the WWE back in 1982. Fast forward four decades later, and WWE remains one of the most successful, profitable and widely-followed companies on the planet.
It is far-and-away the most popular wrestling promotion. It’s been that way since the end of the “Monday Night Wars” with Ted Turner’s WCW promotion. That company closed its doors 20 years ago and was bought out by McMahon himself.
Millions and millions of wrestling fans across the United States continue to closely follow McMahon’s company that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year. How has McMahon kept the interest level high all of these years? It simply comes down to strong marketing and strategic long-term planning.
No Offseason
The NFL regular season commences in the second week of September, and the Super Bowl is played in February.
The NHL and NBA begin their respective regular seasons in October. In non-pandemic worlds, both the Stanley Cup and NBA Finals wrap up in June. For MLB, the regular season opens in late March or early April. The World Series is always finished within the first few days of November.
So at some point, the “Big Four” professional sports leagues all endure lengthy offseason breaks. But this is not the case with the WWE, which performs multiple shows each week year-round. There is no offseason.
Monday Night Raw, NXT (Tuesday nights) and Friday Night SmackDown run on a weekly basis. WWE also runs multiple untelevised house shows each week, and there’s at least one pay-per-view event every month.
WWE simply gives its longtime loyal fans something to enjoy and follow on a weekly basis. The company never takes breaks. Not even during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they opted to perform shows for approximately 16 months without live fans.
The next WWE pay-per-view, Day 1, will run at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia on New Year’s Day.
There are six confirmed matches on the Day 1 card: Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship, Big E vs. Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and Bobby Lashley in a WWE Championship match, Becky Lynch vs. Liv Morgan for the Raw Women’s Championship, The Usos vs. The New Day for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships, Edge vs. The Miz and Drew McIntyre vs. Madcap Moss.
All four defending champions are currently listed as betting favorites to retain their respective titles. For wrestling fans who enjoy betting, BetMGM New York is offering up to $1,000 in risk-free bets.
WWE is also greatly successful when it comes to marketing across the United States. Of course, the company doesn’t work like a professional sports league, where each team has one venue that they play their home games in.
WWE doesn’t have any designated venues for any of their events. The company travels all across the U.S. on an annual basis.
Like the NFL’s annual Super Bowl game, WrestleMania is performed at a different city and venue each year. Whether it’s Los Angeles, New Orleans, Orlando, Houston, New York or another major city, WWE has been more than happy to do WrestleMania business all over the country. They aren’t just catering to America’s biggest markets.
In fact, none of WWE’s annual pay-per-view shows are held at one specific venue each year.
There have been the odd exceptions. For instance, SummerSlam was held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles every year from 2009 to 2014 and at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center every year from 2015 to 2018. But the company has run SummerSlam at a different venue every year since 2019.
In regards to marketing, it also helps to have top superstars proudly represent their home cities and states.
For example, Seth Rollins has mostly performed as a heel over the last five years, but he’s a major idol in Iowa. He’s even opened up several coffee shops in his home state. Another major star like Brock Lesnar represents his home state of Minnesota as well as the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, where he resided.
By reaching out and including markets and cities all over the United States, WWE has more than succeeded as the world’s top wrestling promotion for the better portion of the last four decades. Having developed an astronomical fanbase across the globe, that isn’t going to change any time soon.
