Last week, headlines were made on social media when Stephanie McMahon, who looked to be the heiress to the WWE throne for several years, announced that she will take a hiatus from the company. This news is just a few months after Triple H officially confirmed his retirement following heart problems and a defibrillator to correct them last year. Shane was infamously fired from the promotion after the debacle at the Royal Rumble earlier this year. Linda left the company in 2009 for two failed runs for senate before she bought a place in Trump’s cabinet with a six million dollar donation to his campaign. A few years later, she resigned from her role as the head of the Small Business Administration, and currently has various vanity roles on some boards involved in the GOP.
As of tomorrow, I am taking a leave of absence from the majority of my responsibilities at WWE. WWE is a lifelong legacy for me and I look forward to returning to the company that I love after taking this time to focus on my family.
— Stephanie McMahon (@StephMcMahon) May 19, 2022
That leaves Vince as the sole McMahon in the WWE. With executive Nick Khan a power player within the publicly-traded corporation and the cache he has after he sealed the billion dollar Peacock deal for the WWE Network, is it possible that there will be a WWE without the McMahons in the future?
First, I have to say that I think the Stephanie situation isn’t anything more than what it appears to be on the surface. Stephanie has worked with the company in various roles, including the writing team for a period in the early-2000s, since the late-90s. She has a family, and the Triple H health scare might’ve put things in perspective for their family. Spending time with their family might be more important now for both of them, which is why even Triple H has a reduced role with the company, especially after the complete relaunch of NXT.
Again, if I had to guess, I would say that this will be Stephanie taking an extended time away to have more family time for the next few years. All things considering, especially with the current TV and the previously mentioned Peacock deals, the company is more or less on autopilot so it makes sense for her to take time off.
The money is quite literally in the bank and the profits are guaranteed so is there really much for Stephanie to do?
The writing team more or less follows the same general blueprint for the direction of the product, the brand sells the stadium shows more than anything else, and the Saudi events are the most profitable broadcasts of the year so the stockholders are happy during the conference calls.
I’d guess that Stephanie will return to the company in a few years and resume her duties. Still, it’s rather odd that Nick Khan, an outside executive, is probably the second most powerful figure in the organization, second only to Vince himself. In the mid-2000s, it was clear that Stephanie and Triple H were in line to eventually take over, which of course saw Shane’s original exit. However, the complexion of the WWE as a product and a commodity is vastly different now than it was over a decade ago because of the dynamics of the television business, as well as the evolution of media. The WWE Network as a concept began to change the game as to how the product was structured and sold to the audience. The writing team was no longer under the pressure to “sell” the $40 pay-per-views to the audience, but rather give fans enough content to justify a $10 subscription a month. As we’ve seen, even that concept is now antiquated since Peacock is free for some viewers, and the countless hours of content from the WWE vault allow for more ad revenue associated with that content with the commercials throughout the shows. It’s very important to remember that it was the dynamics of the TV business, not the popularity of sports entertainment, that landed the company the major television deals a few years ago. There are networks that will pay big cash for live content to attempt to counter DVR viewing, and the WWE was able to capitalize on it.
How the company tries to get re-signed for the same type of money in a few years after the sluggish ratings and the structure of the product that hasn’t made new stars is a completely different matter.
The point is, the WWE had Nick Khan work the dynamics of the business world outside of sports entertainment to land the organization another billion dollar deal. Sure, Triple H learned the sports entertainment business from the emperor, but the TV industry and more importantly, the stock market are a completely different situation. To be fair, selling sports entertainment was and still is the premise of the company. Khan’s role was as effective as it was based on the current climate of the TV business so no, Nick Khan won’t jump the line to take over the company. He’s a business guy, not a pro wrestling mind and wouldn’t be the one to make the key decisions to build talent.
This all fuels more of the speculation that prehaps Khan was preparing the eventual sale of the organization, and while anything can happen, I don’t see Vince McMahon allowing his company under someone else’s control. Vince has dedicated his entire life to the WWE and he’s already a billionaire. At some point, the money just becomes a numbers on the page. Plus, as much as McMahon tried to glamorize pro wrestling, and was successful in that goal in many ways, the WWE isn’t like Disney or other scripted entertainment. You can’t just cast the next John Cena when you want to big draw for the next Wrestlemania. The WWE product is a unique commodity that isn’t transferable to any platform. There’s a reason WWE Films hasn’t won any Academy Awards. There’s not going to be a Sin Cara and Scooby Doo ride at Disney World. You can package pro wrestling to be more main stream, but you can’t jump the shark. Nick Khan isn’t going to sell the rights to a WWE theme park. Sure, such an announcement would make the stockholders thrilled, but the bottom line is the WWE product still has to draw the WWE audience. When you take into account that live events and live entertainment are still the staples for the company to product content, it’s very doubtful that Nick Khan would be the guy to run it.
As far as what happens now, it’s basically business as usual because as mentioned, the product is on autopilot for the duration of the current TV deals. I sincerely think that Vince McMahon will still be running the WWE at the age of 95 so any discussion about who would run the company without him is probably moot. That being said, it’s a compelling story because it’s the first time in the history of the company that there is minimal McMahon family involvement so it will be interesting to see if Nick Khan has more of an impact on the direction of the company.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Twitter @jimlamotta
