Yahoo’s Finance Site Claims WWE is Doomed

In a new “Three Reasons” piece online, Yahoo’s finance site claims WWE is doomed. The site goes into detail about what they believe could be the top three reasons why WWE is seemingly failing to be as much of a success as they were during the boom of the Attitude Era.

While the site acknowledge’s that a recent surge of WWE Network subscribers has led to the company exceeding the one million mark that were shooting for, and that WWE stock rose as a result of this announcement, it still says the company could still be in rough waters. The report lists three reasons why they believe this to be true, while only two really make any sense.

“Reason No. 1: Aging talent

Hulk Hogan is 61-years-old. Ric Flair is 65. Both have recently been brought back in front of the camera in an attempt to bring back the over 30 set to the WWE fold. 

But Sozzi points out that they will continue to age and have to end their on-camera days. When that happens, that key over-30 demo will stop watching since they don’t connect to the new set of WWE Superstars.

Yahoo Finance’s Jeff Macke disagrees, arguing that the WWE is programming for both people like him and his 10 year old son. “He likes the young guys and I like the old guys. It’s the circle of life.”

Sozzi, unrelenting as a title belt match, argues back that in this new media landscape WWE is no longer the only cool thing out there for pre-teen boys. “Right now WWE is competing with a lot of eyeballs.”

With Flair and Hogan not really being active on WWE television, this point is not very relevant to the true-to-life current product WWE produces. However, the following two points make a more compelling argument.

“Reason No. 2: Injuries

“They’re taking a lot of risks… to I guess keep the matches non-repetitive,” Sozzi argues. Those risks could lead to injuries. In fact, they already have. “One big one has been Daniel Bryan. He was out for almost a year,” Sozzi notes. “If your most popular wrestler is not on camera, you’re losing eyeballs.

Those injuries may be part of the reason attendance is down at live WWE events and ticket prices have followed.

Reason No. 3: Vince McMahon 

Macke says WWE CEO Vince McMahon is the league’s biggest asset. As a wrestler, promoter, announcer and more, McMahon is seen as the heart and soul of the empire. Sozzi, though, says that makes him a huge liability. “If Vince McMahon were to drop dead today, who steps in?” Sozzi wonder.

Wrestler turned executive (and Vince McMahon’s son-in-law) Paul Michael Levesque, better known in the ring as Triple H, is running creative. Would he step in?

McMahon’s daughter and Levesque’s wife Stephanie is in charge of brand management. Does she get the call-up?

“Ultimately everything you see on TV each week is the byproduct of Vince McMahon,” Sozzi notes. “He remains very in the trenches week to week and if you pull him out…what happens to the company longer term?”

They key to renewed success, Sozzi thinks, is getting live attendance and ticket sales back. That of course means McMahon staying sharp and solving the injury problem. Perhaps then subscriptions to the network would grow organically and aging talent would be less of a problem.

For the time being at least, investors don’t seem to care. A million subs is a million subs and the stock moved higher accordingly.”

Editor’s Note:
After Triple H’s comments on “The Steve Austin Show” on Feb. 2, and seeing how he’s doing with “NXT,” I’d say WWE may actually be better off when Vince is out of the chair, but that remains to be seen.